ABSTRACT
The European Commission is often considered the motor of European integration. Ernst B. Haas (1964: 11), most prominently, conceived of the Commission as an institution which aimed at ‘upgrading the common interest’ and which constantly provided new policy ideas implying further integration. As a non-partisan institution, the Commission is, moreover, perceived as an honest broker providing policy solutions that reconcile the member states, the European Parliament (EP) and civil society (Nugent and Rhinard 2015: 18).
