Comments on: At last we have a European Commission

By: Daniel Oxley

Daniel Oxley — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:21:48 +0000

I can understand the frustration at the length of time taken to get the EU Commission in place; especially as there was no public voting involved but I do not share the impatience of others. A look at the backgrounds of the commissioners makes me wish that we had been left ungoverned for much longer.
Would it have really been so terrible if we had been spared the directives of Mr. Barroso who only left off being a Maoist in 1977 or the rulings of more orthodox, soviet-style communists such as Slim Kallas, Maros Sefcovoc, Stefan Fule, Andris Piebags, Janez Potocnik and the enthusiastically pro-soviet Joaquin Almunia, who opposed the desire of the Baltic States for political independence.
I would not have lost any sleep knowing that the EU was without Baroness Ashton. As far as I am aware she has not yet stated that she definitely did not accept donations to CND from the Soviet Union.
No reasonable person would worry that the Pope was a member of the Hitler Youth. He was very young at the time and he probably had very little say in his membership but many of these EU Commissioners were promoting totalitarian regimes as adults.

By: maryhoneyballmep

maryhoneyballmep — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:52:36 +0000

Jonathan, You are, of course, absolutely right about the Lisbon Treaty. Even so, it still took from 1 December to 9 February – a considerable amount of time. Much of the groundwork could, I think, have been done before 1 December so that we could have had a Commission in place before 2010.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:16:13 +0000

It took over eight months for a few reasons, but the primary issue was the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. Had the Commission been appointed before 1 December 2009, it would have been under the Nice Treaty and would have resulted in a reduction of Commissioners. Given that the Irish were promised a Commissioner per Member State, this would have caused problems.