Charlemagne: Cracks in the college

Date: 13/09/03

The European Commission is heading for trouble

SOME powerful organisations are headed by a cabinet, others by a supreme council or board of management. The 20 commissioners who run the European Commission, however, are called “the college”. This title, with its academic and ecclesiastical flavour, captures the outfit's self-image. The commission, part executive and part civil service, sees itself as far more than a mere branch of government. It is the embodiment of the “European idea” and the disinterested guardian of European law. While the countries of the EU vulgarly battle to promote their national interests, the commission stands above the fray and identifies the general good. And while national governments are riven by internal rivalries and political infighting, the multinational college sails on serenely in a spirit of good-fellowship.

There is an element of truth to this saccharine self-image. Commissioners are free from many of the pressures of national politics: they are not elected, very seldom reshuffled and almost never fired. In such circumstances, they can afford to be high-minded and collegiate. Appropriately, the commission is headed by a real live former professor, Romano Prodi, an Italian.

But like many a college head in the academic world, Mr Prodi's management style is an infuriating mixture of vagueness and guile. Even those of his colleagues who retain some affection for the man, despair of his inability to stick to an agenda and of his tendency to fall asleep in meetings. (Or do his closed eyes simply mean he is thinking deeply?) Mr Prodi has also alienated many of the other commissioners by his habit of making damaging off-the-cuff remarks and by his penchant for secretively compiled reports that undermine his colleagues' work. Pedro Solbes, the commissioner for economic affairs, was left looking like a chump after Mr Prodi described the euro zone's fiscal rules, which Mr Solbes has stoutly defended, as “stupid”. The commissioners taking part in Europe's constitutional convention discovered that a group of Prodi advisers had written an entire draft in secret. Such incidents have taken their toll on collegiate spirit.

Mr Prodi's two vice-presidents do not make up for his deficiencies. Neil Kinnock from Britain is quietly despised in multi-cultural Brussels for speaking only one language. His volubly expressed interests in Welsh rugby and British Labour Party politics of the 1980s are not widely shared by his colleagues. Loyola de Palacio, a Spaniard who is the other vice-president, is guilty of another grave sin against Brussels piety: overt nationalism. All commissioners promise never to fight their country's corner. All violate this promise from time to time. But Ms de Palacio does it with a regularity and crassness that grates on some colleagues. She and Mr Kinnock get on badly. And there are other rivalries in the college. Chris Patten, the foreign-affairs commissioner, and Poul Nielson, in charge of aid, are constantly battling over turf. Margot Wallström, who oversees environment, and Erkki Liikanen, the enterprise commissioner, snipe at each other over business regulation. She wants more of it; he wants less. After four years of their five-year mandate, far from building up a jolly college spirit, the commissioners show every sign of growing sick at the sight of each other.

The Prodi commission's last year was always likely to be tricky. All the commissioners are now thinking about their political lives after November 2004. Mr Prodi increasingly focuses on his role as the Italian opposition's de facto leader. Other commissioners, such as Ms Wallström and Portugal's Antonio Vitorino, are manoeuvring for grander jobs in Brussels. And somehow Mr Prodi must find portfolios for ten new commissioners from the countries due to join the EU next May. One idea is for them to shadow current commissioners for six months, until a new college is formed at the end of the year. As one insider puts it, they will be “interns with BMWs”.

This end-of-term atmosphere is unsettling enough. But in the coming weeks a much worse fate may befall the commission than the usual bickering. A scandal is fermenting over the misuse of funds at Eurostat, the commission's statistical arm. The details are complicated and, frankly speaking, not all that shocking. Watergate it ain't. But a report has been commissioned and Mr Prodi faces a painful session before the European Parliament on September 25th.

Find the fall guy

A parliamentary hearing of this sort brings back bad memories for the commission. The entire college was forced to resign by the parliament in 1999, after a corruption scandal. This time there is a widespread feeling that Mr Prodi will try to limit the damage by demanding the resignation of one of his commissioners. The favourite for the role of sacrificial lamb is Mr Solbes, who is nominally in charge of Eurostat. Mr Solbes's defenders point out that one of the main reasons he failed to act more quickly to stamp out dodgy practices at Eurostat was that the whole affair was still being investigated by OLAF, the EU's anti-fraud office. The problem, they say, was not Mr Solbes but the commission's procedures. So if anyone is forced to go, perhaps - they suggest - it should be Mr Kinnock or Mr Prodi, the two men charged with the commission's smooth internal running. This is a fair point but may not be enough to save Mr Solbes. A softly spoken Spaniard, he lacks the sharp political instincts and powerful friends of some more senior colleagues. There is a growing sense that somewhere in the commission the name of Solbes is already being engraved on a bullet.

Since Mr Solbes is also the staunchest defender of the euro area's stability pact, which is coming apart as France flouts its conditions, his departure, while unfair, might be convenient. On September 23rd the commission will have to meet to consider its internal report into the Eurostat affair. If Mr Prodi does indeed try to force one of his team to resign, it could be a tense, rough - and distinctly uncollegial - meeting.

Commentary feature on the troubles facing the Prodi Commission as it reaches its final year. In addition, there is the scandal over financial irregularities at Eurostat.

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