Nice and Lisbon on Commissioners

The question of Ireland's situation under Nice versus Lisbon on having its own Commissioner seems to be becoming a live issue. What say the Treaties? The facts provided by the EU itself, linked and quoted below, clearly show the Irish will be much more likely to retain a Commissioner under the terms of Nice, which following their referendum now remains in force. As Nice requires unanimity on the number of Commissioners which are to be less than the total number of the 27 member states Ireland can quite sensibly insist those terms are met if in future Malta and Cyprus alternate one Commissioner. No such option appears to be possible under the Lisbon Treaty which requires a reduction to 18. NICE (From EU link here)

Article 4 of the Protocol on the enlargement of the European Union, annexed to the Treaty of Nice, specifies that as of 1 January 2005 the Commission shall include only one national of each of the Member States. The Treaty of Accession, signed in Athens on 16 April 2003, amended this provision because the new Commission will take up its duties on 1 November 2004 and will include, as stipulated, one national of each Member State.

The Protocol on enlargement also provides that, when the EU consists of 27 Member States, the number of Members of the Commission shall be less than the number of Member States. The exact number of Members of the Commission is to be set by the Council, acting unanimously, and Members will be chosen according to a rotation system based on the principle of equality, the implementing arrangements for which are to be adopted by the Council, acting unanimously and in accordance with the following principles:

• Member States shall be treated on a strictly equal footing as regards determination of the sequence of, and the time spent by, their nationals as Members of the Commission; under no circumstances may the Commission include two Members of the same nationality;
• each successive college shall be so composed as to reflect satisfactorily the demographic and geographical range of all the Member States of the Union.

This rotation system will apply as from the date on which the first Commission following the date of accession of the 27th Member State of the Union takes up its duties (i.e. in principle as of November 2009). In other words, the Commission which will take up its duties in 2004 will therefore be extended to include one national of each country which has joined the Union by that time.

LISBON (From EU link here)

European Commission

Its main job is promoting the European public interest. The new treaty reduces the number of Commissioners - from 2014, only two thirds of member countries will have a Commissioner (e.g. with 27 countries, there would be 18 Commissioners), but the posts will rotate between all countries. The number of Commissioners can also be changed by the European Council (by unanimous vote).

In another major change, there will be a direct link between the results of the European elections and the choice of candidate for president of the Commission. (Ed. - This bit was news to me!!)

The president will also be stronger, as he/she will have the power to dismiss fellow Commissioners.