Barroso I Commission
The Barroso I Commission is the name of the European Commission under President José Manuel Barroso , which began its work on November 22, 2004 for the period from 2004 to 2009. She succeeded the Prodi Commission . In addition to the President of the European Commission , up to December 31, 2006, there were 24 other commissioners. With the accession of Romania and Bulgaria on January 1, 2007, two more commissioners were added.
The now 27 commissioners included three former prime ministers , five former foreign ministers and three former finance ministers . With eight women in the college, almost a third, more women than ever before were represented in the commission.
On September 16, 2009, Barroso was re-elected for a second term with 382 of 718 valid votes. However, the renewal of the rest of the Commission was delayed until after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty . The Barroso II Commission took office on February 10, 2010.
Departments and Commissioners
- Political directions
The colors indicate the approximate political directions or membership of European political parties :
| direction | Number of commissioners |
|---|---|
| EPP (Christian Democratic / Conservative) | 9 |
| ELDR (liberal / centrist) | 11 |
| PES (social democratic) | 7th |
Personnel issue, appointment and election of the commission
In June 2004, the search for a majority capable successor for Commission President Romano Prodi entered the intensive phase in the European Union . Prodi was scheduled to leave office in October; he himself said on June 16 about a possible re-election: I am not ruling out that. The heads of state and government rule that out. And their decision is probably more important.
Council President Bertie Ahern has spent several weeks exploring the member states while traveling in order to get an impression of possible majorities or a consensus on the successor to Prodi in a small group ("confessional procedure") . The decision should be taken before the presidency of Ireland passes to the Netherlands on July 1st. At the council meeting on 17./18. June, however, no agreement was reached because the decision on the EU constitution had priority. According to Ahern, 9 candidates are said to have been in discussion, but recently only a few.
Various names have been circulating since the beginning of 2004, especially those of the heads of government Jan Peter Balkenende (Netherlands), Jean-Claude Juncker ( Luxembourg ), who canceled, Wolfgang Schüssel ( Austria ) and Guy Verhofstadt ( Belgium ) as well as French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier . French President Jacques Chirac , with the approval of German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder , proposed the Bavarian Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber , who however refused. Various proposals have also been made to nominate a leading politician from the south of the Union or from one of the acceding countries or one of the more experienced commissioners ( Chris Patten , Franz Fischler , Loyola de Palacio or Günter Verheugen ). However, the nomination of previous presidents had already shown that this was hardly an option. The European Council prefers a personality from among its members, but unlike the European Parliament, it does not necessarily have a "strong" personality.
After the EU summit , Spain brought the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy , Javier Solana , into play. Germany and France had already pushed the liberal Verhofstadt, the EPP, as the strongest group in the European Parliament, the then Foreign Commissioner Chris Patten . These proposals were considered tactical, on the one hand to facilitate the approval of the social democratic PES and on the other hand to pave the way for a member of the EPP. At the EU summit, neither of the two could win a majority.
A few days before the second Council meeting (special summit) on June 29, top politicians from Greece and the Portuguese Prime Minister José Manuel Barroso were brought into play. The latter seemed certain of the approval of the EPP Group in Parliament and that of other groups likely, but he was considered to be little experienced in EU politics. When he was nominated on June 29, the response was overwhelmingly positive. On July 22nd, Barroso was ratified by parliament.
The original distribution of the departments announced on August 13, 2004 met with broad approval and therefore initially strengthened Barroso's position. However, the questioning of the individual Commission candidates in the European Parliament turned out to be problematic, in particular there was sharp rejection of the Italian candidate Rocco Buttiglione by the social democratic and liberal groups. As a rejection of the commission in this composition was foreseeable, Barroso withdrew his proposal on October 27, before the vote and began to work on a new candidate proposal, which he submitted on November 4, 2004.
In the new commission, Rocco Buttiglione was replaced by the then Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini and the Latvian Ingrida Udre by the former Minister Andris Piebalgs . The Hungarian candidate László Kovács , originally intended for the energy department and who was not very convincing at the hearing before the European Parliament , was given the tax and customs department.
On November 18, 2004, Parliament confirmed the commission with 449 votes, a two-thirds majority. 149 MPs voted against the composition, 82 abstained.
Reforms of the Commission
With the enlargement of the EU to include Bulgaria and Romania in 2007, the commission increased from 25 to 27 commissioners. For this purpose, the consumer protection department was outsourced from the environmental department and the multilingualism department from the education department.
In addition, the Commission has been reshuffled a number of times during its tenure as Commissioners took up posts in their respective national governments. In March 2008, Márkos Kyprianoú became foreign minister of Cyprus, so that Androulla Vassiliou succeeded him as health commissioner. In May 2008 Franco Frattini became Italian Foreign Minister, his successor as Justice Commissioner was Jacques Barrot , who was succeeded by Antonio Tajani as Commissioner for Transport. In October 2008, Peter Mandelson took over the British Ministry of Commerce and was replaced by Catherine Ashton as Trade Commissioner.
Finally, in May 2009, Dalia Grybauskaitė was elected President of Lithuania. Her successor as finance commissioner was therefore from July 2009 Algirdas Šemeta .
In the final phase of the five-year mandate carried out further transformations of the Commission, as several commissioners in the 2009 European elections the European Parliament were elected and therefore gave up their office. This concerned the Polish regional policy commissioner Danuta Hübner , whose successor was Paweł Samecki from July 2009 , and the Belgian development commissioner Louis Michel , who was succeeded by Karel De Gucht . The Luxembourg Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding and the Bulgarian Consumer Protection Commissioner Meglena Kuneva , who had also won seats, gave up their parliamentary seats and declared that they would remain on the Commission. Finally, on October 1, 2009, the former ambassador of Slovakia to the EU, Maroš Šefčovič, succeeded Ján Figeľ, whose party left the government of Slovakia.
The last change of the Commission took place after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty on December 1, 2009, through which the office of Foreign Commissioner was to be merged with that of High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy . This amalgamation of the offices was formally only possible through the nomination of the new High Representative by the European Council and his confirmation by the European Parliament, which was not to take place until the Barroso II Commission was appointed in February 2010. In order to guarantee the new conditions from December 1, 2009, the previous Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton, who was appointed as High Representative by the European Council at the end of November according to the old procedure, swapped her portfolio with the previous Foreign Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner. Ashton was so until the appointment of the Barroso II Commission in personal union External Relations Commissioner and High Representative.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ EurActiv, June 30, 2009: Poland and Lithuania appoint replacement commissioners .
ECSC (1952–1967): Monnet | Mayer | Finet | Malvestiti | Del Bo
EEC (1958–1967): Hallstein I | Hallstein II
EURATOM (1958–1967): Armand | Deer | Chatenet
EG / EU (since 1967): Rey | Malfatti | Mansholt | Ortoli | Jenkins | Thorn | Delors I | Delors II | Delors III | Santer | Marín | Prodi | Barroso I | Barroso II | Juncker | von der Leyen
Joaquín Almunia | José Manuel Barroso | Jacques Barrot | Joseph Borġ | Stavros Dimas | Benita Ferrero-Waldner | Ján Figeľ (until October 2009) | Mariann Fischer Boel | Franco Frattini (until May 2008) | Dalia Grybauskaitė (until July 2009) | Danuta Hübner (until July 2009) | Siim Kallas | László Kovács | Neelie Kroes | Márkos Kyprianoú (until March 2008) | Peter Mandelson (until October 2008) | Louis Michel (until July 2009) | Andris Piebalgs | Janez Potočnik | Charlie McCreevy | Viviane Reding | Olli Rehn | Vladimír Špidla | Günter Verheugen | Margot Wallström
Additions:
Catherine Ashton (from October 2008) |
Karel De Gucht (from July 2009) |
Meglena Kunewa (from January 2007) |
Leonard Orban (from January 2007) |
Paweł Samecki (from July 2009) |
Maroš Šefčovič (from October 2009) |
Algirdas Šemeta (from July 2009) |
Antonio Tajani (from May 2008) |
Androulla Vassiliou (from March 2008)