http://euobserver.com/9/22657
Verheugen the industry commissioner and a mighty figure within the Comissioners harshly critizised the officials of his own institution. He principally said the officials have gone out of controll and view the Commissioner as not much more than a "house occupator" that will change in a few years anyway, while they will stay.
The conflict arose out of the aim of Verheugen to substantially cut down EU regulations on the industry. After the project did not really take off, or only slowly he felt the need to make those comments in the public. Probably also to have an argument later on when he should not be able to reach what he promised (cut of 25% of the administration effort caused by the EU in the industry). Because than he could at least say he tried all he could but its the system. The bad thing is, he is not completely wrong with it. But either way, he stepped his own officials considerably ontot the toes.
Now the revenge took place. Out of the nowhere came photos showing Verheugen in Lithuania on a private journey with his own staff secretary hand in hand. His wife was not offended by this as it seems, but it throws a bad shadow on Verheugen as the person that he helds hand with has its post only thanks to Verheugens support. Even though it seems even critics say she is qualified for it, it smells like nepotism and after the Commission scandal around 10 years ago where a nepotism scandal brought the whole Commission to fall Brussels has become sensitive for cases like that.
The story goes so far that high quality papers like the FAZ (which has also a high competence on EU matters) speculated about Verheugens retreat from the Commission. In order to connect this new incidents with Verheugens attack on his own officials you dont have to be a conspiracy freak, he made himself very unpopular in Brussels and it seems he gets now the bill for that.
But what is this vague construct "EU commission"? If the Commissioners have only limited controll about it, who has it than? First of all its not that extreme. Of course Commissioners are not powerless puppets, but there is a secound factor, its the corps of officials and the general secretaries of them are the highest members of this corps. They are directly below the Commissioner and unlike him they stay where they are also after 5 years. Of course they hardly will dare to openly oppose the Commissioner, but its seems its not impossible that the Commissioner has not a full overview what is going on in his own ressort. And there are cases reported, where the officials interacted with the Parliament and the Council without the Commissioner being fully aware of the content, sometimes a different from what the Commissioner wanted at first.
So far for the undemocratic "officals state" like perspective. But reallity would not be reallity if it was so easy. The corps of officials (alone the commission has 15.000 or so) is if you want it that way the heart of Europe. They work and live for the EU, they dont really feel responsible for anyone else than the Union as a whole. And principally thats the very description of what the Commission principally should do. The Commissioners should be on the same line concerning that, but because they are normally deriving from mighty national positions they often do not completely loose the national perspective that should not have any place at their post principally. Nonetheless it sometimes does, and the officials are often the defender against those attempts of national influence taking on the Commission. (In fact that does work fine as long as you dont want to cut down the red tape like Verheugen tried to.) Another point might be important, while the Commissioners from time to time are pretty much as incapable as it can be, the officials are highly qualfied people, as only those can enter the service in the European Union who suceeds in the Recours, a tough qualifications test. As a matter of fact you have to be multilingual (3 languages or so) and have qualifications on the different fields you will need as official at the specific job.
Is the EU therefore a deeply undemocratic entity? Even if the EU commission should be that, you could not label the EU as such. The Commission is the executive and as such it has no legislative power, it only can initiate laws. What the Parliament and the Council make out of it is their job, they can turn it down or even make the opposite out of it. In case the Commission or its officials should violate European law, they can be sued at the European Court and also be fired.
Ok, so much said about it, what do you think?
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