The new (nominees) for the European Commission

President Barroso has announced his new commission (who will be subject to approval by the European Parliament).

The Commissioner-designate for the Environment is Janez Potocnik (Slovenia), who was Commissioner for Research in the last Commission, the new DG ‘Climate Action’ nominee is Connie Hedegaard from Denmark.

The third document linked below explains the new DG Climate Action:
“DG Climate Action (to be set up before Summer 2010): core of DG Climate Action will be the existing Directorate C of DG Environment (ENV) except the Clean Air Unit ENV C.3 that will remain in DG Environment.”

Here are the changes to DG Environment:
“Changes for DG ENV: – The Climate Directorate ENV C moves from DG ENV to the new DG for Climate Action (except the Clean Air Unit C.3); – The Civil Protection Units ENV A.3. and ENV A.4 move from DG ENV to DG Humanitarian Aid (ECHO); – The Biotechnology, Pesticides and Health Unit ENV D.4 moves from DG ENV to DG Health and Consumers (SANCO).”

The press release is here:
http://ec.europa.eu/commission_designate_2009-2014/pdf/press_release_barroso_team_en.pdf

Photos linked to brief CVs [NB: this page has since vanished; it may return...]:
http://ec.europa.eu/commission_designate_2009-2014/index_en.htm

The detailed portfolios are here:
http://ec.europa.eu/commission_designate_2009-2014/pdf/portfolio_table_barroso_en.pdf

Barroso wins the Parliament’s vote – though without great enthusiasm

The European Parliament has today voted for Barroso to be the Commission president – 382 MEPs voted for him, 219 against and 117 abstained – which was enough to give him the job, but clearly also shows a considerable level of opposition, reflected by the quotes in this BBC story.

The next step in creating a new line-up of European Commissioners is on hold until after the Irish vote again on the LIsbon treaty on 2nd October. At some point after this vote (whatever the outcome), Barroso will start to put together the team of 26 other Commissioners, using the people nominated by EU governments. The European Parliament will then get a chance to question and vote on these nominees.

Barroso approaches his big Parliament vote tomorrow

Tomorrow (Wednesday 16th) the European Parliament will vote on whether to give the Commission president José Manuel Barroso a second term. EU governments have already supported him, but some political groups in the Parliament – notably the Greens – have been rather less keen. There’s no obvious alternative candidate though….

As part of his campaign for the job, Barroso has unveiled his own five year plan (covered by Euractiv here) for the European Commission.

The plan contains some general statements about climate change and sustainability, e.g. “We need to start working now on a radical pathway to reaching a far more sustainable Europe by 2020″, but the European Environment Bureau have criticised the narrow focus of his proposals in a letter to MEPs:

‘Despite being a subject of prime concern, the EEB warns that the sustainability issue moves far beyond that of climate change.

“If consumption patterns of people in all societies in the world would be at the same level of EU consumers, we would need almost three planets to provide the resources and neutralise the resulting pollution.” Wrote John Hontelez, Secretary General of the EEB, the largest federation of European environmental NGOs; “The EU requires a more holistic resource efficiency approach.’

Barroso himself took part in what sounds like quite a heated debate with the green group, as reported by EUObserver:

They should have sold tickets to this wrestling match, and offered popcorn and hot dogs in the committee room. The standing-room-only chamber in the European Parliament was filled with reporters, MEPs, their assistants and anyone who wanted to see that rarest of Brussels events – an out-and-out political brawl.

“Look, you’re already totally against me,” Mr Barroso responded. “I don’t understand that …The Greens are amongst the most pro-European of parties and there is a convergence between us on many questions: climate change, energy, fundamental rights …But even before this discussion, you have decided: ‘Stop Barroso!’”

German MEP Rebecca Harms, the co-president of the Green group alongside Mr Cohn-Bendit, reacted: “I’m sorry to say this, but whether you are a lame duck or not, this is an opinion which is not decided in three months, but a position that the public has already taken.”

There are even – at this late stage – proposals for alternative ‘fall back’ candidates, as reported by the Economist:

WITH a deliciously malicious sense of timing, the French daily, Le Monde, has lobbed a rock into the Brussels duckpond this morning, reporting that the French prime minister François Fillon would be prepared to step in as the centre-right candidate for boss of the European Commission, if the incumbent, José Manuel Barroso, cannot pull off a necessary vote of approval in the European Parliament.

Chemical industry lobbyists claim that they don’t lobby..

The European Chemical industry is represented by a lobbying organisation called CEFIC in Brussels. CEFIC employs more than 170 staff and claims a yearly budget of 37.9 million Euros. It’s a big operation, with a large office just a few minutes walk from DG Environment, the European Commission’s environment department.

CEFIC basically exists to lobby European institutions – yet, strangely it has declared on the new voluntary register of EU lobbyists that “its costs directly related to representing interests to EU institutions, in 2007, were less than 50,000 Euros“

Friends of the Earth Europe spotted this, and complained to the European Commission – and the Commission has now suspended CEFIC from the register for 8 weeks, due to their concerns about the registration:

“Following the submission of a complaint regarding an alleged violation of the code of conduct related to the information provided by CEFIC in the register of interest representatives, the Secretariat general has received some information from CEFIC which have led it to consider that the declaration of CEFIC may indeed raise problems as regards its estimation of expenditures which appears to be underestimated, therefore breaching rule N° 4 of the code of conduct.”

See the Friends of the Earth Europe press release for details.

I’ve had a lot of personal experience of CEFIC lobbying during my time working for Friends of the Earth and then WWF on the formulation of REACH, the EU’s new chemicals law. CEFIC do a lot of lobbying – and spend a lot of money on it….