Published in EUobserver, 8 January 2007
European Commission vice-president Günter Verheugen hit the headlines again last week, questioning the right of smaller EU states to nominate members of the Commission in future. The present Commission has one person from each country, large and small. Mr Verheugen comes, of course, from a large country.
There has to be a debate about the future size and shape of the Commission – the Nice treatystill in force specifies that now we have 27 member states, the next Commission has to have fewer than 27 Commissioners – and there is no agreement yet on how this is to be achieved. It is important that the European Commission as a whole takes an interest in how this issue is resolved: members of the College of Commissioners are perhaps in the best position of all to judge how the Commission works.
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