But MEPs can veto legislation, so they can (and do) block crazy commissioners in their tracks. Because the European legislation process is all about reaching wide consensus through horse-trading, every time MEPs and Commissioners clash too brutally, the proposal dies; and a Commissoner that cannot bring home some wins will basically be sent home at the first chance, because national governments have enough headaches without having to pay diplomatic penalties due to rogue Commissioners’ behaviour.
The real center of power, from an agenda perspective, it’s not the Commission (despite Commissioners really really wishing it was), it’s the European Council, i.e. national governments. They send out Commissioners to do their dirty work for them, so that they can turn around and push unpopular policies on their voters “because Europe says so”. This game was finally broken in the last decade, and from 2009 EuroParliament is powerful enough to stop these shenanigans – IF you help it doing its job by VOTING and supporting its action like you do with your national parliaments.
