ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how respondents reflect on national and regional differences in the Commission. It focuses on the different ways they de-emphasize and blur national and regional boundaries between Commission officials. First, they point to their role-conception as European civil servants, which trumps any national loyalties. Second, they evince a commitment to cosmopolitan norms and diversity that delegitimize drawing symbolic boundaries along national and regional lines. Third, some Commission officials also draw on a shared European identity to construct cross-national commonalities between them. Fourth, they also deconstruct national stereotypes in the context of intergroup contact. Fifth, they point out processes of transnational group-making and the development of a shared habitus and worldview among officials. Finally, this chapter turns to the role that national and regional commonalities play for networking and social interactions in the Commission. While this chapter focuses on how Commission officials blur national and regional boundaries, the next one moves on to show regarding which issues they become relevant.
