Santer's challenge to `back him or sack him' his most crucial error

The EU is now in a state of some confusion. We can blame the Commission, but the Commission has only itself to blame. Jacques Santer, the Commission President, now sees the result of a failure on his part to act decisively and oblige his Commissioner colleagues, and particularly Manuel Marin, Edith Cresson and Monika Wulf-Mathies, to live up to their responsibilities.

While none of the 20 Commissioners profited personally from the various irregularities which have been uncovered, the catalogue is extensive and damning. To compound matters, a number of the problems which gave rise to this week's drama had been brought to the Commission's notice.

Some had been pointed out by the EU's Court of Auditors, with only an inadequate follow-up. Others were reported by a senior official to the next level up in the hierarchy. The initial action taken, perversely, was to penalise the man in question.

There were blatant instances of favouritism. Corners were cut in the expenditure of EU funds on a variety of schemes.

It is not as if the Commission does not have an elaborate system of internal controls over expenditure and systems of monitoring the use made of EU money by beneficiaries. The member-states are full of people who wax eloquent about what they often regard as pettifogging bureaucratic nit-picking by the Commission.

The EU Court of Auditors is a formidable body, with very sharp teeth. It has on the whole done a good job of keeping up with the ingenuity of fraudsters at all levels. It has streamlined its systems so as to try to get ahead of them, so it is not as if the Commission - and the Commission President in particular - lack support in the task of running a tight and clean operation.

Neither is it the case that the Commission had no warning of impending doom. The official who rumbled the rot in Edith Cresson's patch certainly gave warning. So did the Court of Auditors. So, also, did the European Parliament.

This institution, which has taken to heart public worries about the "democratic deficit", made it abundantly clear to the Commission earlier this year that it was time to shape up or ship out.

That was when Jacques Santer made his most crucial error. Instead of realising that it was time for him to find an iron hand to put into his empty velvet glove, he chose petulance instead of firmness and challenged the parliament to sack him or back him. Mr Santer may have felt that the parliament would not use the "nuclear option" to fire the whole Commission.

The parliament was, however, more determined than he thought and he had to accept (indeed propose) the special committee of inquiry which has now damned three of his colleagues and forced the Commission to resign.

From the beginning of his Presidency, he should have turned his back on the people who pushed for his appointment on the basis that he would be an amenable and non-campaigning President, and simply use the power of his office, which is considerable.

Leaving aside the three black sheep, he has, in the current Commission, some six strong characters who could have provided the impetus to make it a much more potent force than it has been.

Having failed to do that, his next error was not simply to have fired the three black sheep when their failures became apparent.

There is a provision in the treaties under which the Court of Justice can, at the request of the Commission or the council, "compulsorily retire" a commissioner who no longer fulfils the conditions required for the performance of his or her duties or who has been guilty of serious misconduct.

Perhaps Mr Santer did not want to have a row in the Commission. Had there been such a row, the six I have mentioned, together with most of the others, would probably have supported him.

Perhaps he did not want to have a row in the council, particularly with France, Germany and Spain. He would have been on much stronger ground with the parliament earlier this year and again today if he had picked that particular row.

It is hard to imagine the French government going to war in the council for Edith Cresson or the German government for Monika Wulf-Mathies. There would hardly be a great deal of sympathy for the Spanish government if it were pleading a case for Manuel Marin.

Mr Santer has been too quiet and too accommodating, and the Commission has now paid the price. All things considered, it is a fair price, even if the result is harsh on some other commissioners who have taken their jobs seriously.

Where do we go from here?

There is no map, so we have to navigate by dead reckoning.

We have to have a Commission. Thus, the present members must continue as caretakers until an "interim" commission is appointed for the rest of the term, i.e. until the end of this year. The sooner an interim commission is appointed, the better.

The three black sheep clearly cannot be members of the interim commission. For his own sake, because he is a fundamentally decent man, and to avoid humiliation, Jacques Santer should exclude himself.

Questions raised by the Dail and matters pending before the Flood tribunal (which have nothing to do with the Commission's adventures) should lead Padraig Flynn to the conclusion that he, too, should exclude himself.

We do not have the luxury of being able to accept a lame-duck commission now, with important decisions on financing, trade and enlargement to be made in the near future. With five new members and a new president (possibly one of the six current strong characters), an interim commission might have a chance of being more than a lame duck.

Alan Dukes TD (Fine Gael) is chair- man of the European Movement - Ireland