Barroso urges reshuffle of top EU officials [fr] [de]
Ahead of a confirmation vote in the European Parliament on 9 February, EU commissioners are being asked by their president, José Manuel Barroso, to make their cabinets more multinational and gender-balanced, an internal note seen by EurActiv reveals.
Background
Based on candidates submitted by each country, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso distributed portfolios within his new team, which will consist of 27 members, one for each member state (EurActiv 27/11/09).
Commissioners do not represent their countries. However, both in Eastern and Western Europe, the post continues to be seen as the most senior national position in the EU executive.
'Cabinets' are political bodies made up of the commissioners' closest confidants. They are chaired by a head of cabinet, and their positions are communicated externally by a spokesperson.
The new European Commission is expected to take office on 20 February, after the hearing of Kristalina Georgieva, the Bulgarian commissioner-designate and substitute for Rumiana Jeleva, who was forced to withdraw her candidacy following accusations of wrongdoing (EurActiv 20/01/09).
The internal note distributed by Barroso's services underlines that men outnumber women and many cabinets are too nationally-oriented, with an all-too-evident predominance of officials from the same country as the commissioner who selected them. Meanwhile the British, French and Portuguese are over-represented, especially among spokespersons.
Antonio Tajani (Industry; Italy), has five Italians and only three other nationals in his team. Karel De Gucht (Trade; Belgium), László Andor (Social Affairs; Hungary) John Dalli (Health; Malta) and Johannes Hahn (Regional Policy; Austria) have all picked half of their assistants from their own countries.
Barroso's cabinet itself looks pretty unbalanced in favour of Portuguese nationals. The Portuguese number six in a team which is so far composed of 14 members. The key positions, however, are not held by Portuguese.
A Norwegian national features in the cabinet of French Commissioner Michel Barnier (Internal Market), although Norway is not an EU member state. His name is underlined with exclamation marks in the Commission's internal document.
Heading for fresh row over spokespersons?
In total, the current list of cabinet members includes 22 Germans, 20 French people, 20 Brits, 14 Portuguese, 12 Italians, 11 Belgians, 10 Spaniards and so on. Bulgaria, Estonia and Latvia have just one representative each.
The balance is far from being representative of the EU population and the political weight of each member state, Commission sources said. Germans are heavily represented but they also are the most numerous in the EU.
The British and French are strongly represented, but other countries with large populations have fewer cabinet members. The Portuguese are a striking example of over-representation. The twelfth country by population, Portugal is fourth in terms of number of cabinet members.
The national unbalance is even more obvious among spokespersons. Seven spokespersons are British and another four come from Ireland. Germany, France, Spain and Portugal have two spokespersons each. The others have just one or no spokesperson at all.
The nationality of the spokespersons was a controversial issue during President Barroso's first mandate, when many countries protested against their under-representation in the service, a strategic external communication tool of the Commission. As a result, the spokespersons' service saw a number of reshuffles.
Gender unbalance
Of the officials who currently appear on the list of cabinet members, 112 are men and only 67 are women, according to an internal document circulating among commissioners.
While Barroso's cabinet is set to be composed of seven men and seven women, other cabinets are far from balanced. Oddly enough, the most disproportionate against women are those of female commissioners.
Neelie Kroes (Digital Agenda; The Netherlands) has so far chosen five men and just one woman. Androulla Vassiliou (Culture; Cyprus) has six men and two women in her team, while Viviane Reding (Justice; Luxembourg) has selected six men and two women.
Male commissioners do not fare much better. Antonio Tajani (Industry; Italy) has six men and two women in his team, while Janusz Lewandowski (Budget; Poland) has no women at all in his cabinet.
On the contrary, Joaquin Almunia (Competition; Spain) and Andris Piebalgs (Development; Latvia) count more women than men among their assistants.
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