Accountability and responsibility are prime requirements of modern democratic politics. That is a lesson painfully but valuably brought home to the European Commission in the crisis over mismanagement which forced it to resign en bloc early yesterday morning. The scathing report from those appointed to investigate allegations of fraud and croneyism boxed the Commission in between the European Parliament's demands that it to go and powerful political voices calling yesterday for it to be rapidly replaced and a radical reform programme installed to modernise its administration and managerial norms. This is a cathartic moment for the European Union, but one that can and should be turned decisively to political advantage in addressing its democratic deficit.
Accountability and managerial competence are central to the report's critique of the Santer Commission. It finds little evidence of personal fraud or corruption, but rather a culture of favouritism and administrative irregularity in services for which the commissioners were formally responsible, but which in fact were not properly overseen. In saying "it is becoming difficult to find anyone who has even the slightest sense of responsibility" the report may have gone too far; but it is not difficult to understand why its authors should have felt driven to that conclusion.
Leadership and timing are major factors in this story. Had Mr Santer responded more forcefully and immediately to the European Parliament's ultimatums last January, by dismissing aberrant colleagues rather than daring the MEPs to back the Commission or sack it, he could well have headed off the crisis. But he lacked the political muscle to do so - as the leaders who chose him realised and intended; his perceived arrogance provoked the parliament into a confrontation which has become a defining moment in its democratic evolution.
Mr Santer deserves a sympathetic hearing for his defence of the Commission's record, whether on launching the euro, servicing the Amsterdam Treaty negotiations, introducing innovative employment monitoring methods, or imaginative proposals on Agenda 2000 and EU enlargement. The Commission has been a victim of ill-advised parsimony in the allocation of resources by the member-states, just as it was being given major new tasks of political management. Mr Santer was too compliant in the face of such pressures, when he should have been more assertive on behalf of the Commission. It is undeniably under-resourced.
There is now a clear opportunity to address these problems. The Santer Commission is - regrettably - politically unsustainable. It should be replaced immediately by an interim body with a mandate to complete its business by the end of the year. The public and political attention raised by this crisis can be turned to advantage through the European elections in June and then by the nomination of a powerful Commission president-designate. Whoever this is will have the right to discuss nominations with the member-states and an obligation to satisfy the parliament that the right ones have been made. That very process would open the road to longer term managerial change and a more mature democratic accountability of the Commission to the European Parliament.