In a context of increasing recourse to intergovernmentalism during the economic and financial crisis and a dominant literature on the fading role of the Commission in agenda-setting, this paper argues that the European Commission was granted increasing powers in economic governance matters which define a shift in power in the institutional interactions with the European Parliament and the Council.
Taking a historical institutionalist approach, it places the debate into a longer time frame going from 1994 when phase 2 of the Economic Monetary Union started and ending in 2014 with the most recent developments on the European Banking Union. In framing the analysis over two decades and analyzing the development of the European Commission through the lens of the literature on core executives, this paper analyses whether the European Commission has engaged in a process of governmentalisation looking at three central dimensions, namely power, structures and resources.
