Before a background of institutional change and organizational reform we analyze the shared identity of the European Commission''s bureaucracy with regard to the political leadership of the Commission. As vantage point serve the concepts of direct and professional politicization that we use to assess the status of and recent developments in top-down steering capacities and bottom-up responsiveness as well as the respective implications for the identity and role perception of European civil servants. The empirical data used are taken from documentary analysis as well as recent online and semi-structured surveys of Commission officials. We show that Commission bureaucrats, although they are highly sensitive for the political side of their job, are less “politicized” after the Kinnock reforms than before. While the College of the Commission seems to have indeed become more politically responsive upon its supranational peers and national governments, the Commission’s bureaucracy can be characterized as little politicized and thus more autonomous vis-a-vis the political leadership.
