Barroso's confidence in commission team to be put to the test

EUROPEAN DIARY: WHEN JOSÉ Manuel Barroso assigned posts in the incoming European Commission a couple of weeks ago, he described…

EUROPEAN DIARY:WHEN JOSÉ Manuel Barroso assigned posts in the incoming European Commission a couple of weeks ago, he described the new team as a "perfect blend" of experience and new thinking. His confidence will soon be put to the test, writes ARTHUR BEESLEY

Each of the 26 nominees faces a confirmation hearing early in the new year in the European Parliament, a body that must approve the new college before it can take office.

As preparations advance, the big question now is whether there will be a rerun of the Buttiglione affair in 2004 when a forceful exercise of parliament power forced a mini reshuffle on a reluctant Barroso.

Back then, the staunchly conservative views of Italian justice and home affairs nominee Rocco Buttiglione on homosexuality and marriage proved unacceptable to MEPs. Buttiglione was replaced, but not before a damaging stand-off between Barroso and the parliament.

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To make matters even worse, Barroso had to move Hungarian Laszlo Kovacs into the taxation portfolio when his knowledge of energy affairs proved slight.

Taxation had fallen vacant thanks to the withdrawal of Latvian nominee Ingrida Udre, who was accused of party funding irregularities. Her successor, Andris Piebalgs, went to energy.

The experience, hugely damaging to Barroso’s authority soon after his arrival in Brussels, is one he has no intention of repeating.

Although he would be foolish not to have done his homework this time around, MEPs are poring over the records of incoming commissioners for any damaging material while the nominees themselves receive copious briefings on their new portfolios.

If little in Máire Geoghegan-Quinn’s past life lent itself to expertise in research and innovation, she should by now be well on the road to deeper knowledge.

The parliament cannot reject individual commissioners without rejecting the entire team. Having tasted blood last time out, however, some MEPs see the looming exchanges as an opportunity to show their mettle.

Still, MEPs in the two dominant political groups say there is no glaring weakness in the new Barroso selection that points to a nasty flare-up next month.

While Austrian MEP Hannes Swoboda, a leading socialist, says his group is not happy about many of the assignments, that doesn’t mean the nominees are doomed.

Nevertheless, Swoboda says the selection of Italian nominee Antonio Tajani as industry commissioner was strange given that Tajani never dealt anywhere with that issue. This will inform the questioning.

Likewise, the German nominee to the energy portfolio, Günther Oettinger, will have to fight Socialist perceptions that he is little more than a “reject” from national politics.

With the City of London in uproar over the selection of Frenchman Michel Barnier to internal markets, he will have to pledge that his office will not be an extension of the Élysée Palace.

MEPs on all sides say Catherine Ashton will attract considerable attention when grilled about her new role as EU foreign policy chief.

Untested in the foreign arena, and keen to avoid detailed comment on any sensitive topic since she was chosen for the job, she can expect rigorous questioning.

German Christian Democrat MEP Elmar Brok, European People’s Party (EPP) spokesman on the foreign affairs committee, says that fact that Baroness Ashton is a newcomer to diplomacy is on its own “not a major thing” as expertise can be developed over time.

What he wants to hear, however, is how she proposes to find time for that while building up the EU’s External Action Service, as its new diplomatic corps will be known.

“It’s a totally new instrument, one that lasts longer than any commissioner,” says Brok. “Now we have to see what she says.” When Barroso first made his selection public, the EPP swiftly warned that incoming commissioners must not “have been associated with oppressive regimes and must not have participated in non-democratic governments or political movements, or governments or movements that have been tainted by corruption”.

That could well have implications for the Czech nominee for the enlargement and neighbourhood policy portfolio, Stefan Füle, and the Slovak nominee for the inter-institutional relations portfolio, Maros Sefcovic, both of whom were members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.

Still, senior EPP sources say the group is mindful that Barroso is one of their own and was their chosen candidate for commission president. In that context, they say, any sound and fury on the parliament floor might not amount to anything more than political noise.

Barring unforeseen disaster, that is. When Barroso ran into trouble with MEPs over his first commission selection, his predecessor Romano Prodi warned him against underestimating the parliament’s power.

Barroso proceeded to do just that, causing a lot of unnecessary trouble for himself. It was a painful lesson.