Primus Inter Pares among European Commission’ Services: What Determines the Authority of the Lead Service in the Drafting of Policy Proposals?

Empirically focusing on the European Commission, this paper analyses how issue-specific characteristics of policies influence the authority of organizational sub-units. When the European Commission prepares policy proposals for EU policy-making processes, one ‘lead service’ (DG) is appointed as the responsible service to draft the proposal. However, due to the cross-cutting nature of many issues, other Commission services are also involved in this process by means of intra-Commission coordination procedures. The paper presumes that such internal consultations affect the authority of the lead service. Using a multi-method approach, it analyses whether and how issue-specific characteristics of the policy proposal affect the relative authority of the lead service vis-à-vis concerned services. It therefore proceeds in two steps. First, the paper tests whether four issue-specific characteristics (the legal nature, newness, salience and transversality of the policy proposal) impact on the scope and the intensity of intra-organizational coordination procedures. It presents a multivariate regression analysis based on a cross-sectional sample of 296 policy proposals that were drafted by four Commission services (DG CLIMA, DG CNECT, DG ENV and DG MARKT) between 2010 and 2014. In a second step, the paper examines the link between internal coordination procedures and the relative authority enjoyed by the lead service vis-à-vis other concerned services. It does so by presenting two in-depth case studies with new empirical data based on recently conducted semi-structured interviews with Commission officials. This part sheds light on the relationship and the causal mechanisms between intra-organizational consultation practices and the relative autonomy of organizational sub-units