An Irish Commissioner?

Lisbon would remove Ireland’s right to a permanent EU Commissioner: The Treaty proposes to reduce the number of EU Commissioners from the present 27 to 18 (Art.17.5 TEU). Ireland would therefore have no member on the Commission, the body which has the monopoly of proposing all EU laws, for one out of every three Commission terms. This means that for five years out of every fifteen, laws affecting all our lives would be put forward entirely by a committee of EU officials on which there would be no Irish voice. The Big EU States would lose their right to a permanent Commissioner also, but their size and political weight give them other means of exerting influence on this key body. As Dr Garret FitzGerald has emphasised over the years, having a fellow-national on the EU Commission is especially important for smaller Member States. Under the new arrangements the first step the Commission would take when proposing a new EU law would be to ensure that the Big States were in favour. The smaller States would be taken for granted. In the Convention on the Future of Europe which drew up the original EU Constitution, Europe Minister Dick Roche on behalf of the Irish Government sought to retain Ireland’s right to a permanent EU Commissioner, but he failed in the attempt.

Lisbon would deprive the Irish Government of its right to decide who Ireland’s Commissioner would be when it comes to our turn to be on the Commission: The Treaty provides that Ireland’s present right to “propose” a national Commissioner, and in effect to have that proposal accepted by the others if we are to accept their proposals (Art. 214 TEC), would be replaced by a right to make “suggestions” regarding a name, but with no guarantee that a particular suggestion would be accepted by the new President of the Commission, who would in future decide (Art.17.7 TEU). The Commission President would be decided first by the 27 Prime Ministers and Presidents, who would also adopt the list of Commissioners as a whole by qualified majority vote. If the Irish Government were to suggest someone as its EU Commissioner who had, for example, antagonised the government of some other Member State in the past, or who was regarded as not enthusiastic enough for further EU integration, it could be asked to suggest someone else as more acceptable. The Commission President could also ask a Commissioner to resign at any time, and can also reallocate their portfolios, just as a Taoiseach may do with his cabinet, so that the Commissioners would be fully under the control of the Commission President. The new Commission would in effect be an EU Government, with the Commission President having powers like a national Prime Minister, except that this government and this “Prime Minister”would not be elected by the citizens.

admin @ May 22, 2008