WORLD VIEW:MEPs appear ready to scupper the chances of one of the nominated commissioners, writes ARTHUR BEESLEY
ALL GOING to plan, it would soon fall to Rumiana Jeleva to marshal the European Union’s response to the Haiti earthquake disaster as incoming humanitarian aid commissioner. Unfortunately for Bulgaria’s nominee to the European Commission and its chief José Manuel Barroso, it’s not working out that way.
In a new EU executive that is largely devoid of stardust, Jeleva was perceived from the outset to be the weakest link. She bombed at a confirmation hearing in the European Parliament this week, a barbed affair that could yet finish her commissionership before it begins.
This is a big headache for Barroso months after his second commission was due to take office. However, the confirmation hearings have revealed that weakness in his new team goes beyond Jeleva.
Whereas Máire Geoghegan-Quinn’s unbridled self-confidence easily won over the industry committee, some of her future colleagues came across in their hearings as insubstantial creatures. It is a given that Barroso can play only the hand he is dealt by EU leaders, who choose their national candidates. However, there is disappointment across the political spectrum at the timidity of some nominees and their generalised answers.
“The general performance of the different commissioners as we are following their work is uneven,” said Hungarian MEP Jozsef Szajer, who is managing the hearings for the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the dominant group in the parliament. “They are not giving the vision and the foresight which we expected from the Barroso commission.”
Szajer’s Socialist group counterpart – Austrian MEP Hannes Swoboda – said more or less the same, arguing that the low level of knowledge evinced by some nominees was below standard. “Either they did not dare to present their ideas or they do not have any ideas or strategies.”
Foreign affairs chief Catherine Ahston, who will sit on the commission and the European Council simultaneously, was unspectacular but perceived to have comported herself well.
“If you listened to her, she was trying to avoid being too particular. She was speaking in general terms,” said Labour MEP Nessa Childers. “On Iran she had a very definite opinion, but I guess it’s an easy enough one to have a definite opinion about.”
Some especially experienced designates did very well, people such as the Spanish competition commissioner designate Joaquin Almunia. So too did the French internal markets commissioner designate Michel Barnier, notwithstanding British fears he will meddle in the City of London. Likewise, Danish climate action commissioner designate Connie Hedegaard won over the Greens.
But MEPs were disappointed with other notables, one of them the economic and monetary affairs nominee Olli Rehn, a key Barroso ally. Rehn impressed as enlargement commissioner in Barroso’s first commission but plodded a little in his hearing. MEPs wanted more verve and depth from him.
Similarly, the respected outgoing competition commissioner Neelie Kroes failed to inspire in a hearing on her plans for the digital agenda portfolio. “They were not happy,” said a source briefed on the deliberations of the committee.
Lower down the scale, the Lithuanian taxation and anti-fraud designate Algirdas Semeta was demonstrably weak.
For all that, doubt over Jeleva’s prospects now dominates the scene. For weeks she had been in the Brussels spotlight as newspapers questioned her husband’s business dealings, the lack of any demonstrable evidence of shady associates not standing in the way of lurid headlines.
But it was her own financial disclosures that led to claims from MEPs that she was less than frank in her submissions to the European authorities.
Whatever about the quality or otherwise of her disclosures, her prime problem is that she conveyed little authority. Even though Bulgarian premier Boiko Borisov insists he will not stand her down, her fate hangs in the balance.
Something like this was inevitable. MEPs have the right to reject Barroso’s entire team if any single nominee is not to their liking. In a parliament that is often overlooked in spite of its increasing mandate, this power over the EU executive gives them an opportunity engage in a public display of raw politics.
MEPs tasted blood in 2004 when they forced the removal of the Italian commissioner designate over his views on homosexuality. It seems increasingly likely that they will seek to repeat that by demanding Jeleva’s head.
As a vice-president of the EPP, Fine Gael’s group in Europe, she is not completely alone. But the EPP is the only big faction supporting her. The Socialists, Liberals and Greens have lined up against her.
The EPP has retaliated, accusing the Slovak Socialist designate for the administration portfolio of making racist remarks in 2005 about his country’s Roma community. Nevertheless, it may not be able to turn the tide.
The confirmation process is mired in rampant politicking, exactly the kind of scenario that Barroso wanted to avoid. When he assigned jobs in his second commission last November, he said the team was a “perfect blend” of experience and new thinking. It sounded overly optimistic then and it still does.
Arthur Beesley is Europe Correspondent