Commission proposes that IGC increase powers of its president and insists on collective responsibility

Brussels, 23/11/2000 (Agence Europe) - On the initiative of President Prodi and the Commissioner responsible for Institutional Reform, Michel Barnier, the European Commission has presented the Intergovernmental Conference on the EU's institutional reform with proposals on its own organisation and its internal operation, stressing that, to preserve the Commission's ability to act in the present new environment, the principle of collective responsibility would have to be respected, independently of the decision that will finally be taken over the composition of the Commission or the number of Commissioners, which means that each Commissioner must take part in decisions on an equal footing, and that all members are collectively accountable for those decisions.

The Commission's communication notes that, since the beginnings of European construction, the tasks performed by the Commission have changed enormously, and that, on top of its "original tasks" relating to the application of Community law and formulation of various European polices, it now has to manage the Community budget and programmes, which have become increasingly burdensome. Recalling the proposals it had already submitted in its opinion of 26 January last on the reforms necessary to achieve enlargement, the European Commission proposes that, where it itself is concerned, the IGC should:

• significantly increase the Commission's President power to allocate or not allocate portfolios and departments to the members of the Commission;
• allow the President to appoint Vice-Presidents from among the members of the commission, responsible for coordinating and overseeing the work of the Commission in a given field (the Treaty currently gives this power to the Commission and restricts the number of Vice-Presidents to two).
• formalise in the Treaty the political undertaking given by the present members of the Commission to tender their resignation if asked to do so by the President, "if their conduct conflicted with the political guidelines the President had laid down";
• give the President a casting vote in commission discussions;
• enshrine in the Treaty the possibility of the Commission to empower one or more of its members to take decisions on behalf of the commission is a specific field (as we stand, this possibility is simply written down in the Commission's internal rules of procedure).

Finally, in its communication, the Commission raises some "guidelines" to adapt its internal working method, stating that this does not demand amendments to the Treaty but are a matter for internal Commission decisions.