Barroso unveils new Commission
José Barroso, President-designate of the European Commission, has announced the portfolio responsibilities of his future 25-member team. He also revealed a number of organisational adjustments designed to help the Commission achieve its key political priorities. In allocating responsibilities, Mr Barroso resisted calls from industry and other quarters to create a Commission Vice President, or 'Super Commissioner', with responsibility for the Lisbon Agenda, saying: 'I do not want first- and second-class Commissioners. All Commissioners are equally important.' Instead, and as a sign of his commitment to achieving Europe's competitiveness goals, the next President of the Commission announced that he would chair a newly created Group of Commissioners on the Lisbon Strategy. 'The Lisbon strategy to make Europe the world's most competitive economy by 2010 is suffering an implementation deficit. The Commission and Member States must deliver better results. Mr Barroso will personally coordinate all efforts to revitalise the Lisbon strategy,' read a Commission statement. Mr Barroso's vice chair in this group will be Günter Verheugen, the current Enlargement Commissioner from Germany, who on 1 November will take over as Vice Commission President for Enterprise and Industry. Furthermore, responsibility for space and security related research will move from the Research Directorate General over to the newly named Enterprise and Industry DG. In another signal of the priority that Mr Barroso's Commission will give to competitiveness, Mr Verheugen has also been asked to chair a second 'Group of Commissioners' for the Competitiveness Council, and coordinate the Commission's role in this area of policy. The next Commissioner for Trade, the UK's Peter Mandelson, will also be a member of this group. Information Society policy will no longer be combined with Enterprise activities, and instead Viviane Reding, the current Education and Culture Commissioner from Luxembourg, will become the next Commissioner for Information Society and Media. Ms Reding is one of eight female Commissioners in Mr Barroso's team of 25 - which represents the highest proportion of women Commissioners ever. Finally, Philippe Busquin's successor as Commissioner for Research was also announced. From November 1, the role will be taken up by the Slovenian representative in Mr Barroso's Commission, Janez Potocnik, whose full title will be Commissioner for Science and Research. Before coming to Brussels, Mr Potocnik was the Slovenian Minister for European Affairs, and headed up the team that negotiated Slovenia's accession to the EU. A highly respected figure in Slovenian politics, he holds a PhD in economics, and spent five years as a senior researcher at the Institute for Economic Research in Ljubljana. CORDIS News spoke to Alenka Kajzer, deputy director at the Institute of Macroeconomic Analysis and Development in Ljubljana, who worked under Mr Potocnik when he was the institute's director. 'I'm very pleased,' Ms Kajzer said of his appointment 'because he's the right person for the job. He is a very good boss - friendly, communicative, and a hard worker. He will be a good representative for Slovenia in the EU.' The new Commission will take office on 1 November, subject to a vote of approval by the European Parliament. The Parliament can only vote on the whole body and not on individual Commissioners.