The European Commission. A leap forward, or a long march

The new Eurocrats are market-minded folk - but not everything suits Britain

WHEN the bureaucrats of a newly enlarged European Union jerk back into action after the torpor of summer, will they be able to inject some new zest into an enterprise which - to the rest of the world, anyway - looks tired and over-stretched?

Or to put the question another way, will an erstwhile Maoist who is now a market-minded reformer be the man to achieve Europe's long-awaited Great Leap Forward? The first signals sent by José Manuel Barroso - the Portuguese politician who will shortly take over the European Commission - seem encouraging for those who see deregulation and freer markets as the way to reinvigorate Europe.

Last week, he named a new commission in which four of the key economic posts - trade, competition, internal market and agriculture - went to card-carrying liberal reformers. People at the other end of the spectrum are nervous already. The outgoing French trade commissioner, Pascal Lamy, says the Union's policies could now be “more liberal, more Atlanticist”.

Worse still from his viewpoint, Mr Lamy believes the new trade commissioner, Britain's Peter Mandelson, could try to resurrect a free-trade zone with the United States - the so-called Transatlantic Market Place, which is backed by Britain's economic policy-makers, and hated by the French establishment in equal measure.

Tony Blair has already expressed his satisfaction with the Barroso team and their free-market credentials. The former Portuguese prime minister has also pleased Britain by pledging to make the EU's so-called Lisbon agenda of economic reform and modernisation a priority.

So much for the tactical British victory, which has also been underlined by the appointment to a top commission job of Ireland's tough ex-finance minister, Charlie McCreevy. But has there really been a setback for what might be called the “old European” axis of France and Germany?

In Berlin, Chancellor Gerhard Schroder has been full of smiles over the naming of his fellow Social Democrat, Gunter Verheugen, as commissioner for enterprise and industry; and the job description is the one Mr Verheugen himself said he wanted. But the appointment falls well short of Germany's ideal scenario: the naming of a “super-commissioner” for economics. Instead, Mr Verheugen will have a “co-ordinating role” among the other commissioners with an economic brief - but not the right to overrule them. Although he has been an effective promoter of the enlargement process, some see a certain irony in putting a German Social Democrat in charge of competitiveness: his home country has the third worst record for implementing internal-market legislation - beaten only by Greece and France, a nation whose belief in European integration is not always translated into practice.

The biggest loser from last week's appointments was France. It's former employment minister, Jacques Barrot, had to settle for his second-choice commission job - the transport portfolio. Mr Barroso sweetened the deal by making Mr Barrot a “vice-president”, but the title means little.

To what extent will Mr Barrot be able to swim against the liberalising tide? Under the heading of transport there are certainly some important areas where deregulation could be held up. For example, Mr Barrot will be handling some sensitive talks on the future of transatlantic aviation. But there is still a feeling in Brussels that on Mr Barroso's watch, France will no longer enjoy the huge influence that once seemed like an automatic entitlement for a prime mover in founding the Union.

But not everything is going Britain's way: there is one perverse manner in which the Barroso commission may embarrass the British government. While Mr Blair would prefer the commission to stay mum in the run-up to Britain's referendum on the EU's constitution, Mr Barroso has declared one of his priorities to be countering Euro-apathy - in other words, he wants more people to be told about what the Union does and why. Taken together with his pledge to put his team in Europe's “driving seat”, there is ample scope for Mr Barroso to upset those in London whose fondest wish is that the Brussels bureaucrats should neither be seen nor heard by anybody in Britain.

Feature looks at the new European Commission under José Manuel Barroso and his choice of portfolios for the new European Commissioners.

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