New mechanism of the composition of the European Commission according to the draft treaty establishing the Constitution for Europe

Details

Created on Tuesday, 30 September 2003 00:00

The draft of the Treaty establishing the Constitution for Europe, formulated by the Convention on the future of Europe in July 2003, significantly alters the mechanism of the composition of the European Commission.

Summing up current situation: today's European Commission is composed of 20 commissioners, each member state is represented at least by one commissioner while the five biggest states (Italy, France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom) nominate two commissioners. Current composition of the European Commission has not been changed even by the Treaty of Nice entering into force on February 1, 2003. In the short-term perspective, the enlargement of the EU (due to happen on May 1, 2004) will not change the basic principle of the composition of the European Commission either. Until the establishment of a new (post-Prodi) Commission in November 2004, commissioners nominated by new-coming member states will join the institution but proportionally higher representation of current large states will survive. New commissioners shall have voting rights but no specific individual portfolio will be allocated to the newcomers. New commissioners might "shadow" particular old commissioners and use their first several months in office as informal "training period". Even the mechanism of the selection of the new-coming commissioners is different from the standard one - new members of the European Commission stall be appointed by the QMV in the Council after obtaining the approval of the President of the Commission (Act of Accession, Art. 45).

New European Commission operational after November 1, 2004 will be composed under new rules introduced by the Nice Treaty. The principle of one state = one commissioner will be used. This means the European Commission of 25 members in 2004. Further, the Nice Treaty predicts that after further enlargements of the EU (EU with 27 or more members) the number of commissioners stall be lower that the number of states. Commissioners should be appointed on a rotation principle respecting the equality of member states. However, the Nice Treaty is rather vague with regard to the details of the proposed system - those, including the size of the Commission and the principle of the selection of "abstaining" states is left to an unanimous decision before future enlargement.

The draft Treaty establishing the Constitution for Europe changes radically the trend based on the Treaty of Nice. According to the draft produced by the Convention, the European Commission should consist only of 15 full-members since 2009. The 15 full-fleged members should be vested with voting rights and the draft text uses term "European Commissioners" for them. Each member state should have one European Commissioner at most. Remaining states should be represented by the so called "Commissioners" without voting rights in the post-2009 Commission. The appointment procedure of a "Commissioner" should be simpler that the procedure applicable to the "European Commissioners". "Commissioners" (i.e. those without voting rights) should be appointed by the president of the European Commission based on the proposal of the respective countries the European Parliament is not involved (in contrast to the role of the European Parliament in relation to the appointment of the "European commissioners").

Different status of "European Commissioners" and "Commissioners" according to the draft constitutional text goes much further than older debates on the possibility of internal differentiation within the European Commission. The older proposals focused on the possibility of an increase in the number of vice-presidents of the Commission (from today's two up to six in the future) or differentiation among "junior" and "senior" commissioners. Those reform proposals, however, expected all members of the European Commission to retain full voting rights. Different treatment of junior vs. senior commissioners might influence the importance of the agenda of individual commissioners or powers related to the internal structures of the Commission.

Distinction between "European commissioners" and "commissioners" is of a much more important, structural character. Further, the draft constitutional text uses very vague terms as regards the residual powers of the commissioners without voting rights - i.e. it does not clarify their scope access to the documents and other internal information in the European Commission, to the regular meetings and deliberations of the College or their administrative support by the Commission's bureaucracy. There also is a clear risk that the non-voting commissioners will be less under the focus of other EU players and they might actually become the "Troyan horses" of the member states or lobbyists in the Commission. Their accountability to the College (in a sense of voting commissioners) or to the European Parliament is not clear either.

The crucial problem of the proposed system is the mechanism of selection of "European commissioners" with voting rights. On the one side, the draft constitution contains very detailed provisions on the rotation of the member states - no member state should abstain more than once until all member states abstain at least once. On the other hand, the draft text is very vague as regards the selection of those member states that should have no "European commissioner" in the first term of the newly constructed Commission (i.e. 2009-2014). The European Commission shall "reflect satisfactorily the demographic and geographical range of all the Member States of the Union" - that is a condition to be interpreted in many ways. It is hard to imagine that big states would accept the non-existence of "their" commissioner in the years 2009-14 the same approach could repeat for the next term of 2014-19. Since 2019, however, big states would have to abstain form their "European commissioner" - the principle of equal rotation would require so. Since 2019, the European Commission might be in a situation when none of the big member states would be fully represented in this institution. The outcome of this situation would be two-fold:

Marginalisation of the European Commission and the increase of the inter-governmental elements in the process of the EU governance Pressure to amend the institutional provisions of the EU primary law so that they reflect more the interests of big states

Criticism of the reform proposal can be mitigated by two factors. The first one is the distant date when the new system should enter into force, i.e. in 2009. The date proposed is only logical - if the constitution is adopted in 2004, the ratification procedure can last until 2005/2006. That time, new post-Prodi Commission should be in the middle of its term. The dynamics of the European integration provides the critiques of the proposed new Commission's structure enough time to initiate an intensive debate and/or a formal repeal of the changes.

The second element weakening the critique of the draft constitution is the fact that the commissioners are not representatives of their members states. Their "independence should be beyond doubt" and they should act in the interests of the EU as such, and not in the interests of their domestic member state. The practice of the EU life is, however, less radical - in real life the commissioner also plays a role of an information channel towards his/her home country and he/she also acts as a facilitator in the relations between Brussels and the domestic politics.

Text produced by the Convention is only draft document that is to be further elaborated or amended by the Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC) 2003/2004 and finally undergo ratification in all member states. Both the European Commission and significant number of member states have already expressed their views that several issues in the draft treaty should be open during the IGC - including the new system of the composition of the Commission. There, the Czech Republic should formulate its position and critique and propose a solution more favourable for new smaller member states.

• < Prev
• Next >