Reforming the Commission

Reforming the Commission

The convention on the future of Europe is exploring whether, and how, the Commission president could be elected, rather than appointed by the European Council. Such constitutional tinkering might improve the Commission’s image. However, it would do little to prepare the Commission to meet its real challenge: drafting and enforcing legislation in an enlarged EU. The Commission should consider reforms in two key internal areas. First, commissioners must provide stronger leadership to the Commission as a whole. And second, the Commission needs to become far more rigorous and transparent in upholding EU law.

Unlike national government ministers, commissioners come from different member-states and myriad political backgrounds. Indeed, most commissioners have never met each other before they take up their posts. Their lack of familiarity with the job means that commissioners are at a distinct disadvantage to the Commission’s permanent staff.

The Prodi Commission has attempted to tackle this problem by frequently re-shuffling the directors-general, the most senior Commission officials, to ensure that no individual becomes too powerful. However, the Commission must do more to ensure that commissioners drive the legislative agenda. The Commission should introduce a code of conduct which sets out the responsibilities and reporting requirements for senior staff. The existing staff rulebook only details pay and working conditions.

The Commission must also make a greater effort to ensure that its resources are targeted at the areas of greatest political importance. The Prodi Commission has successfully reduced the number of directorates-general from 42 to 35. However, there are still far too many different departments, and too many staff working in non-priority areas. For instance, DG Administration, the Commission’s own internal bureaucracy, is the largest single directorate-general, employing a total of 2,500 people. In contrast, the justice and home affairs department is struggling to meet Council demands for important new legislation with less than 200 staff. The Commission should adopt a much more radical programme of departmental mergers, to increase political control and improve the coherence of its policy-making. For instance, an enterprise directorate-general could oversee all business related matters, such as information technology and energy, which are at present contained in different directorates-general. The Commission could also free up resources, and make an important gesture to the principle of subsidiarity, by abolishing peripheral directorates-general such as the 600-strong DG for Education, Culture and Sport.

Such a reform programme would break the tradition that commissioners oversee their ‘own’ department. Instead, several commissioners should work together in one department – as ministers do in some member-state governments. Undoubtedly, one ‘senior’ commissioner would need to oversee the whole directorate-general – in line with President Prodi’s recent proposal for an inner-tier of senior commissioners to steer the Commission’s programme. Some ‘junior’ commissioners may object to their apparent loss of status. However, Prodi is right to argue that a Commission of 25 members would be far too unwieldy to function effectively without reform.

Finally, the Commission needs to improve its record at enforcing EU rules. Existing enforcement procedures are painfully slow and unevenly applied. Just one member-state, Greece, has ever had to pay a fine for failing to implement EU laws – and that case took 14 years to wind through the European Courts. Other even more long-standing breaches of EU law go unpunished: France, for instance, has still not implemented a directive protecting wild birds which dates back to the late 1970s. Such uneven enforcement causes resentment between member-states, and greatly damages the EU’s c redibility.

After enlargement, the Commission will face the even tougher job of monitoring enforcement in 25 different countries. The Commission needs to introduce a far more methodical approach. The Commission should set down clear guidelines, complete with a timetable on how it intends to deal with infringement cases. For instance, the Commission should endeavour to review member-state implementation of a new directive after six months, and launch infringement proceedings, if necessary, within a year.

The Commission should ask the member-states to amend the treaties to streamline the process for fining member-states for repeated breaches of EU law. At present, the Commission needs to win two cases in the European Court before a fine can be imposed on a member-state. In future the Commission should be able to impose a fine on the member-state after winning a first judgment in the Court. Member-states could still appeal and have the fine repaid. But such a mechanism would greatly reduce member-state foot-dragging in serious cases.

Alasdair Murray is director of the economics and social policy unit at the CER

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