Onduidelijkheid over voorzitterschap Europese Commissie kan verlammend werken (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – With parliament looking increasingly likely to postpone a July vote on the nomination of the next commission president, there is a risk of having a lameduck executive for a further three to four months.
The Socialists, Liberals, Greens and far-left have all indicated that they think a mid-July vote on whether Jose Manuel Barroso i should be president for a second time is too soon.
"It is quite clear there is not a majority for voting in favour," said Socialist leader Martin Schulz on Thursday (2 July).
Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the Liberals has, unlike Mr Schulz, not explicitly ruled out a vote in July, but said "substantive issues" had to be discussed first.
Both groups want to secure certain policy points in the Barroso programme for the next five years and both want prominent dossiers for ‘their' European Commissioners.
The centre-right EPP is in favour of a July vote but it will be difficult to find a majority without looking to the eurosceptics or pressing ahead without the socialists' support, both moves that would undermine Mr Barroso's credibility.
Member states last month gave Mr Barroso political support for having the job a second time. They agreed that they would turn this support into formal legal backing after consulting with parliament and getting assurances that he would be accepted in a 15 July vote.
But anti-Barroso MEPs have introduced a Catch-22 element to the situation by saying they will not even begin discussing his candidature until he is legally nominated.
There is now little time left for manoeuvre. The political group leaders will meet the Swedish EU presidency on Monday (6 July) before themselves deciding three days later whether to put the Barroso vote on the agenda in mid-July.
When in autumn?
Swedish sources indicated to EUobserver that it would not be considered a disaster if a vote was postponed until September.
However, the fear is that there may then be an attempt to postpone the vote until October, after the Irish have voted on the Lisbon Treaty and when it is clear whether these rules will come into place.
Mr Schulz, pressed on Thursday to say whether he would push for an October vote, would only say that he is "first concentrating" on making sure there is not a vote in July. The Greens have already said they want the vote to take place after Ireland's referendum.
An October vote would throw everything into the air including Mr Barroso's candidature as several other posts could also be up for grabs, including the EU foreign minister and EU president (created by the Lisbon Treaty).
New names
Agreement on these posts would be part of an overall deal and Mr Barroso could fall by the wayside in the haggling, which includes a balance of country size, political hue and geography.
New names are already being floated for the job in Brussels, a city that thrives on political gossip.
They include Dutch leader Jan-Peter Balkenende, Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg and former Austrian chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel. There is also speculation that Paris could push to have a woman take the post for the first time in the form of Christine Lagarde, currently the finance minister.
For Sweden, an October vote would severely undermine its focus on economic and climate change issues as member states would rather be concentrating on how to get particular names into posts and their job descriptions.
It would also not have a focussed commission president as a partner but rather a distracted one looking out for his future job prospects.