European Commission

EC stands for the European Commission or the European Community. It is an executive body of the European Union, which proposes legislation to the Council and the Parliament and administers and implements legislative EU policies and enforces EU law jointly with the Court of Justice. It represents the general interests of Europe as a whole.

Structure of the European Commission

The EC comprises of a College of Commissioners. A Commissioner per member state is appointed within the College of Commissioners. The Commissioners of each member state are responsible for representing the interests of the entire European Union (EU).

The EC is divided into several services and departments known as the Directorates-General or DGs. These DGs are classified based on the policies with which they deal, usually issues that have a specific mandate or are mostly administrative. For instance, creating statistics or to detect fraudulent activities.

Role of the European Commission

The EC is responsible for drafting proposals for new EU laws. It also manages the daily business of implementing the policies of the EU and allocates the EU funds. The EC also sees to it that no one violates European laws and treaties.

The working of European Commission

The EC is highly active and addresses all key issues concerning the European Union by formulating and bettering various policies in areas such as agriculture, transport, energy and natural resources, the economy and finances, external relations and foreign affairs, culture, education and youth, business, cross-cutting, climate action, and others.

European Commission and ICANN

In June 2002, the EC was supportive of allowing government advisory committee to gain more control over the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) but opposed any kind of direct involvement of the government. In the year 2009, the European Commission had also welcomed the US government’s decision of not keeping the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Number (ICANN) subject to unilateral review by the US Department of Commerce (DOC). The European Commission was also of the view to set up a public commentary to get different ideas and proposal to gain public inputs about net neutrality.