Evaluating the Role of the European Commission as a Non-Majoritarian Actor: EU Climate Policy Between Expert Governance and Democratic Aspirations

The European Commission can be seen as a non-majoritarian executive actor defined by institutionalised expertise. One of the most tangible expressions of Commission’s expertise is the practice of policy evaluation, especially in the form of conducting impact assessments accompanying legislative or treaty-making proposals. Impact assessments can be connected to Commission’s commitment to evidence-based policymaking and contribute to its framing and agenda-setting powers in the EU legislative process. Against this backdrop, this article examines the role of the Commission as a non-majoritarian actor in the policymaking processes leading to the adoption of three instruments proposed within the European Green Deal: the EU Deforestation Regulation, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. The article demonstrates that in all these cases the preferred policy options pertaining to the general design of the legal instrument identified by the Commission in impact assessments found its way into the final legislative texts. Furthermore, the most important elements of the Commission proposals such as their scope and regulatory burden were not meaningfully modified by the legislative institutions. At the same time, the Commission recently proposed to substantially revise all the three instruments without relying on impact assessments, which shows that the Commission’s commitment to expertise and evidence-based policymaking is sometimes opportunistic. This article is a contribution to a Special Section that critically analyses the role of non-majoritarian instruments and institutions with respect to three challenges that shape contemporary democracies in Europe: socio-economic inequality and discrimination, growing authoritarianism, and the pressing climate crisis.