Paris under fire over plan to boost big countries’ role in Commission

Date: 20/07/2000

By Simon Taylor

FRENCH European Affairs Minister Pierre Moscovici is calling for a more hierarchical European Commission with stronger powers for the president and a larger number of vice-presidents.

But France's stance has come under fire from smaller member states, which have accused Paris of using its EU presidency to pursue its own agenda by pushing for a bigger role for large countries in future Commission teams.

During a debate on the Intergovernmental Conference last week, Moscovici told the European Parliament's constitutional affairs committee that the Commission should be restricted in size to ensure that it continues to operate effectively when the Union takes in new countries. Paris wants to prevent the EU executive from expanding to 25 or 28 members after enlargement.

To ensure that the Commission is not gridlocked, Moscovici is also calling for the president's powers to be boosted by giving him or her the formal right to allocate dossiers among members of the team and request the resignation of an individual Commissioner if necessary. Paris also believes that the number of vice-presidents should be increased from two at present and that they should be given overall responsibility for entire policy areas such as foreign affairs or all issues affecting the internal market.

But diplomats from small member countries claim the French are using their position in the chair at the IGC talks to press for a Commission model which would favour their interests. "The French are being a bit cheeky in pushing their own agenda here because the conclusions of the Portuguese presidency was more in line with smaller countries' thinking," said one. "They are doing it because they know that at the end of the IGC we will end up with one Commissioner per member state."

Smaller EU countries, which traditionally see a strong Commission as the best way to protect their interests against the dominance of the larger member states, are concerned that they would be given minor dossiers in a Commission where vice-presidents had more weight.

President Romano Prodi repeated the Commission's view that the size of the executive should be limited during last week's discussion. He warned that if the principle of one member per country was followed, there would inevitably be more and less important dossiers. It would therefore be better, he argued, to rotate portfolios between member states to ensure that all countries were treated equally.

Attempts to put one vice-president in charge of an entire policy area and create a junior tier of Commissioners with more precisely defined dossiers failed when the current Commission was being selected. Prodi wanted to give one person responsibility for all the external relations dossiers, but was this was rejected by Germany, which was not prepared to see Enlargement Commissioner Gunter Verheugen relegated to a junior rank.

France has also tabled a series of questions for EU governments on the future make-up of the Commission, including whether there should be a limit on the maximum number of dossiers, whether there should be Commissioners without portfolios and what their jobs would be.

Discussions on the issue will continue at a special meeting next Monday (24 July).

French European Affairs Minister Pierre Moscovici is calling for a more hierarchical European Commission with stronger powers for the president and a larger number of vice-presidents.