ABSTRACT
In this chapter I look at the ‘synchronic’ aspect of this process of readjustment, i.e. the way different actors are meant to harmonise to the historical rationale expressed by the European Union (EU). I do so by considering a peculiar institution of the EU, namely the so-called ‘comitology’. Consisting of a plethora of committees gathering representatives from all the member states and meant to provide the European Commission with competent expertise on the manifold aspects subject to the EU law, comitology presents a most useful insight into the institutional innovations that make the EU different from the state and allow it to manage its historical authority. This leads me to focus on the way other informal institutions may have substituted comitology in past years, suggesting that such a change could have favoured new behaviours by the Visegrád countries vis-à-vis the EU. Likewise, whereas I look at the multilingual nature of comitology and at the way translation may have affected its authority, I also consider the current prominence of English as the language of the EU in contrast to the previously mentioned linguistic multiplicity.
