EUROPEAN DIARY:The commission president has favours to repay in assigning portfolios, but enters the process with his own power bolstered, writes ARTHUR BEESLEY
BRUSSELS IS awash with speculation as European Commission president José Manuel Barroso awaits nominations to his new team from the Netherlands, Denmark and Malta before determining which country gets what on the EU executive.
As he toys with moves on the commission chessboard, Barroso is preparing to exercise considerable power. However, the choices he makes now may have a crucial bearing on the legacy he leaves at the end of his second term.
Having prioritised economic policy in his first term, he was in charge as the banking crisis dragged the EU into a brutal recession. His new commission will face the daunting task of promoting and consolidating recovery. For Ireland’s nominee, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, and all other incoming commissioners, this is the flipside of the trappings of high European office.
Barroso will have favours to return and promises to keep, but he enters the process with his own power bolstered. The selection of Herman Van Rompuy as president of the European Council and the choice of Catherine Ashton as EU foreign policy chief brought low-profile figures into posts that might have overshadowed his own if they had gone to bigger fish.
Van Rompuy and Ashton will take time, in newly created posts whose parameters have yet to be tested, to master a terrain that Barroso already dominates. In terms of name-recognition alone, he far exceeds them.
While Barroso is perceived to be close to German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy, he also knows that the two great EU powers remain supreme in the new dispensation. Having stood back from the race for the two new jobs, it is a given that they will expect significant commission portfolios or other big posts in return.
At present, well-placed sources still say Geoghegan-Quinn is in contention for the mid-level innovation and budget portfolios. However, other sources say the European Court of Auditors might well oppose the budget portfolio going to an outgoing court member such as Geoghegan-Quinn.
Although the likely destination of many mid-tier and low-level posts remains unclear, firm favourites have emerged for some of the bigger posts. For example, news emerged after the Van Rompuy-Ashton pact that French support for the duo was achieved at the cost of promising the powerful internal market portfolio to Michel Bernier, Sarkozy’s nominee. Barroso and his people are saying nothing about who succeeds Charlie McCreevy, but few in Brussels believe the internal markets post will go to anyone else.
This is important for several reasons, not least because of France’s stated desire to regulate hedge funds and private equity investors heavily. It can be assumed that Bernier’s stance will chime with that of the Paris government.
Financiers aren’t happy, but Barroso could divine that the promotion of strong-arm regulation in all sectors of the financial world would go down well with taxpayers picking up the bill for the excesses of bankers and their lieutenants.
The German portfolio, meanwhile, is something of a mystery. Merkel’s nominee is Günther Oettinger, a lawyer who has been premier of Baden-Württemberg state.
There is no doubt that Germany would like a significant economic portfolio such as the all-important competition post. This could be tricky, however, given the fact that Germany’s controversial plans to rescue the Opel car company have run into trouble with Neelie Kroes, the current competition commissioner. Oettinger also serves on the supervisory board of LBBW bank, an institution whose state support is under review by Kroes’s office.
One simple solution, say EU sources, is for Oettinger to take over the enterprise and industry portfolio held by Günter Verheugen, the current German commissioner. This portfolio is perceived to lack power, however, so it may be that trade, economic and monetary affairs or energy goes Germany’s way.
That said, Merkel’s ultimate priority is to secure the presidency of the European Central Bank (ECB) for Axel Weber, president of the Bundesbank. While this post does not fall vacant until Jean-Claude Trichet retires in 2011, failure to land a top-level commissionership at this point would probably put Weber in an unassailable position to take charge of the ECB.
EU sources believe the competition portfolio is more likely to go Jaoquín Almunia, the Spanish commissioner who currently holds the economic and monetary affairs post. A move to competition, the most powerful economic portfolio, would be a big promotion.
While the reappointment of Kroes has yet to be confirmed, it looks increasingly likely. EU sources believe she could with ease take the trade portfolio vacated by Ashton.
EU sources say the regional policy portfolio could go to Hungarian nominee Laszlo Andor, while Denmark is campaigning for the environment portfolio.
For Barroso, decision time is fast approaching.