The current President of the European Commission and, at the same time, the hottest candidate for this position for the upcoming term, José Manuel Barroso, presented the “Main policy orientations of the future Commission” on Thursday. It is a document, which should serve as a kind of “cook book” for orienting the European Union in the next decade. If the now ending term of the Commission was in token of consolidation of the expanded Union and the institutional reform embodied in the Treaty of Lisbon, the new term of the Commission should bring the Union in a “new era”.

In his document, the President of the Commission identifies five major challenges fairly correctly, which shall be faced by Europe these days:
• Immediate re-starting of the economic growth and ensuring long-term sustainability and competitiveness for the future,
• Fighting with unemployment and strengthening our social cohesion,
• Converting the challenge linked to sustainability of the European model into a competitive advantage,
• Ensuring safety of the Europeans,
• Strengthening EU citizenship and participative democracy.

On the basis of the statement of the said challenges, the President Barroso comes with his plan of creating a compact vision with a ten-year perspective, because then we will be allegedly better able to identify the areas, which should be the focus of the Commission in the following five years. This strategy of “EU 2020” should merge all current Union strategies into one. Therefore, Barroso comes with the once-proven model. In 2000, the infamously famous Lisbon Strategy was formed in a similar way, which was called sometimes sarcastically “Catch up and Overtake Strategy”. It was also scheduled for a ten-year horizon, i.e. till 2010. And it was Barroso, who “inherited” the said strategy from his predecessor Romano Prodi and had to revise it completely as totally unrealistic when he took the office.

However, I do not want to suspect the President Barroso of having unrealistic objectives or wishing to bind the Commission in advance, which will be formed as late as in 2014. Nevertheless, I think that his five basic objectives should only be formulated with the perspective of the mandate of the currently formed Commission.

It is possible to associate oneself with the wording of the actual objectives, at least in the general form, in which they are formulated; besides, they are totally logically formulated on the basis of the said challenges, which are faced by the Union nowadays:
• Emerging from the crisis successfully,
• Leading position in the fight against the climatic change,
• Development of new sources of sustainable growth and social cohesion,
• Progress in the concept of “Europe for citizens”,
• Starting the new era of global Europe.

In his “cook book”, Barroso further develops the said objectives, which is a bit detrimental, maybe not totally deliberately. For the time being, in addition to the 27 states in the Council, only some Parliament fractions, e.g. ECR and EPP, declared support to him in advance in the European Parliament, while the support of liberals, socialists or greens is only somewhere in the air. Therefore, the Barosso’s cook book reflects some efforts of worming into favour of the said fractions, the support of which he needs for his election. However, he might forget a bit in his pursuit of votes that by excessive tacking he can lose support of some of the fractions, to which he has been acceptable till now.

I do not want to touch conscience of José Manuel Barroso but I cannot refrain from one comment about his concept of the European social model. On one hand, he is fully aware of the considerable deterioration of the economic development of Europe and he himself asks the question whether the economic growth ever returns to the pre-crisis values but, on the other hand, he speaks indirectly about greater redistribution of the produced wealth elsewhere. The document totally omits words about the necessity of realizing a fundamental reform of the European social model; on the contrary, it includes rather sermonizing repetition of words about solidarity and social cohesion.

Despite some reproaches of mine and Barosso’s tacking among all European political streams, I have to admit that José Manuel Barroso is a man with a vision of better and more competitive Europe. He can see the Union as an opportunity for all 27 states and their citizens. He does not want to build a modern Leviathan of the Union, as some of his predecessors might have wanted, but he pays careful attention to maintaining diversity in the Union, efficient application of the principle of subsidiarity, application of intelligent legal regulations and elimination of administrative burden, bureaucratic procedures and needless centralization. As a result of that, I think that despite some reservations of mine, José Manuel Barroso deserves my trust for the upcoming five years at the head of the Commission.

Political guidelines for the next Commission