European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso emerges as a clear winner from all this.
He had been nervous about being elbowed off the EU stage by a strong European Council president and undermined in his own Commission by an authoritative foreign policy chief.
Now he has to fear neither incidence. Belgian leader Herman Van Rompuy is discreet and modest. Just what member states, wary of being outshone, wanted. He will take these qualities to the presidency job as well as “subordinating” his own opinions to those of the council. So the internal fixer and not the traffic stopper.
Catherine Ashton, who has done well as a trade commissioner, has no foreign policy experience and has never held elected office. Her candidacy emerged largely as a result of a deal to have a socialist take the foreign policy post and preferably a woman and a Briton. The huge new job, as well as her relative inexperience, will mean she will need a lengthy adjustment period to find her feet. This plays into Barroso’s hands – although his aides stress that the commission president “has always said this is an extremely capable lady.”
Incidentally, they also say that Barroso will be happy to leave consensus-making among member states to Van Rompuy as this will “liberate” him to do other, as yet unspecified, “tasks.”
Van Rompuy will start on 1 January in order to have a longer handover time in Belgium where he has held together the fractious Walloons and Flemings since last year.
Ashton is to take up her duties as high representative and become vice president of the commission on 1 December. A legal tangle could ensue if the parliament, which holds hearings on all commission members, were to actually try and move against her. “On that there is no precise legal answer because the High Representative side is not in the gift of the parliament,” noted an official.
Thursday’s agreement throws open a few other questions – such as what to do with Benita Ferrero-Waldner, currently the external relations commissioner. She will be “given another substantial assignment” said the official. A solution also has to be found for the trade portfolio, which Ashton will soon vacate.
Meanwhile, Barroso is expected to have assigned the commissioner portfolios by the beginning of December. Only four countries have not yet named their next commissioners – the Netherlands, Denmark, Greece and Malta.
The commission president’s most immediate hurdle is to see that his commissioners are thoroughly prepared for MEPs, who as far as I can make out, are desperate to shed some political blood.
#1 by Henrik R Clausen on November 20, 2009 - 5:58 pm
So the power of the Commission is unchallenged.
Great. Not for European democracy, for the Commission…
#2 by Renzino l'Europeo on November 20, 2009 - 7:14 pm
The power of the Commission is challenged every day as the Parliament has the possibility to express a no-confidence vote every moment, and is challenged by the Council and the Parliament, the “two Chambers” in the legislative process.
However, the Commission has not been set up in order to be challenged not to be challenged on powers, but precisely to exercise those attributions of every Executive.
#3 by Henrik R Clausen on November 20, 2009 - 7:55 pm
Sure, I know about the EU institutions and their mutual locking horns over issues that Ordinary Citizens ought not concern themselves with.
It’s just another Elite-appoints-the-Elite thing.
#4 by Renzino l'Europeo on November 20, 2009 - 8:14 pm
Ordinary Citizens don’t need to get interested in Politics, but this doesn’t mean that Politics should stop working – also for the Ordinary Citizens that do not get interested.
#5 by DOCM on November 20, 2009 - 8:39 pm
Spot on commentary. But a victory for the EU, not just Barroso. He is the head of an institution of the EU essential to its creation and survival with a clear legal mandate. He cannot act alone. The Commission is a college and has no power to act other than as a college (by simple majority, by definition).
The President of the European Council is the subject of one article of a treaty with an unclear job description and no precisely defined prerogatives other than the task of chairing the European Council.
In respect of all policies where the EU acts other than the CFSP/ESDP, the job of chairing the European Council could be done equally well by the President of the Commission. That of chairing the remaining aspects could be done by the High Representative. A practical arrangement reflecting truly the dual character of the EU, supranational and intergovernmental. Simples!
#6 by Ivan Kalburov on November 20, 2009 - 10:02 pm
For us in the foreign policy and security field it is kind of disappointing to get a chief with zero experience in diplomacy and security issues. I do not see the headline goals and the Crisis management beefed up as needed in the near future. Read my disappointment here http://bit.ly/5pkqwp
Perhaps Rompuy is a good choice for the job, but both of them have profiled of brokered politicians likely to broker the same kind of intransparent (hopefully competent)deals
#7 by Henrik R Clausen on November 20, 2009 - 10:22 pm
Ivan, the advantage of having someone without relevant experience is that responsibility can be shifted into the system and (for the Eurocrats: hopefully) disappear. Thus, if these low-profile people make mistakes – which surely they will – it will be quite difficult to identify exactly who to blame.
The disadvantage, of course, is that we can’t rely on them to do a good job.
#8 by Renzino l'Europeo on November 21, 2009 - 12:05 am
European Union is not a district of a city, it is a complex political entity. What doea it mean “intransparent” or “responsibility to disappear”?
The President of the European Council has been chosen by the members of the European Council, like the President of the European Parliament has been chosen by the members of the European Parliament: what is not transparent?
Mr. van Rompuy is a Prime Minister who left his current post to take up this new position, signalling interest and responsibility for the European Union as a whole. What is disappearing?
The High Representative is not going to build up an External Service by herself: we need a teamwork between the 27 States. She has been in the job of Commissioner for Trade for one year, which is an excellent experience, and she will be accountable like all the Commission.
We don’t need low-profile comments.
#9 by A Voice for the EU on November 21, 2009 - 12:09 am
I do not see anything wrong with the Commission taking on a stronger role and with not being sidelined by the Council or its president. The worst thing that could have happened, is a strong Council President who outshines the Commission. If you want the European ideal to become reality, you need a supranational authority, i.e. the Commission. Of the four high posts in the EU (EP President, Council President, Commission President and High Representative) the Commssion President is now the most experienced and strongest. That is good, because it means it can be the driver of initiatives and policies and fill the Lisbon Treaty with life. So what if it is not elected by the voters? Are your national ministers elected by voters? Tell me one thing the Commission has done wrong in the last years. And when you tell me, be sure that you know the legal realities behind these measures (so don’t tell me that socially the Commission is weak, when they do not have a competence in social legislation, and do not tell me that on human rights it was weak, when Lisbon only just introduced the Charter of Human Rights, and do not tell me that the Commission was weak in security policy, when the Council decides by unanimity)!
#10 by al on November 21, 2009 - 2:47 am
Ah, so politicians are not “ordinary citizens”, but extraordinary? They’re better than the people they rule, especially when they are unelected politicians?
Could you kindly go troll on another web site? The last thing we need are apologists for totalitarianism and authoritarianism.
#11 by Rick Daudi on November 21, 2009 - 7:42 am
The supranational authority #9 writes about, is indeed needed. One cannot imagine an EU wthout a commission today and the commission has brought Europe a lot of benefits in the past. However, it has a strong democratic deficit that Lisbon didn’t fix. In all European countries, law makers are indirectly elected: the people elect a parliament, parliaments appoint ministers. The commission is, however, appointed by national governments. Appointments are usually the result of political deals and have little to do with the choice of the people. It would be a huge step forward for democracy and transparency if the European parliament was given the role of appointing the commission.
#12 by Renzino l'Europeo on November 21, 2009 - 8:40 am
@al
What on earth are you saying? In first place, the term “ordinary citizen” was introduced by #3, which I was answering to. It was referring to “people” in general – not because there are different categories of citizens, which are probably only in your mind.
The Executive is not the Legislative, but this does not mean that the Executive is not democratically accountable to the Council and to the Parliament (the “2 chambers”).
Could you kindly avoid insulting, in this web site?
#13 by A Voice for the EU on November 21, 2009 - 12:13 pm
I will give it another shot:
I think it would, indeed, have been desastrous if you had a star-politician taking positions that the EU leaders do not share. Ego trips in such a position (Foreign minister, or Council President) are harmful to the person and to the EU.
“In some ways, the E.U. craving for star-quality leaders was like trying to cover the lack of substance with appearances,” said Adam Jasser in an analysis for demosEUROPA, a research institution based in Warsaw. “Whether Europe will be treated seriously or not by the outside world depends on its ability to speak with one voice and get its priorities sorted out.”
“The most damaging thing,” said Thomas Klau of the European Council on Foreign Relations, “would have been to have someone move into these offices and then overreached themselves. Building consensus is crucial. This is a more evolutionary approach, but that may be a wise choice.”
With the foreign policy job going to Britain, France is now in a good positioned to get the important economic portfolio inside the European Commission covering the internal market, which currently includes the sensitive issue of financial services regulation.
Otherwise, the Brits may have got that one, and we do not want more liberalization, but strong supervision and regulation of the financial chaos!
According to one friend, Thomas Tindemans, the son of the prime minister for whom Mr. Van Rompuy served, Mr. Van Rompuy is very effective in behind-the-scenes negotiation.
“During a meeting, he will not say a word, and then he will summarize the argument in three sentences, giving it the twist he wants. He always thinks before he speaks. In fact, he thinks three steps ahead,” he said.
“He takes a lot of pleasure from getting where he has but by doing it unlike the others, by being the anti-glamour politician,” Mr. Tindemans said.