Cabinet (European Commission)
personal office of a European Commissioner
In the European Commission, a cabinet (the French pronunciation, cab-ee-nay, is used) is the personal office of a European Commissioner. The role of a cabinet is to give political guidance to its Commissioner. Technical policy preparation is handled by the European Civil Service. The term is not to be confused with the European Commission's top decision making-body known in EU-lexicon, as the "College of Commissioners" (referred to in most political systems as a cabinet).
Composition
The Commissioner's cabinets are seen as the real concentration of power within the Commission and consist of six members, but the exact membership faces restrictions. Two must be women, no more than three can be of the same nationality as the Commissioner and it must also reflect the Union's regional diversity. However the exact make up does change throughout the Commissioner's term. The head member is known by its French translation: Chef de Cabinet.
Special chefs
Special chefs are a meeting of a member of each cabinet (for a certain area), the legal service and the secretariat general. They perform last minute preparations to proposed laws before they go before the College of Commissioners, but they are a "political equivalent of a College of Cardinals" with a great degree of cloak and dagger work.
“Cabinet (European Commission)” enters the record as personal office of a European Commissioner. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Cabinet, European and Commission can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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