COMMISSION ORGANISATION

The rumoured changes to the organisational structure of the EC Commission under President Prodi do not seem to be as extensive as was suggested. The most dramatic change (introduced on 29 September) is in nomenclature: Directorates General have lost their numbers and instead will be known by their names: thus DGIV will now be described as The Competition DG, but keeps the same organigram. Quite what benefit this brings is unclear. Presumably uninstructed non-professionals will cease to be confused by numerical acronyms, while professionals will waste ink, keystrokes and spoken syllables.

At the same time the DGs have been rearranged, but not significantly reduced in number (as press reports had indicated). The new DGs having a commercial law relevance are as follows: Economic & Financial Affairs; Enterprise; Competition; Employment & Social Affairs; Agriculture; Transport; Energy (this will be merged with Transport on 1 January 2000); Environment; Information Society; Internal Market; Taxation & Customs Union; Health & Consumer Protection; Justice & Home Affairs; External Relations; Trade; as well as the European Anti-Fraud Office (this latter is not a DG but a separate "service", better known under its acronym "OLAF").