Commissioners praised for attendance record

Date: 20/03/1997

By Rory Watson

THE European Commission is facing calls to publish an annual report on its members' attendance record at their weekly official meetings.

The demand for a regular, if somewhat crude monitor of the Commissioners' diligence comes from from Irish Liberal MEP Pat Cox, who has already asked for - and been supplied with - details of the number of meetings the 20 current members of the college have attended since they took office in January 1995.

The Commission's response reveals that the Internal Market Commissioner Mario Monti and the institution's President Jacques Santer have near perfect records.

Not surprisingly, the four Commissioners most often absent from the weekly meetings in Brussels and Strasbourg - Sir Leon Brittan, Hans van den Broek, João de Deus Pinheiro and Manuel Marín - all have external relations portfolios.

“I accept that the raw attendance figures are a crude measure and do not provide any qualitative input such as how much of the meeting Commissioners attended or the contribution they made to the collegiate debate. But overall the figures are impressive. They put the Commission in a good light and should scotch rumours that some members have a bad record,” said Cox.

“I believe that these figures should be published every year, possibly in the annual report, as a matter of course, without having to wait for a parliamentary question,” he added.

But Cox's original question, prompted by the fact that the attendance records of MEPs are already in the public domain, initially ran into opposition within the Commission.

Some senior officials argued unsuccessfully that the details should remain confidential.

They were soon overruled. But in supplying the figures, the Commission specifically pointed out that the members' conflicting commitments in the Council of Ministers, European Parliament or on business outside the Union occasionally prevented them from attending the weekly half-day meetings.

Cox is expected to be less successful in his bid to discover the extent to which EU governments have been represented in Council meetings by ministers as opposed to senior diplomats.

“It would be a very rich irony if a lot of important Union business was handled by civil servants and not ministers,” he said, explaining his request.

But when EU ambassadors consider their reply next Wednesday (26 March), they are expected merely to confirm that there were 101 formal and 19 informal Council meetings last year without providing a more detailed breakdown, arguing that details of ministerial attendance are attached to the communiqués issued after each meeting.