The European Commission (EC) already has second class commissioners (¨EU divided by plan for ‘second-class’ commissioners¨ January 7, 2007). Given that candidates for EC commissioner are sent in by their governments and that their selection has everything to do with political connections and not based on merit, there is a great diversity of quality of the members of the EC.
Of course, that is not unusual, as the same selection criteria are used to choose the President of the EC, the President of the World Bank, the Secretary Generals of the United Nations (UN), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and most of the important US ambassadorships, amongst many other important positions.
It appears to be too much to ask to have positions filled on the basis of merit. A sad state of affairs!
Onésimo Alvarez-Moro
See article:
Splits have emerged at the heart of the European Union over whether some small countries should be given second-class membership of the club’s executive body in Brussels.
Günter Verheugen, the outspoken German EU commissioner, offended some colleagues when he suggested the European Commission should be split into senior and junior members.
Mr Verheugen argued that, at 27 members, the Commission has become too unwieldy and that some smaller member states should make do with junior jobs on the executive.
“It is better for a small member state to have a deputy commissioner in an important field than a commissioner who deals only with marginal topics,” he told German television last week.
Each EU member sends one commissioner to Brussels. The addition of Bulgaria and Romania to the club on January 1 means 27 jobs have to be found for them; work is starting to be spread very thinly.
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