The Commission in EU Policy Preparation

Since the heyday of Jacques Delors, the Commission has been challenged by the rise of the European Council, the empowerment of the European Parliament and the creation of European agencies. However, while many scholars agree about the direction of change, there is disagreement about the extent to which the Commission's position has declined. A number of studies are sceptical, and we join this sceptical line. Our contribution is to focus on the Commission's role as a maker of both legislative and executive rules (implementing and delegated acts). These rules are all decided under complex inter-institutional procedures. But the Commission possesses the right of initiative in all procedures. We investigate how the Commission can use this first-mover advantage to influence EU policy. We establish a framework for understanding what strategic options the first-mover advantage entails and provide a first empirical illustration with a qualitative analysis of ten selected Commission proposals.