Politicians: Commission

Whether Commissioners are politicians or administrators is still a matter of dispute in some quarters. The Amsterdam Treaty pushed the indicator towards politics, and the new President, Romano Prodi, has expressed the view that all new Commissioners should have had experience as active politicians. The old Commission was due to expire at the end of 1999 but “resigned” en bloc (without leaving office) in March after the highly critical first report of the “Committee of Independent Experts” set up by the European Parliament. Consequently the new Commission, due to take office in January 2000, and took power on 17 September.

For business lawyers, the most important appointment is that for DG IV Competition, where the outgoing and successful Commissioner, Karel van Miert (Luxembourg) has now been replaced by Mario Monti (Italy) who was in charge of the Internal Market in the previous Commission. In view of the traditional tension between Competition, on the one hand, and Internal Market (DG XV) and Industry (DG III, now abolished), on the other, it will be interesting to see how Sig. Monti runs his new fiefdom. The Internal Market will now be headed by Frits Bolkestein. As the Commission is undergoing major structural alterations, all DG numbers above should be treated cautiously (or ignored) until the new administration has bedded down.