EU General Information
Description
This article is from the European Union FAQ, by Roland Siebelink & Bart Schelfhout with numerous contributions by others.
EU General Information
The European Commission is the body with the formal and exclusive power to
initiate all EU legislation, and which is supposed to represent the interest
of the Union as a whole, both in the political processes within the EU as in
negotiations with the outside world. This means that it must take no
instruction from any of the member states' governments; it is accountable
only to the European Parliament (as well as, as any EU institution, to the
European Court). Also, it is the main body with a duty to look after correct
implementation of the treaties and subsequent legislation.
The Commission's members are nominated by their national governments and
must be acceptable to all the government leaders of the member states. Small
member states each have one Commissioner, while the larger ones (Germany,
France, Italy, UK, Spain) each have two. That makes a total of 20
Commissioners now.
Generally, every Commission is more or less balanced in party affiliation
(Britain always appoints a Tory and a Labour candidate, and the Benelux
countries used to see to it that one of their Commissioners was a
Socialist, one a Christian-Democrat and one a Liberal. This is, in fact, no
longer the case (at present, for instance, there are two Christian-Democrats
and one Socialist for the Benelux countries. In the previous Commission,
this was the same, though with partly different members).
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