17/09/2014
FSG
Jean-Claude Juncker, President-elect of the European Commission, has presented his proposed team of Commissioners and the European Commission’s new structure. Neither his strategic priorities for the new parliamentary term (outlined in a document entitled 10 Political Guidelines) nor the composition of the new Commission point to the fight against poverty and social exclusion being a priority; this was one of the objectives established in the Europe 2020 Strategy.
On 10 September, the structure and composition of the next European Commission was made public; a College of 27 Commissioners selected by the Luxembourger President-elect, Jean-Claude Juncker. The structure is built around seven Vice- Presidents who are in charge of priority strategies and who will be assigned teams of commissioners per project. Although all of these have to be approved by the recently elected European Parliament, everything points to the Commissioners now chosen by Juncker being part of the next European Commission.
In July, the document “A new start for Europe: My agenda for Jobs, Growth, Fairness and Democratic Change. Political Guidelines for the next European Commission” was made public, in which Juncker outlines his commitments and political priorities for the coming years. Social objectives are almost non-existent in his agenda, and the recent announcement of the European Commission’s new structure and composition confirms that the fight against poverty and social exclusion is not a priority for the next European Commission.
Inclusion disappears from the portfolio of the current Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Lázló Andor. Most of his responsibilities will be taken over by Belgian Marianne Thyssen, the next Commissioner of Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility. She will work within Vice-President Jryki Katainen’s team, which is in charge of the broadest strategy of Employment, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness. The change in Thyssen’s job title indicates that the priority in the aforementioned portfolio will be exclusively to create employment, without taking the objectives to combat poverty and social exclusion into account; these are not listed in any other portfolio. In a context where there are a growing number of European citizens at risk of poverty or living below the poverty line (an estimated 120 million people) and where social inequalities are on the rise, it is concerning that the next European Commission is not defending the social objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy in a more determined way.
The former Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship portfolio, which non discrimination policies and Roma coordination Unit formed part (it was Vice-President Viviane Reding’s responsibility), appears in the Commission’s new structure divided into several portfolios. The protection of human rights appears in the next Commission under the mandate of the first Vice president and Juncker’s right hand man, Dutchman Frans Timmermans, who will be in charge of Better Regulation, Inter-institutional relations, the Rule of law, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Among the responsibilities that the President- elect will assign to him, Timmermans will have to make sure that any proposals or initiatives from the Commission are in line with the Charter of Fundamental Rights. One of his priority tasks will be to conclude the accession process of the European Union to the Council of Europe´s Convention of Human Rights, in this way responding to the general demand of raising internal standards of defending fundamental rights within the European Union, and not only demanding these standards in dealings with third countries as has been done up until now. This is good news for European citizenship.
Czech Vĕra Jourová will be the next Commissioner of Justice, Consumer and Gender Equality. Among other responsibilities, she will be in charge of the Directorate General of Justice and relations with the European Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). She will work in first Vice-President Timmermans’ team and one of the tasks that President-elect Juncker has assigned to her is the preparation of an Anti-Discrimination Directive. It is hoped that Jourová’s priorities will extend beyond Gender Equality, as appears in her job title, and that she will assume a transversal way of fighting against discrimination and promoting equality in all categories as a priority under her mandate.
In the European Commission’s new structure, Citizenship is not related to Fundamental Rights but to Education, Culture and Youth. Hungarian Tibor Navracsics, will be in charge of this portfolio. Although it seems a junior portfolio, one of Commissioner Navracsics’ responsibilities, among others, will be to achieve one of the priority objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy; to reduce the rate of early school leaving to under 10 %, and to increase the rate of higher education graduates to 40 %.
Romanian Commissioner Corina Cretu will be in charge of the Regional Policy portfolio, responsible for the European Union’s Cohesion Policy and coordinating Structural and Investment Funds. In many countries, European funds form a large part of available resources for social cohesion, and they are fundamental in contributing to the European Union’s social objectives. This year sees a new Structural and Investment Funds programming period (2014-2020), and the direction that Cretu takes will be key in carrying out the Operational Programmes.
The European Commission has traditionally been the driving force in boosting social promotion policies and combating poverty and social exclusion, such as defending rights and equal treatment of all citizens. This has been put into practice at national level in political decisions, regulatory development and resource allocation. Like other European citizens, the Roma population has also been benefited from this social boost; more necessary now than ever.
For the most disadvantaged groups like the Roma population, the removal of Inclusion from the Commissioner’s portfolio is not an encouraging sign of where the next Commission’s priorities may lie. In the approval procedure of the next College of Commissioners, the European Parliament needs to place particular emphasis on ensuring that the next Community Executive’s plan promotes justice and equality for all citizens, and supports the completion of every single objective of the European Union Strategy flagged for 2020, including poverty reduction.
We hope that the inclusion of the Roma population continues to be on the European Commission’s political agenda and that it will be reflected both in its priorities and in its distribution of responsibilities between different portfolios. At the moment, we do not know if the structure of the next Commission is intended to sustain the Roma Policy Coordination Unit, but it would be a step backwards not to acknowledge the need to address the situation of the Roma population within the European Union from a multidisciplinary perspective, and therefore from different political fields that require institutional coordination.
More information on the next Commission: https://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14-984_en.htm
The next Commissioners: https://ec.europa/eu/about/juncker-commission/commissioners-designate/index_en.htm
