Read this and tell me the European Commission is unaccountable to our representatives

andrew

Link

Barroso makes last pitch to Parliament

On the eve of vote on his re-appointment as Commission president, Barroso confirms concessions and offers reassurances.

José Manuel Barroso today made a last attempt to secure the support of a convincing majority of members of the European Parliament for a second term as president of the European Commission.

During a three-hour debate in Strasbourg, Barroso sought to convince MEPs to back his political programme ahead of a vote on his re-appointment scheduled for tomorrow and offered a number of concessions and re-assurances to his critics on issues such as civil and labour rights.

Barroso went into the day in a strong position, with the assurance of the votes of roughly 350 of the 736 MEPs. Those include most of the 265 MEPs in the centre-right European People's Party group and the 54 members of the European Conservatives and Reformists.

Less certain was the support of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE). Barroso confirmed that he would agree to ALDE's demand to create a new seat in the college of commissioners, for a commissioner for justice, fundamental rights and civil liberties. He also said that there would be a commissioner for internal affairs and migration, including security. One of that commissioner's principal tasks would, he said, be to develop a common approach to migration, several of whose aims would be greater integration of legal migrants and efforts to curb illegal migration.

Barroso also responded to a call by ALDE's leader, Guy Verhofstadt, to fight for new independent financial resources for the EU's budget. He said that there should be a root-and-branch reform of the EU's budget on both the expenditure and revenue side. “The EU must have a more transparent and efficient way of financing its policies, and I am ready, with the support of this Parliament, to take this battle to the member states as we re-shape the Union's budget”, he said.

Before Barroso's presentation, most of ALDE's 84 members were expected to throw their backing behind Barroso and, after it, Verhofstadt welcomed the plan for a new commissioner for fundamental rights. However, Verhofstadt also said that ALDE's support for Barroso remained conditional on Barroso accepting more ambitious commitments, including a new economic recovery plan and a single financial-market regulator.

Barroso made an effort to reach out to the 184-member group of Socialist and Democrat (S&D) MEPs, emphasising his commitment to social cohesion. Responding to an S&D call for a directive on the posting of workers to be amended to prevent wages being undermined by the hiring of other EU workers, Barroso said he was “committed to fighting social dumping in Europe, whatever form it takes”. A number of court rulings relating to the directive have upheld the principle of free movement of workers. He said that the problems with the directive concerned “interpretation and implementation” and that the best way to address this was through a new regulation. He said that he was willing to amend the directive if shortcomings were found, but argued that a regulation would give more legal certainty than a revision of the directive and would produce improvements more rapidly.

Barroso responded to the S&D's group's calls for a social-impact assessment of all new legislation by pledging to assess the impact of a new proposal on the directive on European workers' working time. He also said he is prepared to work with the European Parliament on a framework for public services, a demand made by the S&D group.

The group's leader, Martin Schulz, made clear, though, that the group remained unwilling to support Barroso, saying: “We need a real change of direction in the EU.”

It remains possible that the group will abstain. It will decide on that option this evening.

Another sizable group, the Greens/European Free Alliance, has already said it will not support Barroso. Dany Cohen-Bendit, its joint leader, said it did not support Barroso because he was “locked in an ideology” that had been responsible for the financial and economic crisis.

A lot of posters here talk about the EU as if it's some sort of un-democratic hegemony. Here's a good example of just how democratic it is, and a picture of what the president does; what do you think? Given the president merely carries out the will of the Parliment, do people still fear a unelected President? Why?

andrew

In before 'the European Commission is unaccountable to our representatives.'

turgon

Theres an extremely solid rationale for not exposing Commisioners to democratic election. This is specifically to do with the fact that they are supposed to act in the EU's interests, not those of thei home country. If they were elected at home they would merely play towards the electorate. And not even the whole electorate - only a sufficient section of it that they will need to be re-elected.

Of course such reasoning never makes headway with those who ideally think from the outset that the Commission should be elected. Idealism oven crushes realism.