Barroso explains his choices

Commission president says nominations were “excellent”.

José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, presented his new college of commissioners for the next five years, saying that it was “a perfect blend of experience and new thinking”.

“It is a college with a mix of talents, gender and political orientation,” he said. “I am confident that I have assigned the right jobs to the right people”

He said that it was anti-European to judge how individuals would perform based on their nationality, and disputed that any country should be dissatisfied with the portfolio it had been awarded.

Barroso said he had decided to rotate all the commissioners who had been renominated for another term lest they get “into a rut” or “a little bit bored” if they stayed in the same portfolio for two terms. He said that he had applied this rule across the board to avoid “misinterpretation” that a commissioner who was moved had not performed well.

All but one of the posts of vice-presidents had been assigned to returning commissioners, he pointed out. The exception was Maros Sefcovic, who only joined the Commission on 1 October, replacing Jan Figel’. He has been given the rank of vice-president, Barroso said, because he will be in charge of inter-institutional relations, dealing with the European Parliament and Council of Ministers.

The order of precedence of the vice-presidents will, Barroso said, be Viviane Reding, Joaquin Almunia, Siim Kallas, Neelie Kroes, Antonio Tajani and Sefcovic.

Praise

Questioned about individual appointments, Barroso said that he had decided to give Joaquín Almunia, Spain’s commissioner, the highly sought-after competition portfolio, because he had been “one of the best commissioners of the last five years”, and “very competent”.

He praised Günther Oettinger’s economic experience as minister-president of the German region of Baden-Württemberg. He said Oettinger had expressed an interest in the energy job that he was given. Pointing out that in 2004 no country had sought the portfolio of energy, Barroso said “this time there were six or seven” countries interested in the portfolio. He said the German commissioner would have to implement the internal market in energy.

He said that Janez Potočnik, Slovenia’s portfolio, was the right choice as environment commissioner as he “has a very direct interest in the field” and is “a very committed environmentalist”.

On Connie Hedegaard, who becomes the commissioner for climate action, Barroso said that she would have to continue international negotiations on climate change, a job she was now doing as Denmark’s climate and energy minister. “She will have the task of mainstreaming climate change in all sectors of our activity,” he said.

Barroso said that a question about Dacian Ciolos’s appointment was “an insult to a country and an insult to a person”. “We have a principle in Europe – it is the principle of non-discrimination,” he added. He said that Ciolos was “committed to a modern concept of agriculture, a modern concept of rural development”.

He said that Siim Kallas, currently the commissioner for audit, anti-fraud and administration, had been given the post of transport “because he asked for it”. Kallas, he said, had wanted an economic portfolio.

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