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Subject: European Union Basics (FAQ), Part4/8
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Summary: This file is part of an eight-part posting containing basic
 information about the European Union and other related or unrelated
 European political organisations. It is hoped to serve both as background
 information for those wishing to discuss European politics on the
 talk.politics.european-union newsgroup, and as a general reference for
 anyone concerned with politics in Europe.
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                                        EU Basics FAQ: The European Commission
                             [QUESTIONSABOUTEU]

General information

  The European Commission is the body with the formal and exclusive power to
  initiate all EU legislation, and which is supposed to represent the interest
  of the Union as a whole, both in the political processes within the EU as in
  negotiations with the outside world. This means that it must take no
  instruction from any of the member states' governments; it is accountable
  only to the European Parliament (as well as, as any EU institution, to the
  European Court). Also, it is the main body with a duty to look after correct
  implementation of the treaties and subsequent legislation.

  The Commission's members are nominated by their national governments and
  must be acceptable to all the government leaders of the member states. Small
  member states each have one Commissioner, while the larger ones (Germany,
  France, Italy, UK, Spain) each have two. That makes a total of 20
  Commissioners now.

  Generally, every Commission is more or less balanced in party affiliation
  (Britain always appoints a Tory and a Labour candidate, and   the Benelux
  countries used to see  to it that one of their Commissioners was a
  Socialist, one a Christian-Democrat and one a Liberal. This is, in fact, no
  longer the case (at present, for instance, there are two Christian-Democrats
  and one Socialist for the Benelux countries. In the previous Commission,
  this was the same, though with partly different members).

The Directorates-General of the Commission

  The Commission is a big organisation, whose tasks have been divided in
  different departments or Directorates-General on the one hand, and some
  supporting services on the other hand.

 DG I                   External Economic Relations

 DG IA                  External Political Relations

 DG II                  Economic and Financial Affairs

 DG III                 Industry

 DG IV                  Competition

 DG V                   Employment, Industrial Relations and Social Affairs

 DG VI                  Agriculture

 DG VII                 Transport

 DG VIII                Development

 DG IX                  Personnel and Administration

 DG X                   Information, Communication, Culture, Audiovisual

 DG XI                  Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection

 DG XII                 Science, Research and Development

 DG XIII                Telecommunications, Information Market and
                        Exploitation of Research

 DG XIV                 Fisheries

 DG XV                  Internal Market and Financial Services

 DG XVI                 Regional Policies

 DG XVII                Energy

 DG XVIII               Credit and Investments

 DG XIX                 Budgets

 DG XX                  Financial Control

 DG XXI                 Customs and Indirect Taxation

 DG XXII                Education, Training and Youth

 DG XXIII               Enterprise Policy, Distributive Trades, Tourism and
                        Cooperatives

 DG XXIV                Consumer Policy

 Services

     Secretariat-General of the Commission

     Forward Studies Unit

     Joint Research Centre

     Inspectorate-General

     Legal Service

     Spokesman's Service

     Joint Interpreting and Conference Service

     Statistical Office (EUROSTAT)

     Translation Service

     Informatics Directorate

     Security Office

     European Community Humanitarian Office

     Euratom Supply Agency

     Office for Official Publications of the European Communities

     Enlargement Task Force (TFE)

  It might be worth pointing out that the relationship between the Commission
  Members themselves and the staff of the European Commission is similar to
  that between Government ministers and the permanent civil service, in the
  sense that the former have no security of tenure, and inevitably with a
  different number of Commission Members and DGs their portfolios don't
  necessarily correspond directly to the DG structure.

Who is the President (chairman) of the European Commission?

  The function of President (or chair) of the Commission has undoubtedly
  become much more important in the last ten years. This has much to do with
  the personal style of the man who has held the job for the last ten years,
  the French socialist Jacques Delors, and the extension of the EU's powers
  during his presidency. Mr. Delors predecessors were mainly considered top
  civil servants, but the political profile of the function has become much
  stronger.

  These are the Commission presidents since the 1967 merger[1]:

 1967-1970              Mr Jean Rey (Liberal, BE)

 1970-1972              Mr Malfatti (Christian Democrat, IT)

 1972                   Mr Sicco Mansholt (Socialist, NL)

 1973-1976              Mr Frangois Ortoli (Gaullist, FR)

 1977-1980              Mr Roy Jenkins (Socialist [now LibDem], UK)

 1981-1984              Mr Gaston Thorn (Liberal, LU)

 1985-1994              Mr Jacques Delors (Socialist, FR)

 1995-2000              Mr Jacques Santer (Christian Democrat, LU)

  As Richard Corbett[2] writes,

      +A new Commission is chosen every five years in the months followin
    g the European parliamentary elections by a two-step procedure. In th
    e first step, the European Council[3] (Heads of Governments of Member
     States) choose a candidate for President of the Commission. This can
    didate must be chosen by consensus, which is sometimes hard to reach.
     The candidate is then presented to the European Parliament which tak
    es a vote on the candidate, by a simple majority of those voting. Thi
    s is formally a consultative vote, though it is hard to imagine a can
    didature proceeding any further should Parliament's vote be negative.


      In the second phase of the procedure, the Member States agree, afte
    r consulting the President-designate, on the remaining members of the
     Commission. The Commission as a whole then agrees itself on the allo
    cation of portfolios among the members and on its programme, which it
     presents to the European Parliament. The Commission may only take of
    fice if it then obtains a vote of confidence from the European Parlia
    ment (simple majority of those voting). Prior to the vote of confiden
    ce, Parliament organizes public hearings with each of the candidates
    who must appear before the parliamentary committee which corresponds
    to their prospective portfolios.;

  The EP approved Mr.Santer by a margin of only 22 votes on July 21st., 1994.
  After the EP organised hearings for all other prospective members of the
  Commission, the new Commission started work at the end of January, 1995.

Where can I find the European Commission on the net?

 EMAIL CONNECTIVITY

      NOTE: This section contains information that is no longer up-to-dat
    e. It will be updated in the next version of the FAQ

  Most people working at the European Commission should now be reachable
  though the Internet at the address <[email protected]>.
  The example of <[email protected]> is purely fictional because this
  address system applies only to the Commission's staff (civil servants),
  rather than the Commissioners (politicians). Indeed, rumour goes that the
  authors of the Bangemann Report (on the information society) used faxes (not
  e-mail) to exchange drafts and comments ;-)

  Some of the DG's have their own Internet domain as well, but their users
  should still be reachable under the scheme described above.

 DATABASES AND INFOSYSTEMS

  As of March 1995, the European Commission has set up its own general
  WorldWideWeb-server under the name of +Europa;, in addition to some specific
  WWW servers that had already been developed before. It was announced as
  follows:

      On 25 February 1995, during the +G7 Conference on the Information S
    ociety;, the European Commission introduced a new on-line database of
     information about the European Union, intended for the general publi
    c and known as +Europa;. The main function of Europa, which can be fo
    und on the World Wide Web with the URL http://www.cec.lu/[4]  is to p
    rovide information and guidance in clear everyday language on topics
    of interest to consumers within the single market. However, it also c
    ontains basic information about the European Institutions, and a coll
    ection of some of the more grotesque so-called +euro-myths; put about
     by eurosceptics, explaining how they arose and the reality behind th
    em. Initially, Europa will be available in English only, but the EC p
    lans to provide versions in other EU languages in due course.


  ___________________________________

                               Edited by Roland Siebelink & Bart Schelfhout[5]
                                          corrections and suggestions welcome.

  [Go to Table of Contents][6]

*** References from this document ***
[1] http://eubasics.allmansland.com/general.html#merger
[2] http://eubasics.allmansland.com/about.html#contr
[3] http://eubasics.allmansland.com/councils.html#eu-council
[4] http://www.cec.lu/
[5] mailto:[email protected]
[6] http://eubasics.allmansland.com/index.html

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