Barroso Commission
As Barroso I, the European Commission is designated under the President José Manuel Barroso, which began work for the term 2004-2009 on 22 November 2004. In addition to the President of the European Commission its up to 31 December 2006 24 other commissioners. The accession of Romania and Bulgaria, two other commissioners were added on 1 January 2007.
Among the now 27 Commissioners were three former prime ministers, five former foreign minister and three former finance minister. With eight women in college, so almost one third as many women as never before represented in the Commission.
September 16, 2009 Barroso was re-elected with 382 out of 718 valid votes for a second term. However, the renewal of the rest of the Commission was delayed until after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. The Barroso II Commission began her official duties on 10 February 2010.
Departments and Commissioners
The colors indicate the approximate directions or political affiliation to European political parties:
Personnel issue, appointment and election of the Commission
In June 2004, the European Union went into the search for a majority capable successor to Commission President Romano Prodi in the intensive phase. Prodi should divorce as scheduled from office in October; he himself said on June 16 to a possible re-election: I do not exclude that. The Heads of State and Government of the close. And whose decision is arguably more important.
Council President Bertie Ahern explored already for several weeks when traveling to the member countries to give each small group ( " confessional " principle) an impression of possible majorities or a consensus to follow Prodi. The decision should take place before the transition of the Presidency of Ireland to the Netherlands on July 1. At the Council meeting on 17-18. June came, however still no agreement, because the decision on the EU Constitution had priority. According to Ahern 9 candidates have been talking, but last only a few.
Since the beginning of 2004 circulated various names, especially those of the Government of Jan Peter Balkenende (Netherlands ), Jean -Claude Juncker ( Luxembourg ), which, however, canceled, Wolfgang bowl ( Austria ) and Guy Verhofstadt (Belgium) and the French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier. French President Jacques Chirac struck with the consent of the German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in front of the Bavarian Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber, however, rejected this. Several occasions has also been proposed to nominate a leading politician from the south of the Union or of one of the candidate countries or one of the more experienced commissioners ( Chris Patten, Franz Fischler, Loyola de Palacio, or Günter Verheugen ). Even in the nomination of former President had shown, however, that this hardly comes into question. The European Council preferred a personality from its members, in contrast to the European Parliament but not necessarily a "strong" personality.
After the EU summit of Spain, the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, brought into play. Even before that Germany and France forced the Liberals Verhofstadt, the EPP as the strongest faction in the European Parliament the then External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten. These proposals were considered tactically, on the one hand to facilitate the social democratic SPE approval and also to prepare the way for a member of the EPP. At the EU summit neither a majority could unite itself.
A few days before the second council meeting ( special meeting ) on June 29, leaders from Greece and the Portuguese Prime Minister José Manuel Barroso were brought into play. The latter seemed the approval of the EPP Group in the Parliament sure and probably of other groups, but he was regarded as yet little experience in EU policy. When his nomination was made on 29 June, the echo but was overwhelmingly positive. On July 22, Barroso was confirmed by Parliament.
The on 13 August 2004 announced initial allocation of portfolios was met with wide approval and therefore initially strengthened the position Barroso. However, the survey of each Commission candidates in the European Parliament was problematic, and in particular there was a sharp rejection of the Italian candidate Rocco Buttiglione by the social democratic and liberal groups. A refusal by the Commission was foreseeable in this composition Barroso drew on 27 October before the vote his proposal and began to draw up a new candidate proposal, which he submitted on 4 November 2004.
In the new Commission Rocco Buttiglione were replaced by the then Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, and Latvia's Ingrida Udre by the former Minister Andris Piebalgs. The original for the Energy portfolio provided and at the hearing before the European Parliament unconvincing candidate Hungarian László Kovács received the departmental taxes and duties.
On 18 November 2004, the Parliament, the Commission confirmed with 449 votes, ie a two-thirds majority. 149 MPs voted against the composition, 82 abstained.
Transformations of the Commission
With the enlargement of the EU to include Bulgaria and Romania in 2007, the Commission was expanded from 25 to 27 commissioners. For this purpose, the consumer protection portfolio was spun off from the environment department and in charge of multilingualism from the education department.
In addition, the Commission was reorganized several times during her tenure as Commission members took positions in their respective national government. In March 2008, Minister of Foreign Affairs Markos Kyprianou from Cyprus, so that succeeded him, Androulla Vassiliou, the Commissioner for Health. In May 2008, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, his successor as justice commissioner Jacques Barrot was, the Antonio Tajani succeeded as Commissioner for Transport. In October 2008, Peter Mandelson took over the British Ministry of Economic Affairs and was replaced by Catherine Ashton as EU Trade Commissioner.
In May 2009, finally Dalia Grybauskaite was elected to the Lithuanian State President. Her successor as Financial Commissioner, therefore, was from July 2009 Algirdas Šemeta.
In the final phase of the five -year mandate made further transformations of the Commission, as several committee members were elected at the 2009 European elections to the European Parliament and therefore gave up their office. This concerned the Polish Commissioner for Regional Policy, Danuta Hübner, whose successor was from July 2009 Paweł Samecki, and the Belgian Development Commissioner Louis Michel, said Karel De Gucht succeeded. The Luxembourg Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding and the Bulgarian Consumer Commissioner Kuneva, who had also won seats, waived their parliamentary mandates, and announced his intention to remain in the Commission. Finally, the former Ambassador of Slovakia to the EU, Maroš Šefčovič occurred on 1 October 2009, the successor of Ján Figel ', whose party withdrew from the government of Slovakia.
A final conversion of the Commission finally took place after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty on 1 December 2009 by the Office of the Commissioner for External Relations should be combined with that of the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy. However, this merger of the offices was formally possible only by the nomination of the new High Representative by the European Council and its confirmation by the European Parliament, which should take place only with the appointment of the Barroso II Commission in February 2010. In order to still have to ensure the new conditions from 1 December 2009, replaced the former Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton, who had been appointed in late November under the old procedure by the European Council as High Representative, her portfolio with the previous External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero- Waldner. Ashton was so until the appointment of the Barroso II Commission staff in Union External Relations Commissioner and High Representative.