Well, the first session of the Commission President Question Time won’t go down in the annals of EU history as touched by searing rhetoric and debate.
But never mind. It was a start. Jose Manuel Barroso was there at least – smile fixed in place. And a sprinkling of deputies.
The rules of the game were half an hour of free questioning and half an hour of questions on the chosen topic of the day – this time the economic crisis. MEPs had a minute to ask their questions, Mr Barroso one minute to answer.
EP president Jerzy Buzek was quite strict about the times. Which was good. Past experience shows that any signs of weakness on speaker timing is ruthlessly exploited by those MEPs – and they are not small in number – with an urge to pontificate.
Most of the questions did focus on the economic crisis and why, in the questioners point of view, the commission was not doing enough to tackle it. Barroso had two answers which could be summarised as: the commission is doing everything in its power etc and/or it’s the member states’ fault.
Listeners found also found out that there “may be some more” new commissioner posts (other than the ones Barroso has already mentioned) but that there will be “no revolution” in terms of posts, and that he finds it difficult to sum up all his arguments in one minute.
Meanwhile, amid declarations of admiration for the single market, Liberal leader Guy Verhofstadt managed to persuade Barroso to say he supported Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes’ tough stance on Germany’s dealings with Opel.
A question on why the parliament continues to have its expensive seat in Strasbourg amid all this economic hardship was artfully dodged (well just ignored) while a leftfield query on faulty electronic sheep tags in the UK and a frankly distasteful comparison between sheep and immigrants was given an earnest little response. (And this despite Buzek gallantly interrupting to say Barroso couldn’t possible be expected to know about electronic tagging problems with British farm animals).
The commission president broke the serious mould once when British eurosceptic MEP Nigel Farage put it to him that he and the commission had bullied the Irish into voting Yes to the Lisbon Treaty earlier this month.
Barroso countered that the Irish vote was a “declaration of independence from the UK Independence Party because you were there making a campaign and the Irish said No!”
Both politicians grinned madly during the exchange, the latter apparently amazed that he was actually dipping his toe into a bit of spontaneous debate in an EU parliament chamber and Farage, once again, reveling in his bad-boy-but-good-speaker image.
And then it was back to stock answers on the economic crisis.
#1 by french derek on October 20th, 2009 - 9:18 pm
I’m pleased with one item you report, Honor: that concerning Neelie Kroes. Barroso has a reputation as someone who will easily over-ride his Commissioners if any big head of state complains. With Neelie Kroes he has, perhaps, more than met his match?