By Francesca Ross - 9th September 2009
The ALDE group has secured key policy pledges from commission presidential candidate José Manuel Barroso, group leader Guy Verhofstadt has said.
The former Belgian prime minister told reporters on Wednesday that Barroso's guidelines for a second term, released this week, "did not convince" his group, and hearings had shown it "was absolutely necessary to hear from the candidate and have some clarifications".
Verhofstadt said Barroso has agreed to each of the group's three demands, including a separate fundamental rights portfolio in a new commission, steps towards a single European financial supervisor and a "big fight" on resources in the next budget.
Having heard the candidate's ideas the Liberal leader said his group would decide its final position on the appointment next Tuesday.
"There is no option to postpone everything again – in the actual economic and financial crisis it is not a good move to continue without a full commission," he said.
"Let's decide one way or the other on September 16… it is necessary that we decide on not only a commission president but that the council launches the steps to form a commission." The current mandate expires at the end of October.
In terms of the concessions Barroso is said to have put on the table, the ALDE leader explained the splitting of the current justice, freedom and security dossier, would "in practice… intensify the policy in the EU".
The second demand, for a financial supervisor, has proved a little harder to find agreement for. Instead Barroso has agreed to a mid-term review of the system currently being put into place.
Following this review Barroso has promised to "then come forward with more ambitious ideas", where he will go further in the direction of a European financial supervisor, says Verhofstadt.
Quoting Barroso, Verhofstadt also said he had pledged to go in for a "big fight" on allocation of resources in the next budget deal, though gave no further clarification on what this might mean.
Ahead of the decisive plenary session next week the ALDE leader added, "What we expect is that this [policy programme] is repeated for all the groups together in the plenary session so this is not just a statement to the ALDE group – it is part of the global programme for the candidate."
He also raised the idea that the appointment may require two votes, one under the current provisions of the Nice treaty and a second should Lisbon be ratified.
He said, "I received a mandate from my group to put the question to the conference of presidents tomorrow to see if it is not necessary, to be fully legally binding, to have a second vote once the Lisbon treaty is in place and ratified.
"An absolute majority is required [under Lisbon] and there are a number of competences which are in the Lisbon treaty but not the Nice treaty… I will put the question to the conference to see how we deal with that."
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