The commission president, José Manuel Barroso, looks set for another clash with members of the European Parliament over the appointment of the next commission – Barroso II.
Last week Mr Barroso voiced his concerns about the difficulty to get heads of state and government to appoint women. He also made it clear that he does not feel he can reject male commissioners if they are competent candidates.
Mr Barroso´s dilemma is real but at the same time there are things the commission president could do but apparently is not doing.
Until now three women have been appointed to the next EU commission and eight countries are still to name their candidates. Among the countries that Mr Barroso hope will appoint women are Denmark, Sweden and Ireland. The commission president would be well advised to realise that he risk losing these three female commissioners – not due to heads of state and governments reluctance to appoint more women but because of Mr Barrosos reluctance to offer these commissioners proper jobs.
The three potential female candidates are the Danish minister for climate change, Connie Hedegaard, the Swedish minister for development, Gunilla Carlsson and the Irish member of the European Court of Auditors, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn.
They are all three women with considerable experience of European as well as international politics and would each be a valuable asset for the Barroso II commission – if appointed. But in order to appoint any one of these three women their prime ministers would need a guarantee that the jobs they are offered make sense.
That does not seem to be the case at the moment.
The first sign that president Barroso is about to lose another potential female commissioner came last week when the three Danish liberal MEP´s in a coordinated manner in the Danish media launched the idea that prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen should appoint education minister Bertel Haarder as the next Danish commissioner in stead of Mrs Hedegaard.
Danish MEP Jens Rohde pointed out – rightly – that the post as commissioner for climate change risked becoming an empty shell, so it would make more sense for Denmark to try to place Mr Haarder at the post as commissioner for research.
The risk of Mr Barroso creating empty shell posts in the commission is obvious when you look at two new posts expected: Commissioner for climate change and commissioner for innovation.
Both sound pompous and prestigious but neither the appointing prime ministers nor the approving MEP´s are stupid. They all know that the power of a commissioner does not lie in his or her title, other things matter a lot more.
If anybody doubt this you should just listen five minutes to commission vice-president, Margot Wallström, who these days spends a lot of time warning potential commissioners not to repeat her mistake and accept a portfolio without much influencing power.
Put simply, there are mainly four ways of exercising influence as a commissioner:
- By proposing European laws, producing communications etc
- By enforcing existing EU-legislation – through name- and-shame-reports, benchmarking, imposing fines and/or taking member states to court
- By controlling money out of the EU-budget
- By representing the EU in international negotiations
So what powers would the commissioner for climate change be getting?
Well, no legislative power whatsoever if Barroso keeps the posts as commissioner for energy and environment and do not move any of these two commissioners competence to the new post.
Would he or she be the enforcer of the EU´s 20/20/20 plan on climate change? Hardly since the competences here lies within other DG´s.
Would the commissioner for climate change control any money? Hardly. In the leaked future EU-budget, there is talk of a “climate change and energy programme” where the money would be spent primarily on energy.
Any chance to represent the EU in international negotiations on climate change? Well – Stavros Dimas is certainly in Copenhagen right now – but the commissions role in international environmental negotiations are in fact very limited.
Try the same test on the expected post, as commissioner for innovation and you will end up with a similar result. An empty shell.
So if Mr Barroso is serious about wanting more women in his next commission he needs urgently to stand up to his own general directors and start a serious redistribution of portfolios so that he has something to offer prime ministers that have competent female commission candidates.
The future commissioner for development is facing a somewhat similar situation. This is today an important post but with the creation of the External Action Service and a High Representative on foreign affairs who is also vice president of the commission and therefore ultimately the coordinator of all foreign policy portfolios, Sweden seems to have lost its enthusiasm for the post as commissioner for development.
It is widely believed that Mr Barroso is tempted to create clusters of commissioners in the Barroso II commission. He could then let the commissioner for climate change lead one cluster and the commissioner for innovation another.
It also looks like Mr Barroso is about to enlarge his own cabinet with an additional number of special advisors on – for example – climate change. How much fun will it be to head a cluster on climate change with the commission president´s special advisor breathing down your neck?
Mr Barroso is currently playing a high stake game. He is hoping to blame prime ministers for not appointing women and have the centre-right dominated European Parliament let him get away with it.
The alternative would be a proper redistribution of powers within the commission. But it seems the last thing the commission president is keen on doing is to appoint new powerful commissioners at the very moment when the commission president stands to lose power in Brussels to both the new permanent president of the European Council, the High Representative on external relations as well as to the European Parliament.
We can only imagine how hearings of the commissioners designate will go in January. A number of MEP´s already look set to reject German commissioner designate Günther Öttinger – even before he has opened his mouth (hopefully he chooses to speak English – NOT swäbish).
To send a completely powerless commissioner for climate change to a hearing in the Parliaments most powerful committee (ENVI) headed by one of Europe’s institutional heavyweights, German Social Democrat Jo Leinen, also seems risky.
Right now the Barroso II commission could well beheading towards serious problems with the European Parliament with the obvious risk that Mr Barroso´s new German chef de cabinet as one of his first task will have to call Kanzleramt and ask them to send another candidate.
Not an ideal way to start a second term as commission president.
#1 by Damien on November 18th, 2009 - 1:04 am
It seems the Irish government are sending Máire Geoghegan Quinn to the Commission. While such a nomination removes the troublesome issue of nominating someone from the government and thus avoiding the possibility of a by-election, that FF would most likely lose, the nomination of MGQ has not be welcomed in Ireland.
The Irish Times, speaks of being competent, but hardly singing her praises. The Independent and TV media are highligthening that she has been away from Irish politics for 10-12 yrs and away from the cabinet table for that time too.
references have been made, that one of the KEY, most IMPORTANT issues of the Lisbon debate was the issue of keeping our Commissioner, having someone influencial the table. How is nominating someone so removed from Irish politics honouring that value so strongly held by the people.
secondly, our taoiseacht speaks about being pressurised into nominating a women to the job, insulting the feminists whom are claiming that if MGQ was a man she would not get the job.
And it has been leaked subetly, that Eamon Ryan FORMER MEP, who was REJECTED by the people, the electorate, the voters, that he would now get the Auditors job. HE isnt even an accountant, again a demonstration how Dublin shows contempt for Brussels. Ryan was of course, mentioned for the job of Commissioner. After the people said they didnt want him representing them.
#2 by Damien on November 18th, 2009 - 1:06 am
Eoin Ryan, rather than Eamon.