The European Commission : History, motivation and currrent debates

Résumé du document

If Jacques Delors, one of the most famous President of the European Commission (between 1985 and 1995), called the European Union as a UPO or Unidentified Political Object, it can be explained by the special characteristics of its architecture. The European Commission (EC) is undoubtedly one of the key institutions of the EU, one that makes of the Union an international organization very different from the others. In a lot of articles we can read that the EC has taken a very important decision, or that a politician of a member state criticized the influence of "Brussels". Because of its importance and its specificities, it's very interesting to try to analyze this very special institution, which is an original body if one considered its history, its powers and its composition. In May 1950, in his Declaration from the Salon de l'Horloge, Robert Schuman proposed to place France and West Germany's production of coal and steel under joint management. The institution that was created to manage this production (and the one of the 4 other members of the European Coal and Steel Community) was the High Authority. It consisted in 9 members, and sat in Luxembourg.

Extraits

[...] The balance of party representation (conservative, liberal, socialist especially before the Nice Treaty when large countries had 2 members, usually from the majority and minority) was kept to represent all the political parties and to work not with ideological goals but to promote the European interest. However, the idea seems now to be that the Commission should reflect the composition of the European Parliament as it plays a greater role in the European decision making process. This was indeed clearly stated in the Constitutional Treaty. The idea is too link the works of the Commission and of the Parliament. Thus, after the 2004 elections, the President of the Commission was a liberal, linked to the European People Party which is the largest party. [...]

[...] There's however a contradiction in the appointment process. As the governments are responsible for the choice of their “national” Commissioner, they tend to nominate someone that will defend their views and interests The fact that large states (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain) were reluctant in accepting to lose one of their two commissioners symbolized this idea. Moreover, when the President distributes the portfolios within Commissioners, there are usually debates in member states to evaluate the “importance” that the national Commissioner will have, considering that the Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Competition, Enlargement or Judicial Affairs will have more power (and represent more efficiently his country) than the Commissioner for Information Society, Humanitarian Aid or Multilingualism! [...]

[...] This Treaty establishing a single council and a single commission of the European Communities simplified the structure of the Communities. There was now only one Commission, seating in Brussels, with the different powers granted by the 3 treaties. Even though the Commission hasn't the same status as the High Authority, it can still be considered as an independent collegiate. In the Article 157 TEC (art. 213), it was written that: The Commission shall consist of 9 members, who shall be chosen on the grounds of their general competence and whose independence is beyond doubt.[ ] 2. [...]

[...] What the Constitution would have changed Today, the rule is one Commissioner per member state. But next year, there will be 27 Commissioners which will make it more difficult to work efficiently and coherently. With the Constitution, it would have consisted of a number of members equal to two-thirds of the number of states, which is 18 for 27. There would have been a system of rotation of nationalities and fair representation of the “demographic and geographical range of all the members” (art. [...]

[...] The current debates A bureaucratic institution? The Commission is often seen as a heavy and bureaucratic administration, very costly and not very efficient. Monnet didn't want a too large institution and said one day there are more than 200 of us, we shall have failed.” Today more than 24,000 people work for the Commission However, the increase in staff numbers can be explained by the diversification of tasks delegated to the Community and by enlargement. Compared to national administrations, the services remain quite small: 18,000 administrators working in 26 directorates-general and other services (Eurostat, Interpretation, OLAF).[6] The costs of the recognition of 20 official languages (and soon 23 with Romanian, Bulgarian and Irish) has been criticized but the Commission has only 2 working languages: English and French. [...]