CENTRE FOR EUROPEAN REFORM
briefing note
BARROSO’S GALACTICOS? THE NEW EUROPEAN COMMISSION By Alasdair Murray José Manuel Durão Barroso unveiled his new Commission on August 12th – confirming his burgeoning reputation as a deft political tactician. Barroso has crafted a carefully balanced team, which emphasises his own independence as incoming Commission president. The line-up appears to have satisfied the desire of the larger member-states for substantial Commission posts, with the key exception of France. At the same time, Barroso has ensured that commissioners from smaller countries will take on a fair share of important portfolios, such as external relations, competition policy, the budget and the internal market. The new president has also indicated that he intends to adopt a more hands-on approach to managing the Commission than his predecessors, Romano Prodi and Jacques Santer. Barroso will personally chair two key groups of commissioners dealing with economic reform and external relations. The new president is also reversing Prodi’s decision to base commissioners in their individual departments – the directorates-general (DGs) – rather than centrally, in an effort to improve the co-ordination of Commission policies. A LIBERAL-MINDED ECONOMIC AXIS? Barroso’s main headache in the allocation of portfolios was how to divide up the much-coveted economics posts, such as the internal market and competition policy. France and Germany had made plain that they wanted ‘their’ commissioners, Jacques Barrot and Günter Verheugen, to get senior jobs. The German government, in particular, lobbied strongly for the creation of a ‘super’ commissioner, to oversee all economic policy-making including competition and state aid cases. Barroso’s acquiescence in the German plan would have damaged the credibility of the Commission’s economic policies: the German government had made clear its desire to water down competition and single market proposals that might threaten the short-term interests of German industry. Barroso has handed Verheugen a senior economics job as vice-president of the Commission for enterprise and industry. Verheugen has also secured some extra responsibilities for co-ordinating the Commission’s position in the competitiveness council (made up of member-state industry ministers). But this post falls short of the super commissioner role that the German government demanded. The enterprise and industry directorate-general has traditionally possessed only limited legislative powers. Moreover, it is not clear how Verheugen’s co-ordinating job will work in practice – especially as Barroso has insisted that all commissioners have equal status. But few will object if Verheugen sees his task as assessing the impact of Commission proposals on the competitiveness of European industry. More importantly, the three most powerful economic posts are in the hands of a trio of liberal-minded commissioners. Charlie McCreevy, the experienced outgoing Irish finance minister, is to become the new
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