The European Commission is the politically independent executive arm of the European Union, established under the Treaties (currently governed by Articles 17 TEU and 244–250 TFEU). It is composed of one Commissioner per member state, including a President and several Vice-Presidents, supported by roughly 32,000 civil servants organised into Directorates-General (DGs) and services. The Commission is based in Brussels, with additional offices in Luxembourg and representations in every member state.
Its core functions are:
- Right of initiative: the Commission has a near-monopoly on proposing EU legislation, which is then negotiated by the Council of the EU and the European Parliament under the ordinary legislative procedure.
- Guardian of the Treaties: it monitors member states' compliance with EU law and can launch infringement proceedings before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
- Executive and budgetary management: it implements EU policies and the EU budget, manages programmes such as Horizon Europe and the Recovery and Resilience Facility, and enforces competition law (including merger control and state aid).
- External representation: it negotiates trade agreements on behalf of the EU and represents the Union in many multilateral forums, alongside the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
The President is proposed by the European Council (taking into account European Parliament election results) and elected by the Parliament; the College of Commissioners as a whole must also be approved by the Parliament. The Parliament can force the entire College to resign through a motion of censure, as nearly happened to the Santer Commission in 1999, which resigned pre-emptively over fraud allegations.
Recent Commissions include the Juncker Commission (2014–2019) and the von der Leyen Commission (2019–2024, re-appointed for 2024–2029), the latter overseeing the European Green Deal, the post-Brexit relationship, NextGenerationEU, and the EU response to Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Example
In March 2022, the European Commission under President Ursula von der Leyen proposed the REPowerEU plan to reduce EU dependence on Russian fossil fuels following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.