ABSTRACT
Studies have already shown how the administration can become a place where political problems are produced and senior officials become agents of the politicisation of a particular issue. As Didier Georgakakis shows, European commissioners often have a background in national politics and tend increasingly to be professional politicians moving to Brussels from a national political stage – for a time at least. Due to their history, the different directorate generals (DGs) have different relationships with the European business associations. But they also have very variable capacities for intervention and the institutional viewpoints they represent do not all have the same legitimacy. Lobbyists can play on the existence of these administrative hierarchies and on the divisions between DGs. In recent years the number of European Commission agencies has risen sharply to almost forty. In these agencies the technical capital provided by companies carries a great deal of influence in the production of administrative standards.
