Review to identify Commission’s core tasks

Date: 06/04/2000

By Simon Taylor

THE European Commission has launched the biggest review of its activities in its 32-year history as it strives to ensure that the institution focuses on its 'core' tasks and abandons those which could be better performed by others.

A special 'peer group' has been set up under Commission President Romano Prodi to identify those areas where the EU executive is not doing an effective job or where its activities could be handed over to national authorities, freeing up precious resources to target higher political priorities.

Although the group is only just beginning work, sources suggest tourism policy, some social and labour rules, and other issues like animal welfare standards in zoos are likely to be among the areas at risk.

"The group will do the groundwork for the difficult political decisions in July on what we should stop doing and the areas to which we should transfer resources," said a senior Commission official this week.

The move is part of Vice-President Neil Kinnock's plan for reforming the institution in response to the criticisms made by the committee of independent experts, which warned last year that the EU executive's management problems stemmed from the fact that it had taken on more responsibilities than it had staff and resources to deal with.

Prodi has given the peer group, which includes Kinnock, Budget Commissioner Michaele Schreyer, farm supremo Franz Fischler and trade chief Pascal Lamy, the difficult task of asking their colleagues which areas of responsibility they would be prepared to shed if their budget was cut by up to 15%.

"No one wants to lose staff but everyone knows that we do not have enough people," said one official, who added that the point of the exercise would be to identify whole areas of policy-making which could be dropped rather than just small-scale projects which would not provide much opportunity to reshuffle staff and resources.

"It will have to be about entire areas. Otherwise it is not really worth doing," he said.

The group will start interviewing Commissioners in the next few weeks. It hopes to complete the process by the summer, and present its recommendations by July or September.

The European Commission has launched the biggest review of its activities in its 32-year history as it strives to ensure that the institution focuses on its 'core' tasks and abandons those which could be better performed by others.