The Commission is the executive body of the European Union and, within the legislative process, it has the monopoly of legislative initiative (it is the only institution that can propose laws). It also adopts an annual work programme with policy and legislative initiatives. The political leadership belongs to the College of Commissioners, led by the President of the Commission. In recent years, the structure of the College of Commissioners has been hierarchised: between the President of the Commission and the Commissioners, there are the Vice-Presidents (VPs), Commissioners who are in charge of overseeing the role of a group of Commissioners. The Vice-Presidents do not have a policy area assigned unless they are Executive Vice-Presidents. Each Commissioner has a cabinet, helping them to manage their daily work, which is led by a Head of Cabinet and covers the different policy areas assigned to the Commissioner. 

Other structures and agencies exist (e.g., Frontex dealing with the external borders of the Union, or the Fundamental Rights Agency), with different kinds of structure: a list of all EU institutions and bodies can be found here.

The coordination of the whole Commission’s structure is ensured by the Secretariat-General, led by a Secretary-General, under the oversight of the President of the Commission.

There is no general framework, or guidelines, for the involvement of civil society in the policy work of the Commission. At the political level, following calls from civil society before and after the European elections in 2019, during the 2019-2024 European Commission, the Vice-President for Values and Transparency, Věra Jourová, has been assigned the task of ‘maintaining an open, transparent and regular dialogue with other EU institutions, citizens, representative associations and civil society’. That has not been translated into specific policy work involving different departments, but has been understood as the Vice President being available to meet with civil society.

The rules to carry out consultations are laid out in the Better Regulation communication, guidelines and toolbox. As a rule, the consultations must be open and public, unless they are deemed too technical or not in the interest of the public: in that case, targeted consultations with stakeholders are allowed. The portal for the public consultation is Have your say. Many policy initiatives have a two-step consultation process: input for the impact assessment, called ‘call for evidence’, where it is possible to send documents in the format of policy contributions based on the accompanying document, explaining the scope of the proposed policy initiative; and the public consultation, which is made of a web questionnaire with both open and closed questions. Typically, public consultations (and accompanying calls for evidence) should stay open for 12 weeks (extended to 14 weeks if during holidays), while calls for evidence not associated with a public consultation should stay open for four weeks. Once the proposed policy is approved by the Commission, it is published on the same page as the public consultation. When presenting the policy, the accompanying document must report on the results of the call for evidence and the consultation, in a section called ‘synopsis of the consultation results’, which should also explain which proposals from the consultations were accepted, which were denied, and why. After the publication of the proposal, it is possible to give feedback on the proposal for  a period of eight weeks: the collected feedback will be summarised by the Commission and presented to the European Parliament and Council, with the aim of feeding those views into the legislative debate.

Such process has been criticised by CSOs on different grounds: language that could be too technical for the smaller NGOs; too long, too quantitative or politically biassed questionnaires; a high degree of discretionality from the Commission’s side on the participants to the targeted consultations, as well as not enough transparency on the results of the consultation processes in the synopsis of the consultation results. 

Another way to involve CSOs and stakeholders in the policy-making of the Commission is via expert groups. The expert groups are consultative bodies set up by the Commission, or its departments, to provide them with advice and expertise, composed of public and/or private sector members who meet more than once. They are asked for input both for the preparation of policy proposals, as well as for their implementation. They are considered a forum of discussion based on a specific mandate involving different sources and stakeholders.

There are five types of participant in the expert groups: Type A) individuals appointed in a personal capacity; Type B)  individuals appointed to represent an interest common to several stakeholder organisations; Type C) organisations, in the broad sense of the word, including companies, associations, NGOs, trade unions, universities, research institutes, law firms and consultancies; Type D) Member State authorities, national, regional or local; Type E) other public entities, such as authorities from non-EU countries (including candidate countries), EU bodies, offices or agencies, and international organisations. Apart from public entities, the participation in the expert groups is decided via a selection after a public call for applications, which are published in the Expert Groups register for a period of four weeks. Individuals acting on behalf of stakeholders (Type B) and organisations (Type C) must be part of the Transparency Register to be selected.

Critiques of the current system of expert groups are linked to the perceived imbalance between the representation of economic interests and that of civil society, as they are both put under the same typology (Type C). Moreover, several expert groups are only composed of Member States and other public entities (Types D and E), while the contribution of experts from the stakeholders and civil society would be useful when issues of general interest, or affecting specific population groups, are covered. Finally, while minutes of the meetings exist, their level of detail varies.

While only the Member States are involved in the comitology meetings (where the Commission prepares delegated acts), it is useful to monitor them, as the minutes of those meetings can provide information in advance, before they catch the public eye. The list of comitology meetings and documents are provided in the Comitology Register. 

Example of good civil dialogue by the Commission

DG EMPL maintains ongoing and structured thematic dialogues with CSOs active in the employment and social areas, which are attached to upcoming initiatives of the EC. These have improved in the past years, noteworthy for being organised online and thus allowing national and local CSOs that are not based in Brussels to participate more easily (in the past, they needed to pay to travel to Brussels themselves). One participant of the focus group, organised by CSE, appreciated the transparency, regularity and structural approach of DG EMPL:

[…] in DG Employment, it’s better in a lot of ways than the other DGs because you know who’s taking the decision and how the process is going. They have processes in place where they engage [with] you ahead of launching a policy, like a proposal. […] We know when, what, and to whom to send [something] and how to engage. It’s more transparent in this sense because you know what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, while other DGs are different […]

(EnTrust Report on practices of enhanced trust in governance, 2023, pp. 87-88)

Materials and resources

• European Commission (2023): Better Regulation Toolbox.
• European Commission (2021): Better Regulation: Joining forces to make better laws.
• European Commission (2021): Better Regulation Guidelines.
• European Commission (2020): Governance in the European Commission. 
• European Commission (2019): The Working Methods of the European Commission.
• Civil Society Europe (2018): Civil society participation in EU decisions: how to move forward?
• European Ombudsman (2014): Improving expert group transparency.
• Comitology Register.
• Expert Groups register.
• EU institutions and bodies database.