European parliament shows its teeth

After a full day of negotiations and rumours, Neelie Kroes was approved by the European Parliament as the new European commissioner for the ‘digital agenda’ post on Wednesday night.

The tortuous process of her confirmation reflected a new balance of power existing in Brussels since the Treaty of Lisbon became effective last December. José Barroso, chairman of the European commission, will be facing a more powerful European parliament in the next five years. It has already appropriated the right to reject individual commissioners.

Cooperating with parliament is in Barroso’s own interest, since he will now be sharing power with the Belgian Herman Van Rompuy, who was recently appointed to the new post of permanent chairman of the European council.

One candidate not confirmed

The confirmation hearings for candidate European commissioners are held every five years and are the ideal moment for European parliamentarians to make their influence felt. The most recent one was wrapped up this week. One candidate commissioner, the Bulgarian Rumiana Jeleva, did not make it through the approval rounds.

Officially the parliament can only reject or approve the commission in its entirety, but the last two hearings have given rise to a right of custom: if a majority opposes a certain proposed commissioner his/her candidacy is no longer considered tenable. The debate in parliament was anything but easy in the last few weeks, which also has to do with a power shift. The commission’s Portuguese chairman, Barroso, Jerzy Buzek, the Polish chair of parliament and Van Rompuy are all members of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP). But the EPP does not have a majority in parliament. And nearly all the other parties opposed Jeleva’s candidacy.

For a second, Neelie Kroes’ confirmation was also up in the air. The member of the right wing Dutch liberal party VVD failed to satisfy the confirmation committee at her first hearing. After a second hearing on Tuesday, the committee finally confirmed her Wednesday night. She was one of the last candidates to be confirmed. One of the rumours that went around, explaining the slowness of the process, was that the EPP was considering giving her the Bulgarian candidate’s post.