Irish commissioner is handed task of setting up EU food and drug agency

The Irish EU Commissioner, Mr David Byrne, was yesterday handed a huge political challenge when MEPs were told that one of the new Commission's key priorities would be the establishment of an independent European food and drug agency.

Speaking to the European Parliament after he had named his new team, the Commission President-designate, Mr Romano Prodi, said such an agency would be crucial to rebuilding the confidence of consumers. In highlighting issues of public concern, he also specifically focused on another area of Mr Byrne's responsibility, drugs in sport.

The establishment of a food and drug agency along the lines of the US Food and Drug Administration would be hugely expensive and certain to meet active opposition from many member-states. Mr Byrne later admitted the scale of the challenge but said he was delighted by Mr Prodi's commitment. He had discussed the issue with the President-designate on a number of occasions, he said, and knew it was something in which he had a strong interest.

In a wide-ranging speech with a populist touch, Mr Prodi made clear that he would be no pushover for Parliament, the memberstates or those involved in malad ministration in the Commission.

Setting out again his now traditional line in the sand for MEPs on limits to the individual accountability of Commissioners, he took a swipe at profligacy by attacking the extravagance of a Bosnia reconstruction programme which had proposed to spend up to #17 million of its #45 million reconstruction budget on staff rather than buildings.

"We must ensure that the important financial contribution of the EU is targeted at reconstruction," he said, "not bureaucracy." He applauded the decision of the caretaker Commission not to approve the spending.

Member-states will also be taken aback by Mr Prodi's call for an ambitious and wide agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference being planned for next year to agree treaty changes ahead of the next enlargement.

Most member-states have made it clear they want the agenda restricted to the small amount of so-called "unfinished business" from Amsterdam. That is largely the issues of the size of the Commission and voting weights in the Council of Ministers.

"For me the IGC is a meeting of the highest significance for the European institutions," he said. Faced with the challenge of enlargement "an IGC with limited objectives will not meet our needs".

By cleverly pressing a number of political buttons of key importance to MEPs, Mr Prodi's subliminal message was clear: "When you grill my commissioners at their hearings in September, don't forget they may be your best potential allies against the member states!"

The German leader of the European People's Party, Mr Hans-Gerd Poettering, made clear however that the new team would not get an easy ride. Denouncing Mr Prodi's claim that it was politically balanced, he asked why, if Britain, Italy and France could produce commissioners from opposition ranks, the Germans could not.

Both German nominees will face a difficult time, but the speech outraged Socialists who accused the EPP, the Parliament's largest group, of being driven solely by a German domestic agenda. The leader of the Liberals, Mr Pat Cox, said the questioning would be "tough but fair" and that it was better to be tough at the outset than for problems to emerge later. He asked Mr Prodi to ensure that if new information emerged at the hearings which cast doubt on the suitability of nominees, that "difficulties do not become crises".

Earlier, Mr Cox had denounced the decision of his fellow Liberal, Mr Martin Bangermann, to jump ship from the Commission to the board of the Spanish company Telefonica. He strongly supported the Council of Ministers decision to refer the issue to the European Court of Justice.

Meanwhile, the Dublin MEP Ms Mary Banotti had a notable success in topping the poll in the election for the Parliament's five quaestors, in effect the shop stewards of the MEPs. Her 467 votes reflected broad support right across the political spectrum.