Buttiglione last to appoint chief advisor

By David Cronin

Date: 16/09/04

ROCCO Buttiglione appears to be the slowest of the incoming European commissioners in selecting the members of his cabinet of advisors.

Of the 24 commissioners nominated to join José Manuel Barroso's administration, Buttiglione is the only one whose chef de cabinet is still unannounced.

Although no official list of cabinet appointments has been released, Commission sources say that the only other commissioner still undecided as to who should head his private office is Barroso himself. Because the former Portuguese premier had selected his compatriot João Vale de Almeida to lead the team of officials steering the transition from Romano Prodi's executive, he was thought likely to offer him the chef de cabinet position. But insiders say Barroso is still searching for a Portuguese official with greater experience than de Almeida, a former Commission spokesman.

A source close to Buttiglione said last night (15 September) that he has still not chosen any members of his cabinet. It is believed, however, that he hopes to appoint a diplomat serving at Italy's EU representation in Brussels to head the team.

Under a code of conduct, which will apply to all 25 of the new commissioners, each six-strong cabinet must contain at least three different nationalities and either the head or the deputy head must be a different nationality from the commissioner. In practice, only eight commissioners have appointed somebody from a nationality other than their own to head their cabinet.

They are Austria's Benita Ferrero-Waldner, who has chosen Briton Patrick Child; Belgium's Louis Michel with German Sabine Weyand; Cyprus' Markos Kyprianou with Greek Margaritis Schinas; the Czech Republic's Vladimir Spidla with Spaniard Ramiro Cibrian Uzal; Lithuania's Dalia Grybauskaite with Briton Stephen Quest; Luxembourg's Viviane Reding with German Johannes Laitenberger; Poland's Danuta Hübner with Dutchman Joost Korte, and; Slovenia's Janez Potocnik with German Peter Dröll.

Among those securing rank-and-file cabinet posts are former journalist Derk-Jan Eppink. Currently a member of the cabinet of Frits Bolkestein, the internal market commissioner, the Dutchman will be joining the cabinet of Siim Kallas, the Estonian commissioner. Eppink covered relations with the European Parliament for Bolkestein, and for Kallas, whose portfolio will cover administrative affairs and the fight against fraud, he will liaise with the Parliament's budget control committee.

German Michael Köhler, currently working in the Commission's external relations department, is joining the cabinet of the Maltese commissioner Joe Borg, who is to take the fisheries portfolio. Köhler, also a respected academic with vast knowledge of the Muslim world, will be in charge of external relations.

Another Portuguese, Tiago Pitta e Cunha, will join Borg's cabinet. A maritime specialist, he has worked with Barroso in Lisbon, where he was the coordinator of the Strategic Commission of the Oceans, set up by Barroso in June 2003.

And Barroso has appointed Fernando Andresen Guimarães as advisor on external relations. The 38-year old has worked for the Department of Peacekeeping Operations at the United Nations, after being a counsellor at Portugal's mission to the UN in New York.

Most of the commissioners have yet to choose their spokespersons but many of the Commission's current spokespeople are likely to be reappointed, including outgoing institutional affairs spokesman Stefaan de Rynck, Michael Mann (internal reform), Amelia Torres (competition), Jonathan Todd (internal market), Antonia Mochan (social policy and employment), Frédéric Vincent (education and culture) and Fabbio Fabbi (scientific research). De Rynck will be Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot's spokesman, while Mann, who started his career as an agriculture journalist, seems a candidate for the agriculture brief.

Article reports on the current state of appointments for senior European Commission posts in the Barroso commission.