There is perhaps only one occasion every five years when the European parliament really has the commission over a barrel – and that time is right now.
The hearings process, whereby committees of the parliament interview nominees to the commission, is more about symbolism than the substance of politics but despite the fact that the European treaties do not actually give the parliament the power to veto individual commissioners – it can only reject the commission as a whole – in practice that is what has happened. What is more, having established a precedent of stopping one commissioner, Rocco Buttiglione, in his tracks back in 2004, there is an imperative now at play that means the parliament feels it needs to have a sacrificial lamb.
And, in Elena Bratusek, nominee as commissioner for energy union, they found one. One of Bratusek’s last acts before stepping down as prime minister was to nominate herself as Slovenia’s commissioner – a novel move and one that was never likely to win friends and influence people. She endured a torrid time at her hearing with the environment and industry committees and was rejected by a large majority.
As the hearings are also the first opportunity for the parliament’s political groups to flex their muscles with each other, her rejection had more to with the political dynamics within the parliament.
Spain’s Miguel Canete, France’s Pierre Moscovici and the United Kingdom’s Jonathan Hill faced the toughest rides in the hearings because of the portfolios they had been allocated.
The Socialist and Democrat group, which includes the Labour MEPs, had serious misgivings about Canete, who was nominated for the energy and climate change portfolio despite his links to the oil industry. Suspicions that, as a British Conservative, Jonathan Hill, whose hearing I attended, would be in thrall to the city, put his nomination as financial services chief under threat from the left-wing and Green groups as well.
Meanwhile, France’s former finance minister Pierre Moscovici, came under sustained attack from conservatives and liberals for failing to cut France’s budget deficit faster. The centre-right EPP threatened to veto Moscovici as economic affairs commissioner if the S&D group voted against their candidates.
In the end, the threat of mutually assured destruction meant that the two groups agreed to a ‘grand coalition’ allowing each other’s candidates to be adopted, while Bratusek, a liberal, was sacrificed.
This move is likely to become the norm. In previous legislatures, when absolute majority as needed, you could usually put together rival coalitions of centre-right and left-wing groups, usually with the liberals acting as king-makers. But with around 150 Eurosceptic and far-right members of the European parliament that is no longer possible. This may be the real difference that the Eurosceptics have brought about.
The structure of Juncker’s commission itself bears the hallmarks of 25 years of cutting deals at European Union level. It is a balancing act, giving most countries the portfolio they wanted without giving individual commissioners too much autonomy.
Nominating Hill as financial services chief was a smart tactical move. By giving the UK government the post they wanted, Juncker bound Cameron’s conservative ECR group, which could otherwise have been problematic, into his coalition. Had Hill failed to get through, Juncker could still have said that he had done his best. As it is, the rules limiting bank bonuses, over which the UK has a pending court case against the Commission, will lie in the hands of the Justice Commissioner rather than Hill.
From what I see, Juncker’s style is more likely to be that a chief executive, delegating as much power as possible to commissioners and senior officials. One example of this was when it emerged that Juncker’s chief of staff, Martin Selmayr, had rewritten the answer of trade nominee Cecilia Malmstrom outlining her stance on a controversial part of the ongoing EU-US trade negotiations, without her approval.
One of the innovations made by Juncker is for his six vice-presidents to act as co-ordinators for the Commission’s work, with Dutchman Frans Timmermans, clearly marked out as his deputy. This suggests but does not exactly mirror the suggestion from several reformist thinkers that the Commission should become two-tiered to accommodate all member-states but push forward with size reduction. How this will work in terms of managing policy and egos is one of the key questions facing his commission. For example, will Valdis Dombrovskis, the Latvian commissioner for the Euro, and an austerity hawk, really be prepared to overrule Moscovici, who has been campaigning vocally for EU countries to be given more room to increase public investment?
Most Europeans would rather have a Commission of results than an ideologically-driven one. Juncker’s main promise during the European election campaign was that he would set up a €300bn investment fund to kick-start the European economy within months of taking office. Whether his team can deliver on such grand promises will determine how his Commission is judged.
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Alan Donnelly is a former leader of Labour in Europe and a political consultant. He tweets @alandonnelly57
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