John Laughland in The European Journal reports: A dozen top jobs are up for grabs in Brussels as Commission President José Manuel Barroso prepares to appoint new people at the head of the European Commission. The Germans feel that they are short-changed and that they do not get enough of these top posts. (The nationality of the commissars themselves is regulated by treaty; the same is not true for all the other jobs in the Brussels bureaucracy.)
Chancellor Merkel has made it clear that she wants this to change. For instance, she has told her colleagues that she wants the next General Director of the Environment Directorate to be a German. But the Germans have a funny way of going about it: two Germans have applied for the job, whereas the British and the French, when they want one of their nationals to get a post, generally support only one candidate who is in turn supported by all sides of the political spectrum. Not so the Germans, whose government is itself composed of two opposing parties in coalition for the time being but in fact both looking to the next elections in 2009.
Worse for this particular job, neither of the two German applicants has much experience in environmental policy. And worse still, the commissar, Stavros Dimas (Greece) does not want either of them. As a result, the Germans are convinced that their influence over the Commission is quite inadequate, particularly in comparison with … that of the British. This is in spite of the fact that no fewer than seven directors-general are Germans, more than any other member state.
The Germans argue that their jobs have little influence, however – even though the holders of them are paid 16,000 euros a month – since they involve things like humanitarian aid or research. At director level, there are 29 Germans against 39 Brits and 34 French. There are 24 Germans as political advisers in the cabinets of commissars but not in the important ones like energy, the economy and consumer protection. It is only over foreign policy (especially enlargement) that the Germans feel they have the clout they deserve. [Christoph B. Schiltz, Die Welt, 13 November 2008]
