Barroso shows tenacity as he canvasses for majority to hold job

JOSE MANUEL BARROSO put in a gruelling week trying to convince members of the European Parliament to vote for him this Wednesday, allowing him to retain his job as commission president for another five years.

He has the backing of all the member states, though there are doubts about some countries, including France. It’s up to the member states to propose the commission president but he needs the backing of a majority of MEPs.

Like or dislike the former Portuguese prime minister, he is tenacious.

He has managed to get the member states to support him before they had time to even consider anybody else for the job; he achieved this despite nobody being quite sure what rules should apply given that the Lisbon Treaty may come into force before countries nominate their new commissioners; and now he has succeeded in getting the Parliament to vote on his retaining his job.

His critics say he has spent the past five years campaigning to retain his job for a second term, mainly by trying to keep big member states happy and, as a result, the work of looking after the interests of Europe Inc has been sidelined somewhat.

His none too subtle determination to keep his job has resulted in a series of near humiliating job interviews, first with the leaders of the member states as they pretended they were not going to be a push-over in conceding to his wishes, and now with the political groups in the Parliament.

Early on he won the support of his political family, the centre right European People’s party, which is the largest in the Parliament with 265 seats.

He can also count on the 84 members of the Liberal group and most of the 54 in the Conservative and Reformists group that includes the British Tories. However, this brings him only two thirds of the way towards the majority of 369 votes that he needs.

So he was making a pitch for the Socialists and even the Greens in his meetings with them.

The only hearing open to the public was the Greens, led by the Franco-German MEP Danny Cohn-Bendit. Known as Danny the Red when he led the Paris university riots of 40 years ago, he was ringmaster at what was a circus, taunting and insulting Barroso about all and sundry including his hosting the pre-Iraq invasion as PM.

It reduced the Portuguese man to hinting that there were secrets he could not reveal just now behind his support for the war.

In his bid for stray votes from all the groups, he offered a little something to each of them such as testing draft legislation to see what it’s impact would be on workers and their lives, and promising a Commissioner for Fundamental Rights.

But without a strong Parliament to insist that these have a real effect, they could end up as just window dressing.

Occasionally commentators say a fundamental problem with the Parliament is that it is not structured along the lines of national parliaments with a party in power and others in opposition.

This is not strictly true, given that the Parliament’s groups reflect the parties in power in the member states, which currently makes the Socialists, the opposition. It will be up to them to ensure there is a balance over the next five years in the legislation that comes before the Parliament. But they could not agree a candidate and ensure there would be competition for the most important job in the union, commission president.

Having missed the opportunity to force greater debate on the commission’s role and agenda for the next five years, they need a rapid injection of leadership if they are to deliver for their constituents.