European Commission
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The European Commission (formally the Commission of the European Communities) is the executive body of the European Union. Alongside the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, it is one of the three main institutions governing the Union.
Its primary roles are to propose and implement legislation, and to act as 'guardian of the treaties' which provide the legal basis for the EU. The role of the European Commission has many parallels with the executive body of a national government, but also differences (see below for details).
The Commission consists of 27 Commissioners, one from each member state of the EU supported by an administrative body of about 23,000 European civil servants divided into departments called Directorate-General. The term "the Commission" is generally used to refer both to the administrative body in its entirety, and to the team of Commissioners who lead it.
Unlike the Council of the European Union, the Commission is intended to be a body independent of member states. Commissioners are therefore not permitted to take instructions from the government of the country that appointed them, but are supposed to represent the interests of the citizens of the EU as a whole.
The Commission is headed by a President (currently José Manuel Durão Barroso). Its headquarters are located in Brussels, in a building known as the Berlaymont, and its working languages are English, French and German.
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[edit] Responsibilities of the Commission
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The Commission differs from other institutions in the EU system on account of its power of initiative. This means that only the Commission has the authority to initiate legislation in the areas known as the "first pillar". However, the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament are both able to formally request that the Commission legislate on a particular topic. In the areas that fall within the "second pillar" (foreign policy and defence) and "third pillar" (criminal law), the Commission shares the power of initiating legislation with the European Council.
The Commission also takes the role of guardian of the treaties, which includes taking responsibility for initiating infringement proceedings at the European Court of Justice against member states and others who it considers to have breached the EU treaties and other community law.
The Commission negotiates international trade agreements (in the World Trade Organization) and other international agreements on behalf of the EU. It closely cooperates in this with the Council of the European Union.
The Commission is responsible for adopting technical measures to implement legislation adopted by the Council and, in most cases, the Parliament. This legislation is subject to the approval of committees made up of representatives of member states. This process is sometimes known by the jargon term of comitology.
The Commission also regulates competition in the Union, vetting all mergers with Community-wide effects and initiating proceedings against companies which violate EU competition laws.
Finally, the Commission monitors member states' compliance with the Union's agreed Treaties and Directives, taking action against those in default.
[edit] Decision-making procedure
Individual commissioners take responsibility for advancing the work of European Commission in their areas of interest, but any key decisions are generally taken collectively by the Commission as a whole. To make this possible, there are regular meetings of all the Commissioners, which have two types of agenda items [1]:
- A-item is an item that is not controversial and can be passed without discussion
- B-item still needs discussion before being accepted
[edit] Appointment and makeup of the Commission
[edit] President
The Commission President is nominated by the European Council who is then officially elected by the European Parliament. The President is often a leading politician from a member-state. In selecting their nomination the European Council take into account the latest European Elections hence the recent swing to the centre-right has produced the current President, José Manuel Durão Barroso of the European People's Party.
[edit] Commissioners
The Commissioners are appointed by the member-states together with the President, who decides upon their portfolio. The Commission in its entirety then seeks the approval of the Parliament and the Council of Ministers (by qualified majority).
It should be noted however that although Commissioners are allocated between member-states they do not represent their states, instead they have to act in European interests. Normally a member-state will nominate someone of the same political party as that which forms the government of the day. There are exceptions such as Commissioner Burke (of Fine Gael) was nominated by Taoiseach Haughey (of Fianna Fáil), or where larger states had two seats, they oftern went to the two major parties such as in the United Kingdom. Partly due to the member-state selection procedure, only 8 of the current 27 Commissioners are women and no minorities have ever served on a Commission.
In addition to its role in approving a new Commission, the European Parliament has the power at any time to force the entire Commission to resign through a vote of no confidence. (This requires a vote that makes up at least two-thirds of those voting and a majority of the total membership of the Parliament. While it has never used this power, it threatened to use it against the Commission headed by Jacques Santer in 1999, with the result that the whole Commission resigned of its own accord).
[edit] Directorates-General
The Commission is divided into departments known as Directorates-General (DG) that can be likened to government ministries. The DGs cover either internal policies (e.g. the Directorate-General for Information Society and Media), external policies (e.g. the Directorate-General for External Relations) or internal services (e.g. the Directorate-General for Translation). Each Directorate-General is supervised by a senior civil servant known as the Director-General, who reports directly to the Commissioner or Commissioners responsible for that policy area. (Full list of DGs) According to figures published by the Commission 22,744 persons were employed by the Commission as officials and temporary agents in January 2007. Additionally 8,515 "external staff" (Contractual agents (CA), detached national experts (NED), young experts (JED) etc.) were employed. (Overview of official staff figures)
[edit] History
![The Delors Commission, considered the most successful commission[citation needed]](../../../upload/thumb/7/76/Delors3.jpg/250px-Delors3.jpg)
The Commission originated in the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community, which was established in 1951 under the terms of the Treaty Establishing the European Coal and Steel Community. In 1958 two further bodies were established under the terms of the Treaties of Rome. These were the Commission of the European Economic Community and the Commission of the European Atomic Energy Community. Finally, in 1967, these three bodies merged to form the Commission of the European Communities, established under the terms of the Merger Treaty. This is the body that continues to exist to this day though the Hallstein Commission (of the Economic Community) and is considered as the "direct ancestor" of the current commission.
Previously the larger states (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) were allocated an extra Commissioner however with enlargement (post-Prodi Commission). The latest members, Romania and Bulgaria, were allocated a Commissioner each according to Article 45 of the protocol to the Accession Treaty of Bulgaria and Romania:
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A national of each new Member State shall be appointed to the Commission as from the date of accession. The new Members of the Commission shall be appointed by the Council, acting by qualified majority and by common accord with the President of the Commission, after consulting the European Parliament(...).[1] |
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Under the proposed European Constitution the Commission size would have been reduced from 2014 with only two out of three member-states having the right to representation, with this representation being rotated equally between all states and a maximum of two Commissioners per state.
[edit] List of commissions
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European Coal and Steel Community
European Atomic Energy Community
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[edit] Criticism of the Commission
Many eurosceptics argue that the European Commission, its appointment and powers exemplify the alleged democratic deficit in the European Union. The European Commission is led by Commissioners who are proposed by national governments and approved by the European Parliament, rather than being directly elected by citizens. Although the Commission has no legislative power, it is the only body empowered to draft legislative proposals and has some executive responsibilities. According to the Commission's detractors this concentrates an unacceptable level of power in what is an unelected institution.
The alternative viewpoint on the Commission states that the policy areas in which it has power to initiate legislation are ill suited to an institution accountable to electoral pressures. In this respect the Commission has been compared with institutions such as independent Central Banks which deal with technical areas of policy that are of little electoral salience. In addition some defenders of the Commission point out that legislation must be approved by the Council in all areas (the ministers of member states) and the European Parliament in some areas before it can be adopted, thus the amount of legislation which is adopted in any one country without the approval of its government is limited.[2]
Outside of this general debate there has been specific criticism of the Commission over certain proposals: for instance the Proposed directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions or the European Political Parties Directive.
[edit] See also
- Institutions of the European Union
- President of the European Commission
- List of EU Commissioners by Nationality
- Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions, a legislative proposal which caused controversy over how much power the European Commission should have
- Democratic deficit in the European Union, an alleged EU failing which some commentators say is exemplified by the Commission
- Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development
[edit] External links
- European Commission ec.europa.eu - official website
- European NAvigator ena.lu - Multimedia website with historical information on the European Commission
- Welcome Europe welcomeurope.com - information on the EU funding from the Commission
- EU Observer euobserver.com - Union related news
- United for Peace of Pierce County ufppc.org - "European Commission moves right, causing 'despair in Paris"
- Berlaymonster berlaymonster.blogspot.com - blog from Commission officials
- A fistful of Euros fistfulofeuros.net - major blog on EU issues
| European Commissions |  |
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| Hallstein (1958), Rey (1967), Malfatti (1970), Mansholt (1972), Ortoli (1973), Jenkins (1977), Thorn (1981), Delors (1985), Santer (1995), Marín (1999), Prodi (1999), Barroso (2004) |
