MEPs welcome planned reforms

Date: 22/07/1999

By Gareth Harding

MEPS have welcomed Romano Prodi's package of measures for reforming the European Commission, but have warned of the difficulties the new team will face in delivering on its promises.

Members of all the assembly's major political groups this week heralded the proposed changes - and in particular the new code of conduct for Commissioners - as a step in the right direction.

"It is fantastic that within a matter of weeks, Prodi has pushed through ideas for reform which have been blocked for years," said newly elected British Liberal MEP Nicholas Clegg, who was a member of outgoing Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan's private office (cabinet) until last month's Euro-elections.

During his term as Commission president, Jacques Santer tried to shake up the way Commissioners appoint the members of their private offices, but ran into fierce opposition from within the institution. Similarly, attempts to ensure that senior posts were awarded on merit rather than nationality were often vehemently opposed by governments anxious to get their compatriots into top jobs.

Clegg said he hoped that Prodi would ensure that the Council of Ministers would not once again "claw back the tendency to put national flags on posts in the Commission".

Describing this reform as the incoming president's "most difficult task", the Liberal Euro MP called for an internal committee to be set up to assess the suitability of candidates for top posts.

A spokesman for the assembly's largest political group, the European People's Party, said Prodi's plans had been "well received" by MEPs and had confirmed the party's support for the former Italian premier earlier in the year.

Spanish MEP Iñigo Méndez de Vigo, the EPP's spokesman on institutional affairs, said the incoming president was "moving in the direction the European Parliament has called for over the last one and a half years".

The Socialists and Greens also praised the new Commission's reform agenda. "It is refreshing and encouraging to hear the sort of things we have heard," said a spokesman for the assembly's second largest group, while the rules requiring Commissioners' private offices to be smaller and more multinational were particularly welcomed by the newly enlarged Green Group. "Cabinets will be less prone to national lobbies now that they are no longer national fiefdoms," said one official.

However, some MEPs - led by former Commissioner Emma Bonino - claimed the proposed reforms would not tackle the root cause of public discontent with the Union. "What is lacking is a new vision of what Europe should stand for in the year 2000," she said.

Clegg also sounded a note of caution, warning of the dangers of too much power being concentrated in Prodi's hands. "It is right that he has taken the reins of power, but this should not mean that the Commission as a collective body should become a rubber-stamping operation under the command of the president," he said.

Many MEPs also stressed the need for more reforms once the contents of the independent committee of 'wise men's' second report were known. That report, which is expected to recommend a radical shake-up in the Commission's administrative culture, is due out in September.

But there is growing pressure for the committee to produce an interim report before parliamentary hearings for the Commissioners-designate begin at the end of August. "If we do not get the report, we will not be able to continue with the hearings," said newly elected Parliament President Nicole Fontaine.