Czech expert: EU agenda to expand but fewer EU Commissioners unlikely

The topic of EU reform is being discussed since as many as nine new countries, including Ukraine and Albania, want to join and the EU will need to be ready to accommodate them, while some say it is unsustainable for each country to have its own EU Commissioner. Czech expert Markéta Pitrová argues that such a move could mean some countries would lose influence.

One of the pieces of the reform puzzle may be a reduction in the number of members of the European Commission. In practice, the way it works so far is that each of the 27 countries has its own commissioner, but this may not be manageable with more countries.

“This idea has cycled back with each of the recent enlargements. Even during the current period it was claimed that it was impossible (to manage this many Commissioners), and lo and behold… does anyone dare to say that the current Commission is inefficient or otherwise criticise it in terms of its working methods?” argues Markéta Pitrová, an expert on the functioning of the EU from the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University in Brno.

However, the question arises whether this will be true in the future with more countries coming.

Pitrova thinks there will definitely be enough work. “The Union is expanding enormously in its influence and powers. For example, the digitalisation agenda, environmental protection or the home affairs agenda alone are growing at a tremendous rate and are of political importance,” the expert said.

Legally speaking, the EU Commission should already operate on the principle that a third of the countries do not have a commissioner for one term, and after five years there will be a rotation. However, the European Council has decided not to apply this rule.

At the same time, it has the option of applying the rotation rule by a unanimous decision. However, Pitrová believes that presidents and prime ministers will not take this step.

The expert believes that a model where the state is not represented (even temporarily) in the EU Commission would be “very uncomfortable” for the individual country. It would lose equality of representation, informal information and the network of national representatives in the Commission would be weakened.

(Ondřej Plevák | Euractiv.cz)