Expert Groups in European Governance

This paper outlines a new perspective on expert groups within the European Commission discussed in international literature on expertise as well as the roles of knowledge and government in the work of committees in the European Union. It focuses on three dimensions: the main political uses of expert groups, bearing in mind that knowledge gathering and agreement making are constantly intertwined in committee meetings (are expert groups are of any use?), the conditions and concrete processes through which expertise is built (how do experts work in those groups?), and the common trajectories and social properties of experts identified by the European Commission (who are the European experts and on what grounds?).