Barroso considers ‘auditing commissioner’

By Martin Banks

Date: 15/07/04

EUROPEAN Commission president-designate José Manuel Barroso told MEPs this week that he was considering establishing a new post of commissioner in charge of auditing.

"If my appointment is confirmed, I will seek to strengthen the auditing and verification functions of the Commission and would favour establishing a new commissioner responsible for this," he told a Parliamentary hearing. He was responding to a question from Paul van Buitenen, the former financial controller in the Commission who became a whistleblower and has now been elected an MEP.

Van Buitenen said after the hearing: "I fail to see what benefits a new auditing commissioner would bring.

"The problem is not in the Commission's existing auditing arrangements but in its continued failure to follow up complaints."

During two days of tough questioning from the Parliament's various political groups, Barroso assured MEPs that, despite coming under intense pressure from member states' leaders over the allocation of portfolios in his team, he had not given guarantees to anyone.

The former Portuguese prime minister said that the priorities of his Commission would be job creation, promoting the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and improving transparency in EU institutions.

Barroso sided with the current Commission President Romano Prodi in his refusal to bow to demands to cut the Union's budget for 2007-13 from six of the EU's net contributor countries.

He said he had been "unfairly caricatured" over his backing of the US-led war in Iraq war. "The decision to support the invasion was the most difficult I had to take as prime minister but I took it for the right reasons," he said. "But, please, do not make me out to be some sort of rabid militarist."

Barroso said that if his nomination as Commission president were confirmed in a secret ballot of MEPs in Strasbourg next Thursday (22 July), he would work to unite the EU member states and prevent further splits such as that over Iraq.

In a hearing with the Greens, Barroso said: "There are magnificent things that exist in the US as well as some fairly horrific things. I hate their arrogancem I hate their unilateralism."

When told of his remarks, an official with the US mission to the EU said: "He must have been playing to his audience. We judge people on what they do, not on what they say. We have had a good relationship with him in the past. President [George] Bush rang him to congratulate him when he was offered the job. He and Bush have a good relationship."

Barroso has to win a simple majority vote in Parliament for his nomination to be confirmed. However, many MEPs will vote against him, with the 31-strong French Socialist delegation, the 42 members of the Greens-European Free Alliance group and the 31-member Eurosceptic Independence and Democracy leading the way.

Graham Watson, leader of the newly formed 89-strong Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, said his group's support was conditional on "assurances over transparency and openness", and on "a commitment that he will not be pushed around by the bigger member states over the appointment of new super commissioners".

Barroso's performance met with a lukewarm reception from many MEPs, with PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen saying he was "far from convinced". He remarked that the Portuguese "has the ability to say the things he thinks we want to hear but on a number of crucial issues, particularly a commitment to safeguarding jobs, he did not give clear answers at all".

Barroso would need the vote of around 50 Socialists in order to be confirmed in the post of Commission president. Parliament insiders believe he will comfortably obtain the required number of votes.

Article reports on the two days of questioning from the European Parliament's various political groups faced by European Commission President-designate José Manuel Barroso.