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Sat 11 Nov 2009Barroso picks his team
IT IS not done for European commissioners to refer at meetings to their home countries. Instead they use the formula “the country I know best” to preserve the semblance of the notion that they are there to articulate a European interest rather than a series of national ones. And yet that’s not the whole story.
Commissioners, in practice, act as important listening posts for national governments, sending warning messages home about policies coming down the line, and providing sounding boards for the commission into national concerns. Those roles were worth fighting to defend in the second round of Lisbon Treaty talks.
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