Brussels divided on future shape of EU commission
The European Commission is showing signs of division on EU institutional reform, with Polish commissioner Danuta Hubner attacking German commissioner Guenter Verheugen's idea that small EU states do not need fully-fledged commissioners.
"Creating two categories of member states and accepting size as a criterion, on the basis of which a country would have the right to designate a commissioner, is groundless and, speaking frankly, unacceptable," Ms Hubner told Polish press agency PAP on Thursday (4 January.)
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One day earlier Mr Verheugen - industry commissioner and commission vice-president - had suggested that small states should get deputy commissioners in key policy areas rather than full commissioners with light portfolios to create "an efficient, small and highly competent commission."
The debate comes ahead of the EU's attempt to revive its moribund treaty-reform process this year, with the accession of Romania and Bulgaria in January straining the credibility of the one-state one-commissioner system after Bucharest got a new "multilingualism" portfolio, widely seen as negligible.
The EU's 27 member states contrast starkly in terms of size with Germany on 82.5 million while Malta has just 400,000 people in a situation that is reflected in the EU's "qualified majority" decision-making mechanism which gives more votes to big countries.
But the idea that small states are less equal than big ones remains a political taboo, with all capitals keen to have their man at the commission's top table to guard prestige and make sure that information about Brussels' internal thinking flows back home.
The draft EU constitution - rejected in French and Dutch referendums in 2005 - sketched out an equal rotation system for commissioner posts while the current Nice treaty says the number of commissioners should be reduced once the EU has 27 members, with Croatia, Macedonia and Turkey also waiting to join.
MEPs should get more say
Meanwhile, Poland's commissioner for regional policy backed Mr Verheugen's suggestion the European Parliament should select the commission president who would then select his own team, instead of the current situation where member states sort out all the appointments behind closed doors.
"You could consider the merits of a smaller commission," Ms Hubner said. "But a small commission would have to have a totally different method of selection, where commissioners are not selected by member states...The method of selection should be grounded in the European Parliament."
She added the 27-strong team of commissioners is functioning well but the bigger the commission gets the more power ends up in the hands of its president, amid claims by some observers that the current commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso already has a presidential style.
"I don't see any weakening of the commission...Work is going well. But there is a natural tendency, the bigger a body is, the more the presidential system dominates, because it is necessary to look for ways to take decisions efficiently, even if these ways are less democratic, to speak brutally," Ms Hubner explained.