European Commission. To Barroso the spoils

The new president of the European Commission must be his own man

IT WAS hardly the most dignified way of making a big international appointment. On June 29th the 25 European Union heads of government unanimously chose José Manuel Duro Barroso, the prime minister of Portugal, to be the next president of the European Commission. But not only was he very obviously nobody's first choice; until a few weeks ago his name was not even on anybody's short list. Mr Barroso was given the job only after all the other candidates had fallen away in the face of objections from one side or another. In the eyes of his fellow prime ministers and presidents, in short, his chief asset is that he is little known and sufficiently low-key to have given no great offence to any of them.

Which makes it sound as if he will not be up to the job. That may be wrong. Although Brussels Eurocrats, depressed after the two ineffective commission presidencies of Jacques Santer and Romano Prodi, hanker after a man with the grand dreams and vaulting ambition of Jacques Delors, president in 1985-95, who pushed through the single market and plans for monetary union, a low-key but effective president may now be just what is needed. Mr Prodi is proud that the expansion of the EU to the east happened on his watch. But he was a poor communicator who sometimes failed to grasp every detail of his dossiers, so the commission played a smaller role in decision-making under his presidency. His successor should not be a visionary: he ought rather to be able to run a complex bureaucracy and take up the challenge of reconnecting the European project to ordinary people.

As it happens, Mr Barroso has qualifications that could help him in these tasks. Although his party is called Social Democratic, it is on the centre-right, which not only corresponds to the majority in the European Parliament but also puts Mr Barroso in the EU's pro-free-market camp. His country gave birth to the Lisbon agenda of 2000, an attempt to push forward the process of economic reform and liberalisation across Europe. He has made a decent fist of running Portugal over the past two years, including an honest effort to observe the budget-deficit ceilings set by the euro area's stability and growth pact. By hosting the Azores summit of government leaders from America, Britain and Spain just before the Iraq war, he identified himself firmly in the EU's Atlanticist, pro-American group. And although he professes ritual belief in European integration, he is no fervent federalist.

Indeed, Mr Barroso's arrival ought to please those who want the commission to play a limited, more effective and more liberal role. The British will like this more than the French and Germans. But the trouble is that Mr Barroso may already have paid a price to secure reluctant Franco-German endorsement. The rumour mill in Brussels has it that he will acquiesce in their plans to give the German commissioner the new post of supremo in charge of economic reform in the EU, and to put the French commissioner in charge of competition policy.

Beholden to none

If he is wise, whatever understandings may have been cajoled out of him over agreeable dinners in Brussels, Mr Barroso will reject this plan. At a time when the broad goals for the EU are being set by national governments, the commission's key task is to police the system, which is a big challenge in an EU grown to embrace 25 countries. And who are the biggest offenders, the ones needing the most active policing? Why, France and Germany, whose leaders have most resisted economic reform and who have been openly touting “industrial policy”, the fostering of national champions, and more state aid and protection for their biggest companies.

Putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop can sometimes work in Brussels: a Frenchman, Pascal Lamy, has been a relatively liberal trade commissioner. But economic reform and competition policy are too crucial to the future of the EU for it to be safe to follow that example. Mr Barroso must resist the Franco-German stitch-up and insist on retaining for himself the last word, both over nominees to the commission and over the allocation of portfolios. If he fails to do that, his presidency will lack all credibility.

Editorial comments on the choice of José Manuel Barroso of Member State governments to be the next European Commission President, 29 June 2004.

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