Dear participants,
First of all, we do take a look at the fact-sheet from the European Parliament which as always provides a summarised albeit encompassing view of the institution it presents, including its history.
The website of the European Commission has some essential elements on how the decision-making process works for the College of Commissioners. The recurring theme is Collegiality, which is all decisions being together with common accountability.
However, in practice, the decision-making process within the European Commission is heavily influenced by the orientation and ambition of its incumbent president. In this regard, since 2014 and the term of Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the Commission, the impact of vertical relations within the Commission has come under further scrutiny as shown in this paper.
President Von der Leyen has also structured the Commission into sub-groups headed by Vice-presidents, a distribution detailed here and here. This most recent paper in the Journal of European Public Policy describes in detail and for the first time the internal organization adopted by the European Commission in view of drafting a trilogue position.
For those of you with a quantitative soul, several articles have been published to analyze the impact of the Commission as an agenda-setter, the success of its initiatives, and its degree of politicization (see for instance here and there).
Finally, do find below the Speech on the State of the Union 2020 delivered by President Von der Leyen on 16 September 2020 on the work plan of the Commission for the next 12 months:
It can be read in parallel to scholarly analyses of the Commission’s challenges in upholding its geopolitical agenda (see for instance here and here).