Intra-institutional politics and inter-institutional relations in the EU: towards coherent governance?

Abstract

While the coherence of EU governance - or the lack of it - can be studied in a number of different arenas, this article focuses on the EU level rather than on relations between EU institutions and the member states. An examination of the evolution of, first, the internal politics of Commission and Council Secretariat and, second, of relations between these two institutions across a range of areas of EU governance leads to the identification of an apparent paradox: while intra-institutional politics are becoming increasingly fragmented, the relative coherence of inter-institutional relations in the EU is improving. The article offers a tentative explanation based on the expansion of EU institutions, the growing interconnectedness of EU policy processes and the strengthening of a 'supra-institutional' allegiance among EU officials. The increasing complexity of European governance means that policy-makers' knowledge of, and identification with, more specific policy environments - and thus the management of inter-institutional relations - is becoming relatively more important than their institutional identification.