Lisbon lives on as Barroso earns early plaudits for his team

By Peter Chapman

Date: 02/09/04

GLOOM-mongers had predicted French and German "super commissioners" would be implanted to scupper the internal market, erect barricades to reform and merely promote industrial champions with head offices in Paris, Toulouse, Stuttgart, Munich or Berlin.

It's early days.

But a quick first glance at incoming European Commission President José Manuel Barroso's team appears to show that nothing could be further from the truth

A Dutch Competition Commissioner, Neelie Kroes, will referee mergers, state aid and cartels, with a rod of iron - or at least another hard metal, if she lives up to her old "nickel Neelie" moniker

A Latvian accountant, Ingrida Udre, takes over the customs and taxation dossiers, the latter issue bubbling away nicely thanks to an influx of new member states with low company taxes that are upsetting, among others, the French and Germans.

And Britain's Peter Mandelson is unlikely to turn his back on freer world commerce in his new job as trade commissioner

Admittedly, Günter Verheugen, the man Barroso picked as commissioner for enterprise and industry, is German, and, as vice-president of the EU executive, relatively powerful. But few see his nationality as a relevant factor - yet.

More important, says Malcolm Harbour, the British Tory coordinating internal market issues for centre- right MEPs, is his reputation as a straightforward man who delivered on his promises when he helped EU enlargement to pass off without a hitch.

Crucially, the German will chair an influential group of commissioners devoted to competitiveness.

The group, whose other members aside from Mandelson are as yet unnamed, will try to develop a coherent Commission policy in crucial areas affecting the performance of the EU economy as a whole - from Helsinki to Athens

Some, such as the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), fear the likes of left-leaning Czech Commissioner Vladimir Spidla, in charge of employment and social affairs, could try to scupper business-friendly proposals

Nevertheless, Harbour says setting up the group of commissioners for competitiveness is a crucial step forward from Romano Prodi's Commission

Too often, he argues, Prodi's team lacked "joined-up thinking".

Individual commissioners have put forward proposals that would actually drain rather than boost the EU economy. A case in point, according to him, is the controversial REACH proposals on chemical testing

Barroso's plans to act as chairman of a group spearheading the so-called Lisbon reforms - aiming to catapult Europe to the top of the world's economic league by 2010 - is also seen by bodies such as EU employers' organization UNICE and the CBI as proof that the Portuguese means business

Although he is sceptical about the timing, Barroso is anxious to badger member states into greasing the wheels of economic growth and getting rid of rigidities in labour markets that make it harder for Europeans, young and old, to get a job

In an interesting innovation, Verheugen will also take on board some of current Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein's dossier: free movement of goods.

Ireland's outgoing finance minister Charlie McCreevy will be responsible for the rest of the internal market - namely services, including financial products - and the free movement of capital.

Lawyers say the two commissioners' dossiers are clearly distinct and that conflicts are unlikely

The market for goods is relatively trouble-free. Furthermore, it makes sense to cluster goods with the issues surrounding the firms that make them, the lawyers say

And with tax and customs - currently under Bolkestein's remit - also farmed-out to Udre, experts reckon McCreevy, another accountant, will be able to focus all his attention on services

This is an area where member states have been very reluctant to get rid of barriers - but which many hold to be the linchpin of the whole Lisbon process

The first challenge will be to shepherd-through a draft directive on services that calls for the acceptance of a "mutual recognition" and "country of origin" approach that would free-up 50% of the service sector. The stakes are huge - and so is some member states' resistance - as this accounts for 70% of EU income.

Perhaps McCreevy will have the toughest job of all pressing for reforms that could eventually open up hundreds of cosseted national markets, from office cleaning to funerals.

The Dutch presidency this week promised to do its best to push forward the services directive, as well as other troublesome legislation intended to make it easier to conduct pan-EU sales promotions.

However, many MEPs and trade union groups, fearing job losses in local municipalities, fiercely oppose the services blueprint.

Elements of the law, such as a move to make it easier to cross borders to obtain health care, are also proving a hard sell in the Council of Ministers.

But few doubt Charlie McCreevy's commitment to reforms

He once told European Voice: "If we don't meet the Lisbon targets then we will be hung out with the washing." Quite

Article discusses the prospects of the designated Barroso Commission to implement the Lisbon Strategy.