Fonctionnaires

While scouring the internet for a quote, I came upon this old Time article discussing the role of the European Commission and its president. It was written in 2004 as the last Commission, led by Prodi, was on its way out, and Barroso was about to be chosen.

The piece is quite critical of the ineffective Prodi Commission and wonders whether Barroso will go down in history as another Prodi, or another Delors. I wonder why they did not ask whether he would become another Santer.

Not that I think Barroso has turned out that bad, so far.

But the Barroso Commission has been largely ineffective and has only recently started to be marginally more effective than the Prodi Commission. The reasons for this have been predicted by Jacques Delors in this paragraph:

"It was a lot easier being Commission President when you had Mitterrand, Kohl and Andreotti pushing the Union from the capitals," sighs a top Prodi confidante.

Delors disagrees; after all, he had to contend with the doyenne of Euro-skeptics, Margaret Thatcher. He thinks his achievements had more to do with his approach than with the historical context. "The Commission should be of service to the governments and not try to be their equal," Delors says. "If [national leaders] don't question your loyalty, you can play the go-between and find solutions." If the President is unable to get a consensus among his team of commissioners, Delors says, the national governments tend to dismiss them as "a mere group of fonctionnaires."

In the first half of his term, Barroso has taken the lesson from Prodi over that from Delors. He has aggressively driven an agenda to 'cut red tape' that had the backing from the main European leaders, but which led to open confrontation among the team of Commissioners and between some Commissioners and the Commission's staff.

This could have easily been avoided if Barroso had slightly altered his focus to ensure that cutting red tape would streamline excessive regulation, but not cut effective protection of environmental standards, social standards, and so on. It would have been relatively simple to achieve consensus on that worthwhile project.

But the lack of consensus in the team of Commissioners and the often confrontational attitude of Barroso towards the European Parliament have meant that this Commission has largely been a collection of 'fonctionnaires', as predicted by Jacques Delors.

Barroso has about two years left to make up for this. He needs to build a stronger consensus in his team, and a stronger partnership with the European Parliament. These efforts should be centered around a new vision of less regulation, more effective protection and stronger enforcement.