European Commission

The European Commission was created by the 1967 Merger Treaty, replacing the 'High Authorities' that administered the ECSC, EURATOM and the early EEC.

The European Commission is sometimes called the civil service of the EU, but it is also sometimes called the government of the EU. This seemingly paradoxical situation stems from the unusual position the commission occupies in the EU system of government. The powers of the commission have been steadily increased by the new treaties adopted since 1987.

The European Commission comprises 27 commissioners, one of whom is the president of the commission and five of whom are vice presidents. Until the accession of the Barroso commission, the five large member states - Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain - nominated two members each, and the other member states nominated one member each. Since November 2004, every member state has had one commissioner. The allocation of the presidential and vice presidential roles are matters of political negotiation between member states.

While commissioners are appointed by member states' governments, they are not national delegates, owing their loyalty rather to the EU and the promotion of its interests as a whole. Although commissioners (and the president and vice presidents) are nominated by member states, their appointments are subject to ratification by the European parliament. Commissioners are appointed for a five-year period.

Each commissioner is responsible for one or more areas of policy within the EU - and heads one or more civil service departments, called 'directorates general (DGs)'. The DGs and the various specialist services and units are based in Brussels and Luxembourg, and have responsibility for implementing common policies and general administration in specific areas.

The commissioners' position in relation to the DGs is not precisely parallel to that of UK ministers in relation to civil service departments. Their positions are somewhere between that of a minister and a permanent secretary: while they are the principal EU spokespersons in their areas of responsibility, commissioners are not parallel to ministers because (as is explained below) they do not have decision-making powers, which are reserved to the Council of Ministers and the European parliament.

Each commissioner is assisted by a small personal cabinet of advisers and experts, in addition to the DG's permanent bureaucracies.

It is important to note that the DGs are significantly smaller than their domestic counterparts - overall, the commission employs fewer civil servants (around 25,000) than many UK government departments.

The current composition of the European Commission is as follows:

José Manuel Durão Barroso (Portugal) - President of the European Commission

Margot Wallstöm (Sweden) - Vice president of the European Commission and commissioner for institutional relations and communication strategy

Günter Verheugen (Germany) - Vice president of the European Commission and commissioner for enterprise and industry

Jacques Barrot (France) - Vice president of the European Commission and commissioner for transport

Siim Kallas (Estonia) - Vice president of the European Commission and commissioner for administrative affairs, audit and anti-fraud

Franco Frattini (Italy) - Vice president of the European Commission and commissioner for justice, freedom and security

Viviane Reading (Luxembourg) - Commissioner for information, society and media

Stavros Dimas (Greece) - Commissioner for environment

Joaquin Almunia (Spain) - Commissioner for economic and monetary affairs

Danuta Hübner (Poland) - Commissioner for regional policy

Joe Borg (Malta) - Commissioner for fisheries and maritime affairs

Dalia Grybauskaite (Lithuania) - Commissioner for financial programming and budget

Janez Potocnik (Slovenia) - Commissioner for science and research

Jan Figel (Slovakia) - Commissioner for education, training, culture and multilingualism

Markos Kyprianou (Cyprus) - Commissioner for health

Olli Rehn (Finland) - Commissioner for enlargement

Louis Michel (Belgium) - Commissioner for development and humanitarian aid

Andris Piebalgs (Latvia) - Commissioner for energy

Neelie Kroes (The Netherlands) - Commissioner for competition

Mariann Fischer Boel (Denmark) - Commissioner for agriculture and rural development

Benita Ferrero-Waldner (Austria) - Commissioner for external relations and European neighbourhood policy

Charlie McCreevy (Ireland) - Commissioner for internal market and services

Vladimir Spidla (Czech Republic) - Commissioner for employment, social affairs and equal Opportunities

Peter Mandelson (United Kingdom) - Commissioner for trade

Laszlo Kovacs (Hungary) - Commissioner for taxation and customs union

Meglena Kuneva (Bulgaria) - Commissioner for consumer protection

Leonard Orban (Romania) - Commissioner for multilingualism

The European Commission performs a number of critical functions within the EU.

1. The commission has a monopoly on the power of initiation of legislation and other policy proposals within the majority of areas of EU action.
2. The commission exercises executive functions, implementing the legislation agreed by the other institutions, and delegating powers to make rules covering the details of legislation.
3. The commission is the 'guardian of the treaties' and ensures that they are observed by member states and other bodies subject to them, initiating remedial action where breaches are committed. One particularly important aspect of this role is the enforcement of competition and single market rules.
4. The commission manages the EU's annual budget and administers the funding of the EU's spending programmes.
5. The commission negotiates on behalf of the EU and its member states in international trade talks.

It is, however, equally important to understand what the commission does not do.

1. The commission has no decision-making powers as such. EU legislation can only be made by the assent of the Council of Ministers (sometimes along with that of the European parliament). While the commission has the sole right to present proposals for legislation, it has extensive powers to intervene in the deliberations of the other institutions to promote agreement and is empowered to ignore and overrule suggestions put to it by the parliament, it ultimately has no law-making powers of its own.
2. The commission does not decide whether member states or other bodies are in breach of the treaties or other EU law. While it initiates 'failure to act' proceedings, the European courts deliver the rulings.

The Commission has no formal role in relation to Common Foreign and Security Policy, which is the prerogative of the Council of Ministers and the European Council.