Trois jours après la désignation par le Conseil européen du chrétien-démocrate luxembourgeois Jean-Claude Juncker à la tête de la future Commission européenne (EUROPE 11110), EUROPE publie un document en anglais de réflexion sur l'organisation interne de la Commission européenne à l'initiative d'un groupe informel nommé 'Les Amis de la Commission européenne' auquel participent des (anciens) hauts fonctionnaires de l'institution européenne. Dans l'air depuis un certain temps, l'idée de réorganiser la Commission en cinq 'clusters' thématiques (affaires étrangères, affaires économiques, compétitivité, cohésion territoriale, citoyenneté) qui seraient pilotés par des commissaires vice-présidents est largement développée. De même que l'importance de reconnecter la Commission avec les citoyens européens.
Proposal by “the Friends of the European Commission” for a new organization
CONFIDENTIAL
General remarks
The role of the European Commission has dramatically evolved in recent years as a direct consequence of the rapid change of the political environment which culminated with the financial crisis. “Never in the past have so many competences been exercised at EU level” said President Barroso.
As a consequence, the organization has been stretched to its maximum in order to cope with increasing political demands. This has further undermined the principle of collegiality which must prevail despite the high number of Commissioners and has led to an increasing and detrimental functioning in 'silos'.
Simultaneously, there is a growing perception that the European Commission should focus itself around key political priorities and should place a greater attention on the subsidiarity principle. The latest contributions on the future of the European Union by the Dutch authorities in its “Review of EU competences” and the UK with its “Balance of Competences Review” go in this direction.
As the status quo is not an option, we strongly believe that the future President of the European Commission should reaffirm the authority, efficiency and credibility of the institution by taking a few but important decisions which may have a decisive impact on the organization.
What should be done?
Against this background, it appears timely and of the utmost importance that the next President reforms the Commission's organizational set-up and way of functioning and redistributes all portfolios into thematic clusters around a system of Vice Presidents.
The new organization should reflect the overarching challenges of the EU and also mirror the competences of the European Commission. Everything that does not serve the purpose of fulfilling the achievement of the agreed political priorities should be discarded.
Therefore, we submit for your consideration a proposal of a new structure for the Commission with a relatively high degree of granularity comprising necessary but realistic changes aimed at matching the Commission's strength with today's expectations of Member States and citizens in a rapidly changing world.
Contributors: Alain Berger, Claude Chêne, Jim Currie, Julien Feugier, Hervé Jouanjean, Nancy Kontou, Jacques Lafitte, Philippe Maystadt, Jean Paul Mingasson, Jean-Claude Piris, Dr Alexander Schaub, Michel Troubetzkoy and a few others who preferred to remain anonymous. The views expressed are those of the authors made on a personal capacity and do not reflect the opinion of the institution to which they belong or did belong to.
Possible Organization around Clusters [Tableau voir version papier]
Overall architecture
This is an indication of how clusters could be organized. Other options do exist.
This proposed organization entails only a few modifications on current DG perimeter allowing for a quick set up.
This reform would mainly require a change of the modus operandi and only minor amendments to the Rules of Procedure of the European Commission.
This organization assumes that 5 Vice Presidents will be nominated, each heading one cluster, while 4 Commissioners will directly report to the President.
The five Vice Presidents will cover the retained political objectives under the themes “Strong & autonomous Europe”; “Powerful economic Area”; “Sustainable, digital and competitive Europe”; Cohesive territorial Europe”; and “Citizen's Europe”.
The four Commissioners placed directly under the President will aim for a better communication and interaction with EU citizens, national parliamentarians and will take care of the relations with other EU institutions and of the internal administration of the Commission.
The overall number of 28 Commissioners is respected (in dark blue in the chart) as all Vice Presidents - except the High Representative - are also responsible for one portfolio within their cluster. For instance, the Vice President of cluster 3 could also be responsible for the digital market and industry portfolio.
The five clusters are rather balanced when one takes into account the overall number of personnel overseen, the domain of competence (exclusive or not) and the budgetary figures.
The cluster “Strong and Autonomous Europe” will automatically fall under the responsibility of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR/VP) who is also assisted by the European External Action Service (EEAS).
The Vice-President in charge of the second cluster could also be President of the Eurogroup if the proposal to nominate a full time president of the Eurogroup, as suggested by the Euro Summit of 26 October 2011, were to be implemented.
The Vice-President in charge of the third cluster could also be in charge of the coordination of the aeronautic and space sectors which transcend a number of policy areas.
For the sake of clarity, bodies reporting to the President such as the Secretariat General (SG) or the Legal Service (SJ) are not represented here.
President
The President, as per his/her mandate, should fix the political orientations and have authority over the Vice Presidents and Commissioners.
The President should call the VPs for a weekly meeting following the Belgian “Kern” model [core group of key ministers]. This could be done before the weekly meeting of the College of Commissioners.
The President should - whenever possible- seek a broad consensus within the College. However, the President should have recourse to the voting procedure as soon as he/she thinks a proposal, backed up by the responsible Vice President, is likely to receive a majority within the College.
The President could be assisted by a Strategy Office, building on BEPA's experience (Bureau of European Policy Advisers) which would provide policy advice and carry out strategic review.
Vice Presidents
The Vice -Presidents should exert effective coordination among the Commissioners of the cluster. Such coordination could be made easier by procedural rights, such as setting the agenda, deciding whether to invite Commissioners from other clusters and discussing with the President the follow-up to cluster discussions.
Each Vice-President should be responsible for a particular portfolio from his/her cluster with the exception of the HR/VP who is also assisted by the EEAS.
Each Vice-President should organize a weekly meeting with the Commissioners of the cluster. The President could attend at his/her discretion.
The role of the Vice President within a cluster should not affect the concept of “lead DG”.
A Vice President could in some exceptional cases delegate his/her responsibility to another Commissioner. In the case of the High Representative/Vice President, such delegation would only concern the Commission's portfolio so as to remain a purely internal procedure.
Clusters
Each cluster should be responsible for coordinating and providing strategic guidance, with the result that cluster Commissioners, under a kind of “gentlemen's agreement”, follow the agreed line.
The collegiality principle should prevail in the cluster (same principle as in College).
Clusters are making proposals which can become decisions only after their formal approval by the entire College of the Commission.
Directorates-General
Directors Generals should be responsible for implementing the measures needed in order to attain the agreed political objective of their cluster.
The overall number of Directorates -General could be progressively reduced.
Secretariat General
The SG should be responsible for the coordination/monitoring of the achievement of the political priorities.
The SG should prepare all the meetings of the College and of the “Kern”.
The SG should facilitate the internal decision-making process in particular in case of disagreements between clusters.
The SG should also contribute to more transparency in the decision making of secondary legislations namely the implementing and delegated acts.
Relations with National Parliaments
The relations with national parliaments should be the competence of a Commissioner reporting directly to the President.
The Commissioner in charge should provide a regular update on the achievement of the agreed political priorities to the 28 national parliaments.
The Commissioner in charge shall facilitate and effectively enable national Parliaments to carry out subsidiarity checks on draft EU legislative acts and possibly object to the draft.
Financial Control and Evaluation
Financial Control: the current system of financial control of services can be made more efficient and leaner without prejudice to the interests of the Union.
Impact Assessment Board (IAB): the current system can be improved on several grounds:
The IAB mission could be externalized to another body which does not belong to the European Commission or should at least be enlarged to non-Commission officials.
The Commission should justify itself when the decision to ignore a negative IAB appraisal is taken
A lighter IAB procedure should be extended to pieces of legislation that today escape the IAB procedure (e.g. late amendments put by the EP or the Council in trilogues).
Public policy evaluation: Regulations/directives/multiannual programmes should be regularly assessed ex post after a few years of implementation.
“Performance budgeting” should be one of the key challenges of the next Commission. Key performance indicators should have an increased importance.