Prodi’s successor ‘should come from biggest political group’

By Martin Banks

Date: 23/10/03

THE "spirit" of the EU's new constitution should be applied in choosing the next European Commission president, even though the treaty is not due to come into force before 2006, says a senior MEP.

The draft of the constitutional treaty states that the results of next year's European Parliament elections should be "taken into account" in deciding who succeeds Romano Prodi as Commission president.

As Prodi's successor will be elected by the Parliament (after being proposed by EU leaders), the political party with the biggest majority after the June poll will have a key say in who takes over the Commission's top job.

The European People's Party, currently the largest political group in the institution, says Prodi's successor should belong to the political "family" which holds the most seats after the European elections.

Its leader, Hans-Gert Pöttering, said the EPP does not favour "politicizing" the Commission, but adds: "The political will of the people will have to be reflected in the Commission's composition.

"Although next June the new constitution will not have entered into force, we will propose that the letter and spirit of the new treaty will already be applied.

"This will allow for a more interesting campaign and, hopefully, create more participation in the elections."

Pöttering's comments come in a reply to New Europe, a Danish think-tank which is asking each of Parliament's main political groups who their candidate for president will be.

Its spokesman, Soren Winther Lundby, said: "Article 19 of the draft treaty clearly states that it is the Parliament which shall elect the Commission president.

"Article 26 says the same but is somewhat vague and open to interpretation.

"Our fear is that power will, as in 1999, end up in the hands of the European Council and not the Parliament. One way of preventing this from happening is for the political groups to tell us now who their candidates for president are."

Report of comments from Hans-Gert Pöttering, leader of the European People's Party.

http://www.eppe.org/ http://www.eppe.org/

---