EUHQ hunkers down for a drawn-out handover
(BM Satire-Typing Mittens [patent still pending] to one side for a mo…)
The European Commission is preparing for a messy drawn-out process to replace the team of commissioners that runs the institution later this year.
Anticipating lengthy bickering, and the need for a ‘caretaker’ leadership to run the show while the politicians fight it out, the commission has decided to extend the contracts of all those senior commissioner advisers who’d otherwise find themselves on the shelf come November.
Those ‘temporary’ contracts are now to run until March.
November marks the end of this administration’s five-year term. The coming months will see national capitals put forward their candidates to take a seat in the next commission.
The process has always involved unseemly horsetrading over which nation and which political colouring gets which top jobs.
This time could be messier than usual.
Europe’s main political groupings have for the first time put forward candidates of their own. They say that whichever group wins the European elections in May has the right to plonk their man in the top job, the cherished European Commission President role.
Europe’s governments, meanwhile, still think they have the ultimate say over who gets that seat.
So brace yourself for an extra few months of the existing lot.
Joy unconfined.
BM
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