How the jigsaw pieces slotted into place

Date: 15/07/1999

By Tim Jones

IN THE end, it looked a lot like last time. It is easy to forget in the wake of its embarrassing demise, but the European Commission team appointed nearly five years ago contained a prime minister, two foreign ministers, three party leaders, a top French civil servant and highly respected trade and competition chiefs.

On the face of it, incoming President Romano Prodi's line-up of incumbents, political retirees and two cabinet ministers is considerably less impressive and the political horse-trading leading up to its selection at least as sordid.

In fact, however, the process by which the post-scandal Commission was chosen did break new ground. The outcome is a more efficiently organised College where - for the most part - the president is playing to the strengths of his team.

There are obvious exceptions, such as the revival of the pointless research portfolio for Belgian Commissioner Philippe Busquin or the hastily redesigned four-man foreign policy squad, but this is still essentially the 'government' Prodi was after.

Prodi never once vetoed a candidate, but some of his preferences were heeded - itself a major advance on the faits accomplis handed to the two Jacques. The British Conservatives' invisible man Alastair Goodlad was dropped in favour of ex-Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten and Prodi's favoured second Italian, Mario Monti, won the day over Emma Bonino.

Prodi needed to pick a fight with German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder over his nominations, just to show willing to the European People's Party (EPP), but he knew he could not win. When Schröder's SPD was trounced by the opposition Christian Democrats in the Euro-elections on 13 June, Prodi tried to persuade the chancellor to nominate a Christian Democrat - but to no avail.

Schröder owed his diplomatic specialist Gönter Verheugen a job after he was pipped to the new EU intergovernmental foreign policy post by NATO chief Javier Solana.

Prodi backed down, but he was very worried. EPP leader Wilfried Martens had written to him warning that failure to balance the ticket could lead to a veto when the team comes before the European Parliament in September. Prodi began a search for a prominent Christian Democrat to sit as vice-president along-side British Socialist Neil Kinnock, whom he had already earmarked as his new eyes and ears in the Parliament.

In his dreams, recently defeated Belgian Premier Jean-Luc Dehaene would take the vice-presidency together with responsibility for pursuing the promised thorough-going reform of the Commission's internal workings. He was perfect: a heavyweight in every sense, trusted by big and small powers alike, and used to Byzantine politics.

But the delicate arithmetic of the new Belgian coalition made this impossible. Once Walloon Socialist leader Busquin made it clear that he wanted to be a Commissioner, a Commissioner he was going to be.

Prodi had to look elsewhere, and decided to kill two birds with one stone by appointing a Christian Democrat woman. At the same time, he abandoned all hope of getting more than five women on board, which ironically allowed the final pieces of his three-dimensional jigsaw to slot into place.

Discussions with the French Socialists' nominee Jack Lang were going badly. Prodi had earmarked the high-profile former culture minister for his new Citizen's Europe department, which would bring attractive policy areas such as sport and education under one roof.

But Lang, a man who never knowingly lets a television camera go by, wanted much more. His new department should be a ministere de l'intelligence, he said, including responsibility for the 13-billion euro research budget and large chunks of the information technology unit which Prodi had already assigned to a new enterprise/IT department.

Prodi invited Luxembourg MEP Viviane Reding to Brussels and quizzed her about her background in journalism and communications policy. With her in reserve, he decided to call Lang's bluff, and the latter withdrew from the race leaving Crédit Lyonnais executive and Delors' former chief of staff Pascal Lamy as the Socialists' man and Michel Barnier as President Jacques Chirac's favourite.

To even French amazement, Lamy was given the trade portfolio. Here, Prodi's decision was calculated: the appointment sent a strong signal to the Americans in the run-up to the Millennium Round of global trade talks that the EU would not be walked over, and increased the chances of French acceptance of an ultimate deal.

Right up until Wednesday night, Yves-Thibault de Silguy was still being promised he would either stay with his economics portfolio or take over trade. He first heard that Chirac had dropped him in Barnier's favour through Agence France Presse at Thursday lunchtime. With De Silguy gone, the way was clear for Spanish Socialist Pedro Solbes to take his job and, sans Lang, Reding was a shoo-in for education and Citizen's Europe.

But she was not big enough to take the Christian Democrat vice-presidency slot, so Prodi opted for Loyola de Palacio, a fierce politician with the added kudos of heading the victorious Spanish EPP list in the Euro-elections.

This meant another change of plan. De Palacio made much more sense as Prodi's vice-president for relations with the Parliament, while UK Premier Tony Blair was pressing for Kinnock to take charge of internal reform. De Palacio, like Kinnock before her, bought the idea but wanted a departmental portfolio to go with it.

By giving transport and energy to a Commissioner who is meant to be acting as the executive's chief whip in the Parliament, Prodi effectively downgraded the new double-barrelled dossier. Kinnock was happy to lose the Parliament job and take on internal reform, with 6,000 staff under his command.

There was still some unfinished business. With five women in the bag, there was no way in a million years Prodi was going to accept the outgoing Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard simply to keep her out of Danish domestic politics. He jetted off to Copenhagen and secured the nomination of Development Minister Poul Nielsen.

He was also having second thoughts about the appointment of Dutch Liberal Frits Bolkestein, the front runner to take over the competition portfolio from Karel van Miert. After taking advice, Prodi decided that the post required someone experienced, technocratic and with a quasi-judicial bent - in other words, one of the two incumbent Commissioners Erkki Liikanen or Monti.

After reflecting for an hour, the Finn opted for the new enterprise/information society portfolio and Monti found out he had been appointed to the Commission's most powerful job just hours before the press heard the news on Friday morning.

The literally last-minute juggling of names and portfolios underlines the difference between being a prime minister with a thumping parliamentary majority and a Commission president.

But, it has to be said, Prodi never was such a premier. Indeed, having dealt with the Olive Tree coalition and its Communist allies for two years, satisfying the competing desires of Schröder, Chirac and a newly frisky European People's Party was a doddle.