Today's vote

C. Borg of Sliema asks: How will you vote in the election of the European Commission?

I will vote in favour of the new European Commission that will be led by the former Portuguese Prime Minister, José Barroso.

The vote will be taken this morning in the European Parliament meeting in Strasbourg. If approved, the new European Commission will take office on Monday for a term of five years.

For the first time, the Commission, which is the executive body of the EU, will include a Maltese national, Joe Borg, among its members. To put it in perspective, this job is roughly equivalent to being a minister for the whole of Europe.

We used to be told that Malta will never have its own commissioner and will only have two MEPs because it is too small. That time of the makku seems so long ago. But it is not. And I have missed the part where the prophets of doom admitted that they were wrong. They are keen on political accountability. But only when it applies to others.

The role and powers of the European Parliament have increased substantially over the years. But the election of the Commission remains one of the rare cases where the Parliament can truly assert maximum authority.

So muscle-flexing is evident, here in Strasbourg, where the European Parliament is glowing in the light of international media attention as it tells the Commission who is boss.

On its part, the European Commission requires a vote of confidence in Parliament before it takes office. Indeed, the Parliament may also pass a vote of censure, or no-confidence, and dismiss the entire Commission. This power was almost used in 1999 but was pre-empted by the resignation en-bloc of the entire executive which was then led by Jacques Santer.

Along the years, the European Parliament's authority over the Commission has been sharpened. For instance, 10 years ago a new rule was introduced enabling Parliament to first vote on the prospective President of the Commission before passing on to vote on the entire Commission. This increased the influence of Parliament in the choice of the President, particularly in terms of his political profile and his political programme as the head of the executive.

In the case of Prof. Barroso, this vote was taken last July and he carried the day with a majority of 413 votes out of a total of 732.

But the European Parliament has never been given the ultimate power of being able to block or remove individual commissioners. It has the power to vote on the whole Commission but not on individual commissioners.

So it must either take the whole package ... or leave it.

And despite not having this power, the European Parliament tried to move closer to it by organising sessions, known as hearings, with individual candidates for the post of commissioner. The objective of these hearings was to enable us parliamentarians to learn more about the candidates, their performance in public and their competence to take on the job. Hearings were conducted in different parliamentary committees according to the portfolio assigned to the commissioners-designate.

It is precisely this process that led to the controversy that we have witnessed over the past days.

Two candidates out of a total of 25 were "failed". These were the Italian nominee, Rocco Buttiglione, and the Hungarian Laszlo Kovacs. To his credit, Dr Borg performed very well, securing the unanimous approval of the fisheries committee.

Whereas Mr Kovacs was criticised for his lack of competence and aptitude for the job, Prof. Buttiglione, as we now know, was "failed" for other reasons.

I have already expressed my view that Prof. Buttiglione was unfairly assessed not on the basis of his competence but on the basis of his moral convictions as a Catholic. And we may agree or disagree with his religious convictions but we should certainly agree on his right to hold them.

And since Prof. Buttiglione may not be rejected individually the only option available for the European Parliament is to either accept the Commission with Prof. Buttiglione or take the kamikaze approach of rejecting the entire Commission.

This is the state of affairs that the European Parliament is facing today. A sorry state, if you ask me, because the rumpus created over Prof. Buttiglione was manufactured by some political groups in the European Parliament as a pretext to gain political mileage.

I support Prof. Barroso's Commission, Pro. Buttiglione and all, because it promises to take more action to deliver more economic growth and more jobs in Europe. And do so without neglecting the principle of solidarity whereby the EU commits itself to help its less advantaged members, including us, to catch up socially and economically with the others. Prof. Barroso also comes from the same political family - the European People's Party - to which I belong. And coming from Portugal, he has a special interest for small countries and the Mediterranean.

So I think that he should be given a fair chance.

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