MEPs want greater say over rights agency appointment

MEPs are demanding a meeting with the European Commission and the Council of Ministers to resolve a dispute over the appointment of a director of the new Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA).

The Parliament wants greater influence over the selection process and is demanding that it should have more than two candidates to interview. But Commission President José Manuel Barroso wrote to Hans-Gert Pöttering, Parliament’s president, insisting that MEPs accept the two candidates that the Commission submitted last month, following a selection process involving more than 100 candidates.

Barroso said that few applicants were suited to the job, which made a longer list impossible. "We would have risked recommending candidates who we do not see as fit for the job," says his letter dated 18 December.

The leaders of the Parliament’s political groups are to discuss their response to Barroso’s letter and, following a recommendation from the civil liberties committee, are expected to demand a trilogue with the Commission and the Council of Ministers. It is understood that they will accept the two candidates for interview because to refuse them would mean restarting the selection process, which would take up to six months. But MEPs will insist that the Commission submit a longer list of candidates for future appointments. The next big appointment could be the European Data Protection Supervisor, as the incumbent’s mandate runs out at the end of the year.

The Parliament will also demand that the Commission reveals how it selected the two candidates - who are Morten Kjærum, the director of the Danish Institute for Human Rights, and Italian national Dario Carminati, representative of the United Nations’ refugees agency in Angola.

The delay in appointing a director for the FRA is creating problems because the agency is currently advertising for positions on its scientific committee, which should be appointed by the director. The agency’s five-year programme has also been agreed without a director.

MEPs are demanding a meeting with the European Commission and the Council of Ministers to resolve a dispute over the appointment of a director of the new Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA).