This paper offers an early evaluation of the European Commission under the Presidency of Jean-Claude Juncker, following his contested appointment as the so-called Spitzencandidat of the centre-right after the 2014 European Parliament (EP) election. It confronts questions including:
What will effect will the manner of Juncker’s appointment have on the perceived legitimacy of the Commission?
Will Juncker claim that the strength his mandate gives him license to run a highly Presidential, centralised Commission along the lines of his predecessor, José Manuel Barroso?
Will Juncker continue to seek a modest and supportive role for the Commission (as Barroso did), or will his Commission embrace more ambitious new projects or seek to re-energise old ones?
What effect will British opposition to Juncker’s appointment have on the United Kingdom’s efforts to renegotiate its status in the EU?
The paper draws on a round of interviews with senior Commission officials conducted in early 2015 to try to identify patterns of both continuity and change in the Commission. Its central aim is to assess the meaning of answers to the questions posed above both for the Commission and EU as a whole in the remainder of the decade
