How values come to matter at the European Commission

How do values affect the workings of the European Commission? This paper examines a particular instantiation of that question by studying the institutionalisation of ethics at the European Commission. Building on the literature on ethical expertise in policymaking, which has critically underscored the ‘democratisation’ and the ‘instrumentalisation’ of ethical expertise, this paper scrutinises a further set of transformative effects. Mobilising studies of expertise as well as of politicisation and of morality policies, while considering specific cases in the field, it evidences the features and challenges of the ‘ethics lattice’ within the European Commission also extending to other bodies.