Portugal gets one-tenth of cabinet jobs

By Tim King

Date: 18/11/04

WITH appointments to the cabinets of the European commissioners almost complete, the British and French dominate, but the Portuguese are not far behind.

Although there are far fewer Commission officials of Portuguese nationality than of French, British, German or Italian, the appointment of José Manuel Barroso to the presidency of the Commission has had a marked effect.

European Voice's own analysis shows that, of the roughly 200 officials appointed to be members of a Commission cabinet or spokespersons, 23 are French and 22 British. Just behind are the Germans with 20 posts and the Portuguese with 19.

The preponderance of French and Britons broadly matches their occurrence among the ranks of the Commission's administrators.

But whereas the Portuguese constitute 4% of the EU executive's administrators, they will take almost 10% of the jobs in commissioners' private offices and as spokespersons.

The meeting of the Commission on Tuesday (16 November) approved the appointment of Carlos Tavares, formerly Portugal's economics minister, to head the Commission's Group of Policy Advisors. The post has most recently been held by Ricardo Levi, who is heading back to Rome to help Romano Prodi, the departing president of the Commission, resume his career in Italian politics.

Also approved was the appointment of Willy Hélin, once spokesman for competition, later in charge of press relations at the Commission's delegation in Washington, to head its representation in Belgium.

The Commission appointed Zoltán Kazatsay as deputy director-general in the transport and energy department.

Article says that with the arrival of new European Commission President, Portuguese José Manuel Barroso, his compatriots have a relatively high share of posts in the cabinets of the new European commissioners.