Dutch canvass Commission ten-year deal

Date: 13/03/1997

By Rory Watson

EACH member state would be guaranteed its own European Commissioner until the end of the next decade under plans aimed at breaking the deadlock on one of the most sensitive issues facing the Intergovernmental Conference on EU reform.

The move comes amid warnings from Dutch European Affairs Minister and IGC chairman Michiel Patijn that the revised Maastricht Treaty will have no chance of being ratified if there is any attempt in the current negotiations to restrict some member states' right to appoint a representative to the Union executive.

This has been mooted as a possible solution to the problems which will arise when the EU expands to take in up to a dozen new members and there are simply not enough portfolios to go round.

The French government has insisted it would be “unacceptable” to have a Commission “composed of one member per country” and is campaigning for the number to be limited to ten or 12, with a guarantee that all member states would have equal access over time.

“There is a risk today of having a weak Commission with too many members, a poor sharing out of responsibilities and a certain form of irresponsibility,” explained French European Affairs Minister Michel Barnier.

But smaller countries have vowed not to accept any such move, fearing their influence would be severely weakened.

“If you put the problem in such a way that you say you want to settle it in June once and for all by abandoning the tradition that every country can have its national Commissioner, you will not have any agreement,” warned Patijn.

Instead, he believes that governments should accept the possibility of a further review of the issue if, after a series of future enlargements, the number of Commissioners climbs from the current 20 to over 25.

In an interview with European Voice, Patijn said the formula now being discussed at the IGC would ensure every member state - including any of the central and eastern European countries which had joined by that date - could nominate a representative to the next two Commissions.

With the present Commission's five-year mandate expiring at the end of 1999, this would cover appointments until 2010.

“Then you could say, this is going in the opposite direction to rational, sophisticated organisation, so would it not be time to rethink the situation?” argued Patijn.

“But it is only over a very long time-scale that you can, in political terms, present these kinds of options. If you present it this way, then the number of countries which say 'no, under any circumstances', falls rapidly.”

The Dutch strategy is deliberately to leave open the question of whether the EU's five largest member states would retain the right to have two Commissioners instead of one.

Commission President Jacques Santer tackled this issue head-on last week, formally proposing that there should be only one Commissioner per country and that the situation be reviewed after enlargement.

“We recognise that we will have to adapt as an institution to our evolving role in the Union and to the prospect of enlargement. If we were to apply the current rules, a Union with 25 members would have more than 30 Commissioners,” he said.

The Commission also proposed internal reforms which would see the number of portfolios reduced to a dozen; the creation of three vice-presidents in charge of external relations, economic and monetary matters, and relations with Europe's citizens respectively; and specific ad hoc roles for Commissioners without their own overall responsibilities.

Although Patijn described the Commission's ideas as “extremely helpful”, they have been savaged by Barnier, who dismissed them as “the worst of all solutions”.