In his apparently harmonious reconciliation of competing interests for portfolio nominations in the European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker seems at first glance to have successfully conjured up a winning, acceptable formula. Even London, which gets an important banking brief, has reason to be satisfied.
It is no small feat, although there were grumblings that Germany might feel marginalised at being left out of his new vice-presidential line-up and at the “dangerous” appointment of France’s Pierre Moscovici to preside over economic affairs. Ireland may also have a few qualms at his tax brief. And, no doubt, MEPs who have yet to question and approve the team will also manage to find fault, if only to remind all that they are the real masters.
On the other hand, Dublin has every reason to be pleased with Phil Hogan’s appointment to the agriculture brief. Its €60 billion a year budget, a third of EU spending – albeit mostly earmarked, and not at the commissioner’s discretion – makes the job one of the the EU executive’s most important. And Mr Hogan’s central engagement in the US-EU trade talks will be of key strategic importance to Ireland.
What is likely to provoke more worry than the allocations of jobs is Juncker’s attempt to streamline the unwieldy Commission’s work by giving his six vice-presidents new co-ordination roles over particular policy areas run by their fellow “ordinary” commissioners. What is not clear is whether such roles will give them authority over such areas with plenty of potential for arguments, demarcation disputes and contradictory policies .
In disputes during the Nice Treaty debates about the reduction in the size of the Commission – by removing the automatic right of states to a commissioner – many warned that a commission of 28 would be unwieldy and inevitably morph, formally or informally, into a two-tier body run by two classes of commissioners. Is this that unfortunate beast? And there are other questions to be answered about how individual commissioners can possibly report to up to four supervising vice-presidents.
The new structure is, in some measure, Juncker’s way of finding high-profile posts for the five former prime ministers who join his team, a remarkable feature of this executive. The nomination of so many ex-PMs reflects to no small degree the significantly higher domestic political status of the Commission in the smaller countries which see its role in setting the agenda as central, particularly its role as defender of their rights. States like Britain and Germany tend to send middle-ranking political figures as their representatives.
The new composition should, however, give it added political weight, symbolically at least, in the inter-institutional tussles with member-state leaders in the Council. No bad thing.