EUROPEAN POLITICS FUNDAMENTALS — Chapter 2, Exercise 3
The Independence Oath in Practice
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QUESTION:
A Commissioner's own home country asks them to block a Commission
proposal that would harm one of that country's key industries. Using
the real, verified oath of office, explain whether the Commissioner
is legally permitted to comply with that request.

SOLUTION:

No — the Commissioner is not legally permitted to comply with that
request, at least not on the basis of representing their home
country's interest.

The real oath of office each Commissioner takes commits them to be
"completely independent" in carrying out their duties "in the general
interest of the Union," and explicitly states they will "neither...
seek nor... take instructions from any Government or from any other
institution, body, office or entity." A request from the
Commissioner's own home government to block a proposal specifically
to protect that country's own industry is exactly the kind of
national instruction the oath is designed to rule out.

This doesn't mean the Commissioner can never personally disagree with
a proposal on its own genuine merits — they remain free to argue
against it inside the College of Commissioners using real policy
reasoning. What the oath rules out is acting as a channel for their
home government's own instructions, which is a structurally different
thing from forming an independent judgment that happens to align with
that government's preference.

WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER
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The exercise is testing whether the reader can apply the oath's own
precise wording rather than a vague sense that "commissioners should
be neutral." A strong answer distinguishes between a Commissioner
independently opposing a policy on its own merits (permitted) and a
Commissioner acting on direct instruction from a national government
(explicitly ruled out by the oath's own text) — the same real
distinction that makes the Commission structurally different from the
Council of the EU, where ministers are expected to represent their
own government's position.