Barroso’s legacy part III: domestic issues
José Manuel Barroso had to deal with three domestic crises during his second term.
José Manuel Barroso had to deal with domestic crisies both foreseen and unforeseen during his time in office. During his second term, the institutional wrangling over the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty was one of the predictable distractions. The economic crisis and the immigration surge caused by the Arab Spring were of the unforeseen variety.
Economic crisis
Barroso’s second mandate was scarred by the economic crisis in the eurozone. He battled to contain it, and to limit member states’ repeated recourse to intergovernmental solutions – most clearly seen in the bail-outs, for which the terms and conditions were driven largely by member states in a position to lend.
But the Commission was not completely sidelined during the crisis. It was Barroso that called in 2011 for an expanded eurozone bail-out fund. At the time he won only a reprimand from Merkel, but the European Stability Mechanism later came into existence. Barroso also pushed forward the debate on bolstering the eurozone’s economic governance and creating a centralised eurozone treasury. Some of his ideas suffered a quick death, but others were adopted – notably banking union.
The Commission’s ambitious plan for uniting the eurozone’s banking sector under the European Central Bank, backed by a fund with hundreds of billions of euros, was supported wholeheartedly by MEPs, even though it was attacked by member states. The attenuated version of banking union that came into effect earlier this week (see page 4) still rates as a radical and historic centralisation of powers within the eurozone. The Commission has also gained significant influence over national economic governance under Barroso. It has gained wide-ranging powers to closely examine the draft budgets of eurozone members, and can ask for them to be revised.
Immigration crisis
Immigration has become a highly emotive topic, and discontent over the EU’s porous frontiers was one of the main reasons for the success of Eurosceptic parties in May’s European Parliament elections.
In the face of increased illegal immigration from North Africa to Europe following the Arab Spring in 2011, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy began stopping trains at the border between their two countries, searching for migrants from Africa.
Sarkozy also toyed with chipping away at guarantees of freedom of movement within the Schengen passport-free area. His most famous altercation with Barroso came after France began ejecting Roma EU citizens from Romania back to their home country. Viviane Reding, the justice commissioner, publicly condemned the repatriations, and Sarkozy famously berated Barroso for failing to keep Reding in line. Barroso rolled over, and the Commission soon came to an understanding with France about the expulsions.
As southern European countries complained that they were being overwhelmed by illegal immigration, Barroso pushed for a common EU asylum system. It failed to win much support. Attempts to expand the remit of the EU border agency Frontex have also garnered little enthusiasm.
The Commission has made money available to help Greece, whose asylum system has been the object of scathing criticism. Italy and Bulgaria have also been criticised for their treatment of immigrants – but the Commission itself has not led that criticism. On illegal immigration, the impression from Barroso’s second term was of a Commission that was willing to meet its obligation to propose collaborative solutions, willing to allocate funds to address practical problems, but unwilling to expend a great deal of political capital on challenging member states.
Constitutional crisis
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The Lisbon treaty shifted some powers to the European Parliament, and Barroso, widely seen as overly deferential to the member states, was slow to appreciate the MEPs’ newfound influence on legislation. On some issues, the post-Lisbon Parliament tended to side with the Commission, notably in demanding more money for the EU’s budget and the multi-annual financial framework. On others, such as security co-operation with the US, it threw down the gauntlet, suspending some agreements and winning concessions from the US and the Commission on others. Barroso retained important powers over foreign policy, notably the power of the purse, when the European External Action Service was launched as a separate institution in 2010, and the Commission fought a complex three-way battle with the EEAS and the Parliament over influence.