A role that needs safeguarding. Reams of pages have been written in the press about the European Commission and this is all well and good! Attention had previously focused on the two new roles introduced by the Lisbon Treaty and the European Parliament's increased powers - and this is logical. After all this, at the end of last week, the Barroso II Commission took shape and the different portfolios were allocated. The echo emanating from these developments has surpassed all expectations (including the criticism, which is necessary). All this hype reminded public opinion that the Commission remains the most innovative and original institution in European construction, due to its supranational character and its multiple responsibilities. It is not up to the readers of Agence EUROPE to point this out but how many citizens were unaware of this or had forgotten it. All the member states are represented at the Commission; it represents the general European interest; it has the exclusive right of initiative; it is in charge of the Union's daily management and implementation of its policies and programmes; it manages the budget; and it is the guardian of the Treaty, ensuring that the latter is respected by way of, if necessary, calling on the assistance of the European Court of Justice. Its commissioners and 23,000 officials from across the whole Union ensure that it takes into account the legitimate interests of all member states in its legislative proposals and management.
This reminder of the Commission's role may appear rather theoretical: what features in the texts does not always correspond to the real situation. Criticism has often been levelled at the Commission for becoming a kind of secretariat for the Council. In a Union uniting 27 countries, however, it is, nonetheless, essential to take into account the legitimate interests of all the different member states. Moreover, President Barroso has never hidden the fact that he does not see his role as proposing idealistic projects that haven't a chance of succeeding, but rather as developing European unity by way of developing realistic projects. This does not rule out these projects being daring or accompanied by efforts of persuasion. Let's put this debate to one side because, in any case, it will never be able to prevent the fact that every proposal and decision will be subject to criticism, given the variety of different opinions.
Commission composition. Let's rather provide an outline of the new Commission's characteristics and the way it has been fashioned by its president. The EP will speak on it on 26 January, after holding individual hearings with each of the different commissioners:
18 men and 9 women (this is the highest ever percentage of women represented);
13 commissioners from the EPP ( including the president and two vice-presidents); 8 from the Liberals (including two vice-presidents); 6 from the Socialist Group (including 3 vice-presidents);
14 commissioners were already part of the previous Commission, 13 new ones;
None of the previous commissioners keep hold of the portfolios they previously held; Mr Barroso also considers that as a general rule, new roles sharpen minds and provide greater impetus.
There are many innovations in this new structure. Some of the portfolios are new ones (such as the one on climate, which is now independent of the environment), several have been grouped together or their profile has been updated. Details have in fact been provided in EUROPE 10029. Mr Barroso worked for a long time on these different aspects, in contact with the governments and candidate-commissioners; while recognising that there is still pressure (he prefers to define dialogue through requests and suggestions) he has underlined the fact that it was he who made the decisions in this connection. Some of the modifications include removing the anomaly of state aid for transport and energy being dependent on sectoral portfolios instead of competition. The aspect most in the media spotlight was, nonetheless, financial services, which is part of the huge free movement of services remit, within the internal market portfolio managed, as we well know, by Michel Barnier. We can recognise the polemical verve of Daniel Cohn-Bendit when he defines Mr Barnier as “Commissioner under supervision”, because the director-general in this area will be British (as if a senior civil servant would be able to have political pre-eminence over his commissioner, and as if a commission director-general represented his country of origin) but this is simply an intellectual distortion, to which I will later return.
The modest objective of this column is not to talk about individuals but rather, the institution, by providing a simplified summary of what, in principle, is already known. Some considerations about the different individuals will be developed in tomorrow's column.
(F.R./transl.fl)