By Bruno Waterfield - 16th April 2004
Brussels has hit out at media claims that the European Commission, close to the end of its sell by date, is dead in the water.
The move comes as another EU policy chief jumps ship for a plum national job: Erkki Liikanen joins three of colleagues in seeking greener pastures elsewhere.
The enterprising commissioner has been approved by the Finnish parliament as new governor of the country’s central bank.
The new post is expected to be rubber stamped by the Finnish president with a July start for the former EU enterprise chief.
Liikanen's exit follows the departure of Michel Barnier, Pedro Solbes and Anna Diamantopoulou to national politics ahead of the current commission’s expiry, of a five year term, at the end of October.
Eyebrows have also been raised by the EU executive’s president Romano Prodi’s increasing involvement in Italian politics.
The former Italian PM is planning a comeback in Rome and with key commissioners leaving his administration has been branded a “lame duck”.
Prodi's official spokesman on Friday attacked press reports that, he argued, were using stock US political clichés aimed at defeated governments inappropriately or maliciously.
“The commission is an institution not a government so those of you who are using words like ‘lame duck’ are using it on purpose or don’t know what you are talking about,” the spokesman said.
“That phrase does not apply to a European institution like the European Commission.”
The official Brussels spokesman insisted he “was not that concerned at all” by departures.
“The commission will be a full commission regardless of who goes at this stage,” he said.
"All the commissioners who have now left… have been replaced by prominent people from their respective member states. The commission is an institution not a government.”
But William Safire's ‘New Political Dictionary’ – which assigns the phrase lame duck an “honoured position in American slang” – argues that the term can be used for a politicians, like commissioners, with a limited term of office.
Alongside ‘dead duck’ (meaning 'finished') the expression refers to “an officeholder whose power is diminished because he is soon to leave office, as a result of defeat or statutory limitation,” states the seminal text.
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