Maroc - EURASIAREVIEW.COM - A la une - 30/Jul 00:35

How To Win EU Commission Posts And Influence The President – Analysis

The nomination process for the other 25 members of the next EU executive team has started. What makes an effective EU commissioner and who will be Poland's candidates? By Piotr Maciej Kaczynski Immediately after beingre-electedpresident of the European Commission on July 18, Ursula von der Leyen announced the nomination process for the remaining members of the next EU executive team would start this summer. For now, two women have already been confirmed: von der Leyen herself and Kaja Kallas, the new chief of European diplomacy. The selection process for the other 25 commissioners will continue into September. Being a member of the European Commission is the highest political position an EU politician can aspire to. Commissioners do not represent the country or government that appointed them. EU treaties are exceptionally strict and prohibit taking instructions from national governments, even informally. This is to ensure the full independence of the institution from the influential governments of member states, including the most powerful ones. “When you enter the European Commission as a member, you leave your national passport at the entrance. From now on, you are a European,” says a member of two cabinets of commissioners, including that of a former Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The European Commission is a college of 27 commissioners, with each member responsible for a specific area (similar to ministers in national governments). All commissioners also have political affiliations that often reflect a major political force of the country from which they hail, although they never represent it. An influential commissioner The qualities of a good commissioner are similar to those of any good politician. First and foremost, a commissioner must be effective. One measure of effectiveness is the level of influence a commissioner has. The past five years have seen a major centralisation of work in the European Commission around the president, von der Leyen. “We already had a strong system around the president under [Jean-Claude] Juncker and his brutal chief of staff, Martin Selmayr,” says the high-ranking Commission official, “but the last five years have seen far-reaching centralisation around President von der Leyen.” Hence today, the real influence lies with those who enjoy access to von der Leyen. A good commissioner must have excellent relations with her. There are three levels of access to von der Leyen, says University of Leuven professor Steven Van Hecke, who is a close observer of how the EU executive works. The first circle includes the so-called “executive vice-presidents”, who hold enormous power and influence. The second circle comprises those who have access to the president (e.g., commissioners Thierry Breton and Vera Jourova). And the third circle includes those with limited direct access to the president. Politician vs civil servant In what seems like the distant past – before 2009 – commissioners were then more often diplomats or high-ranking officials. In the outgoing von der Leyen team of commissioners there are only four commissioners who were not politicians in their career prior to joining. Three out of four are Central European commissioners: Maros Sefcovic (Slovakia), Janez Lenarcic (Slovenia) and Oliver Varhelyi (Hungary) were all previously their country’s ambassador to the EU. Despite those cases, since the Lisbon Treaty came into effect in 2009, the College of Commissioners has become increasingly politicised. Presidents have the power to dismiss members of the college and assign political tasks like prime ministers in national governments. “[Former president Jose Manuel] Barroso allowed commissioners to run in European elections,” says Professor Van Hecke. Dubravka Suica, Adina Valean and Virginijus Sinkevicius won seats in June’s European Parliament elections. Suica is the only one who did not switch the Commission for Parliament, as she hopes to continue in the next Commission. Nowadays, prior parliamentary experience is crucial for becoming a commissioner, as the relations between the European Commission and the European Parliament are very close. This parliamentary experience is especially important during hearings for commissioner candidates and in ongoing dialogues between commissioners and the parliament. Janusz Lewandowski (commissioner for budget, 2010-2014) had such experience when he was nominated, which he describes as being “very useful”. Parliamentary experience for future commissioners will be even more crucial given the divided nature of the next European Parliament, where the pro-Commission majority is reduced and diverse. In the coming years, the political affiliations of commissioners who can build appropriate right-wing or centrist majorities in the parliament could become very important. Lewandowski highlights two key elements for any future commissioner. Firstly, the basic knowledge of how the EU works is not enough. “Knowledge must be supplemented with European experience,” Lewandowski underlines in an interview with BIRN. The second element is even more important: “The candidate must know the informal rules of the game,” emphasises Lewandowski, now a re-elected MEP. These “informal rules” include knowledge of their portfolio and how the Commission functions. It is crucial to assemble an efficient commissioner’s cabinet. Lewandowski is credited as being one of the best commissioners to have come out of Poland. His task was to prepare the EU’s long-term budget. Lewandowski’s cabinet was led by a high-ranking European official, who is today an EU director-general, with Piotr Serafin, now Poland’s ambassador to the EU and Donald Tusk’s right-hand man in Polish EU politics, as his deputy head of cabinet. “The cabinet is key, which [Elzbieta] Bienkowska neglected,” says Lewandowski, referring to his replacement, who in the Commission of Jean-Claude Juncker (2014-19) was responsible for the internal market, but came to the Commission from domestic Polish politics. A commissioner’s cabinet is not the same as a national minister’s political advisory team. The quality of people in the cabinet is absolutely crucial for success. Members of a commissioner’s cabinet do not represent themselves but always the commissioner. Documents must pass through them before reaching commissioner meetings. “Sometimes, we have a 500-page document that arrives on Sunday evening, and we have to issue an opinion by Monday morning,” the high-ranking Commission official says. Communicating and returning commissioners “A good commissioner combines excellent communication skills with expertise in their areas of responsibility,” says Edouard Gaudot, a historian who worked in the European politics with past heavyweights like MEPs Bronislaw Geremek (Polish liberal MEP, 2004-8) and Daniel Cohn-Bendit (leader of the Greens, 2004-14) in the European Parliament and now teaches European politics at ESSEC in Paris. Among the basic tasks of a commissioner, he explains, is “upholding the spirit of the community”, since “the commissioner represents the people, not the governments”. Therefore, the commissioners need to be able to stand up to governments, especially their own, and not represent a national agenda but embody the European agenda. “The commissioner must have the ability to work in a European way for the European interest,” echoes the high-ranking Commission official. In this context, Gaudot cites Frans Timmermans as embodying a very good commissioner. “You could agree or disagree with him, but he embodied the cause, and no one accused him of representing a hidden Dutch agenda,” says Gaudot. He cites the current Hungarian commissioner as the worst example. “Oliver Varhelyi is primarily a Hungarian and does not understand enlargement,” is how he sums up his term in the European Commission. Another element of effectiveness is the re-election of a commissioner. Lewandowski emphasises the importance of returning commissioners: “Little Latvia has [Valdis] Dombrovskis, who is an executive vice-president precisely because he is serving another term in the Commission.” Sefcovic from Slovakia has been in the Commission continuously since 2009 and is poised for yet another term. During von der Leyen’s first term as president, there were three Central European commissioners serving at least a second term, and each of them can be ranked as being more influential than the majority of commissioners: Dombrovskis and Sefcovic are in the first circle of power; Vera Jourova is in the second with direct access to the Commission president. How to choose a commissioner According to EU law, the decision should be made by the member state government. It may involve the head of state or not. However, a smart national leader would nominate a candidate after having discussed their options with the Commission president, who will put together the college and allocate portfolios. Von der Leyen said she is looking to have the College of Commissioners balanced in terms of gender, party politics and geography. Von der Leyen has already announced that she will expect governments to present the candidacies of two people, a woman and a man, unless a government nominates a returning commissioner. It’s possible that the largest countries, as is their custom, will ignore the president’s wish and send only one candidate. This happened in Poland in 2019 when the previous Law and Justice government appointed only Krzysztof Szczerski. He was a candidate for commissioner, preferably for the EU enlargement and neighbourhood portfolio. However, von der Leyen snubbed the Warsaw government by proposing the agricultural dossier to Szczerski. He declined it and abandoned his commission ambitions. He is currently Poland’s ambassador to the UN in New York. Instead, Janusz Wojciechowski was brought out of political retirement from the European Court of Auditors. Once the national leader proposes someone to von der Leyen, and it will likely be a decision after portfolio consultations, the candidate faces a difficult path through hearings in the European Parliament that will take place from September. “This is the only democratic endorsement” in the entire process, which is why it is so important, says Gaudot, adding, “a good commissioner is a representative of the people in the executive branch.” Every five years, some candidates fail the hearings. In 2019, the Parliament rejected three candidates. Actually, Commissioner Varhelyi replaced another rejected Hungarian candidate, and Commissioner Wojciechowski had to seek additional positive hearing from MEPs. Pole position Poland’s current foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, has previously been mentioned as a potential commissioner. He denied the speculation, which arose when the idea of creating a security commissioner was first proposed. Poland’s next nominee will most likely not seek the defence portfolio. Sources close to the government suggest that the prime minister has not yet decided whether the next Polish commissioner should work in the political or economic area. If it was the political area, the primary area of interest is EU enlargement, which von der Leyen announced as one of the main priorities during her next five-year term. The next enlargement commissioner will have the challenging task of bringing several Western Balkan countries (Montenegro, as well as North Macedonia and Albania) into the EU, and most importantly, advancing the accession of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, so that their vision of membership becomes a reality in five years. If the economic theme prevails, the top area is energy and climate transformation. However, von der Leyen, while arranging the future European Commission, will also weigh political considerations. Politicians ensuring her majority in the European Parliament from the Social Democrats and Greens demand that Spanish socialist Teresa Ribera be responsible for implementing the Green Deal. On the other hand, Dutch conservative Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra wants to continue working on this issue. The choice of a commissioner also involves deciding whether it should be a politician or a high-ranking official. Speculation about Piotr Serafin’s potential candidacy for the commissioner position has been circulating for weeks. His former boss, Lewandowski, speaks highly of his former subordinate. Unlike many, Serafin has knowledge of the informal processes that govern the European Council (where he was Donald Tusk’s head of cabinet), the Council of the EU (he is Poland’s ambassador to the EU and worked in the Council of the EU secretariat), and the European Commission (he worked in Lewandowski’s cabinet). “But Piotr Serafin lacks political instinct,” says Lewandowski, “and that might prove problematic.” Another problem for the Polish prime minister could be losing Serafin’s advice, whose voice is crucial for many EU-related decisions of Tusk’s government. As an EU commissioner, these relationships cannot be as close as they have been. However, looking more broadly, there are other high-ranking candidates who are qualified. For example, in his book about his presidency in the European Council, Tusk mentions one Polish diplomat whose voice was important to him and who is currently in the government. Another person is a former minister of Tusk’s first governments, who has been pursuing an alternative career in one of the international organisations for many years. What alternatives does Tusk have if the commissioner profile were to be political? Foreign Minister Sikorski has already refused to move from Warsaw to Brussels. However, there is a whole group of Tusk’s party politicians who have passed through the European Parliament over the years, gaining the appropriate political finesse. If the next commissioner were to deal with the enlargement of the EU, there is no shortage of suitable specialists. One of them fits the required profile perfectly. Krzysztof Lisek is a long-serving member of the Sejm and the European Parliament (2009-14), who is currently the director of a US organisation in Chisinau. At the same time, he has an excellent knowledge of Ukrainian issues (he co-chaired the Polish-Ukrainian Parliamentary Assembly), and Moldovan and Georgian affairs (he received the highest Georgian decoration, the Order of St. George, being the second Pole after the late President Lech Kaczynski). The additional context of the US presidential election, where good contacts with Republicans could be significant, favours Lisek because he works at the International Republican Institute. One retired European official cynically remarked that “there are always many candidates, but the best one won’t be chosen,” because “to be nominated, you have to be deserving.” In this context, it is worth looking at whether Prime Minister Tusk is in debt to any of the candidates. Such a debt of gratitude could certainly exist towards Piotr Serafin, who has been a key figure in crucial moments of Poland’s EU membership many times. In the case of Lisek, such a debt of gratitude is different and concerns elections. For years, Lisek has been mobilising the Polish diaspora abroad to vote. He triggered a wave of activists scattered throughout Europe and the world who, concerned about the political turn in Poland during the previous nationalist-populist government, mobilised compatriots abroad to vote in elections. In 2015, only 175,000 people voted abroad; in 2019, over 310,000 voted; and in 2023, over 600,000 Poles cast their votes abroad. Krzysztof Lisek deserves much credit for these increases. Piotr Maciej Kaczyński is an expert at the Geremek Foundation in Warsaw. He has trained over 1,500 EU civil servants since 2014 as external trainer of the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA). The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of BIRN.