Examining the EU executive

By Oana Lungescu
BBC Brussels correspondent

Commissioners range from range from officials to former prime ministers

The UK's Peter Mandelson will be one of 24 European commissioners led by the new President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Durao Barroso.

Mr Barroso, the former prime minister of Portugal, has said he wants to assemble his team by 23 August at the latest.

So how are European commissioners chosen, to what extent do they represent their own countries and how important are they?

Mr Barroso will represent Portugal. All the other 24 EU countries must put forward their own appointments to Mr Barroso.

He says he wants "strong people with clear European convictions".

"I want my team to include, if possible, eight women out of 24," he said.

"I'm now asking the government to submit to me the proposals of competent women, so that we can have a better gender balance."

But there are limits to Mr Barroso's powers, who was himself appointed by his fellow EU leaders.

He will not be able to able to name eight women commissioners unless national governments actually nominate them, and only a few EU leaders have discussed several possible names with him.

On the same day that UK Prime Minister Tony Blair nominated Peter Mandelson, who held two ministerial posts but is currently just a member of parliament, the Czech government indicated it would support outgoing Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla as its new European Commissioner.

So on what grounds are the members of the EU executive chosen?

Checks and balances

Stephen Castle, Brussels correspondent of the UK daily newspaper The Independent, says it is a pretty extraordinary process.

"The prime minister of a country can nominate more or less who he wants to," he said.

"They range from officials, to politicians, to former prime ministers...there really is almost total patronage on behalf of the prime minister. There are of course a couple of checks and balances."

Although all commissioners are technically equal... some are actually more equal than others Stephen Castle

He said the nominations have to get the approval of the commission president, although in recent years there has not been a case of a commission president vetoing a candidate.

Secondly, they have to undergo a hearing in the European Parliament.

"Although the MEPs do not have the power to reject a specific commissioner, they can make life extremely awkward," says Mr Castle.

"So basically the choice is up to the prime ministers."

But that still leaves the commission president a little leverage.

"Each one will hold a portfolio.

"There are some portfolios in the economic sphere, like competition, like trade, like the internal market, which are extremely powerful and very much sought after," says Mr Castle.

"All the big governments want one of those positions. It is up to Barroso distribute these portfolios."

Appointments

Mr Barroso has already confirmed that he will not appoint a single "super-commissioner" in charge of economic policy as Germany and France had demanded.

But the biggest countries in the EU, which were entitled to two commissioners until the expansion of the EU, will want important portfolios in exchange and will therefore appoint high-calibre people to the EU executive.

Peter Mandelson will be the UK's commissioner

Germany has already reappointed the highly successful enlargement commissioner Guenter Verheugen, but demanded a broad economic portfolio for him.

France is also expected to reappoint Jacques Barrot, currently the commissioner in charge of regional policy, but would want him to take over competition or internal market.

That is the sort of job that the UK's Mr Mandelson, a former trade secretary, might also like.

All 25 European Commissioners must pledge to act in the interest of the EU, rather than that of their own country.

Heavyweights

But since they are all political appointees, can they lose their national colours overnight?

Mr Castle says commissioners are always lobbied by their member states.

"If they are to retain any sort of credibility, the commission has to have some form of independence and that will be one of the tasks of the new commission president, to prove that he's not in the pocket of the big member states," he says.

In effect, Mr Barroso has to square a circle. If he gives in to pressure from the big countries, he will inevitably weaken the European Commission.

But neither can he be successful without the support of the EU heavyweights.

But how important are the European Commissioners anyway? Mr Castle says it depends on what they do.

"The commissioner for competition is an extremely powerful person, who has the ability to affect the interest of global corporations, like Microsoft, not just those in the EU but those abroad."

Bonus

On the other hand, the commissioner for culture, media and sport, an area where the European Commission has very limited competence, is not a very comparably important figure.

"There is a huge range, people who are influential in domestic politics and by virtue of their portfolio in Brussels can exercise considerable power."

So Brussels politics is very different from national politics.

The EU operates by consensus among its 25 members rather than by confrontation between a ruling party or coalition and the opposition.

No one has a clear majority, while alliances between countries can change within the course of the same meeting, depending on the issue at stake.

There is some comfort for the 25 men and women who run the European Commission's 17,000 strong bureaucracy.

Each European commissioner gets a monthly salary of 18,000 euros (£12,000) before tax, plus family and representation allowances, as well as a limousine with two chauffeurs around the clock.