Challenging or Enhancing the EU's Legitimacy? The Evolution of Representative Bureaucracy in the Commission's Staff Policies

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the European Commission’s staffing policies. It focuses in particular on the extent to which, over time, the Commission has taken the criterion of nationality into account. The theoretical framework of this study is the theory of representative bureaucracy. The article shows that, although the Commission does not use a quota system, its staffing policies have evolved from a limited practice of representation to a complex, explicit, but flexible strategy of representation, which satisfies the criteria of representative bureaucracy. However, due to the duty of loyalty to which civil servants of the European Union submit, these policies only satisfy the criterion of passive representation. The article ends on an explorative note, with the hypothesis that a third type of representation exists. It suggests the creation of a third concept, linkage representation, to account for this.