New year's resolution: sack some European commisioners?

With the appointment of a new European commission due in the early part of the new year, Brussels officials are bracing themselves for the return of a familiar debate: should there be super-commissioners? With 27 people around the table, the commission is not only an unwieldy institution but also one with wildly varied workloads. The Lisbon treaty was supposed to slim the size of the college but Ireland is pressing to keep one commissioner per member state as part of a package of concessions to help stage a second referendum in 2009. Hence the argument for strengthening big portfolios, perhaps by attaching to them a junior commissioner to whom lesser tasks could be delegated.

The problem is that, since all commissioners are equal, creating a hierarchy contravenes a fundamental principle. The commission president, José Manuel Barroso, has experimented with five "vice-presidents" of the European commission who have an enhanced status but no formal extra powers. The results have been less than impressive. The "first" vice-president is Margot Wallstrom of Sweden, who was supposed to help persuade the European public of the merits of the Lisbon treaty. Although she has a reputation as a good communicator, Wallstrom disappeared without trace when the Irish rejected the document in their referendum. In any case, every one of the vice-presidents has been outshone by Viviane Reding, commissioner for information society and media, who represents tiny Luxembourg.

This is an extract taken for Prospect's monthly Brussels Diary, by Manneken Pis, available in full to subscribers of the magazine.