“You are the human face of the Commission”: ethics translated in internal administrative practice

This chapter shows how the European Commission has adapted internally to the successive ethics reforms operated since the early 2000s. It analyzes the microlevel administrative practice connected to ethics management, and in particular the messages which pervaded the Commission’s internal communication regarding ethics. This focus is necessary, in light of the arguments made in Chapter 1 on employing organizational socialization as a theoretical perspective: as established, this framing requires that the Commission’s ethics infrastructure be regarded as a source which feeds individuals’ learning about their organizational roles (ethics included). Therefore, drawing out the messages which were sent internally sheds light on what employees were “taught” about ethics.