Mar 2009 09

Pick Your Junta0

Speculation is already mounting as to who will take over as Commission President after the Euro-elections. For "speculation", read "jockeying for power".

Perhaps anti-waste groups should join in, combining to push for a 'dream list' of candidates.

The President effectively gets a veto over whom his fellow Commissioners are. This plum role will never see a leading Eurosceptic appointed, as one of the more integrationist states would inevitably block a Peter Shore type or a Norman Tebbit. But there are other candidates that, with the right zeitgeist, might make it through and who might make a difference.

Imagine what someone like Paul van Buitenen would be able to achieve. Mr VB is understood to be looking at standing down as an MEP at the next election on the grounds that his ferreting around at corruption and waste have been blocked and – worse - simply ignored. A Commissioner's role would be impossible to ignore. The excellent Marta Andreasen, currently standing for an MEP place, might be another choice. From Britain, there is no shortage of possible nominees.

Rather than set up yet another EU-critical party in the United Kingdom, perhaps the resources and undoubted spirit of Libertas, or the new 'Jury List' campaign revealed in yesterday's Sunday Times, might be more profitably spent campaigning on getting the right Commissioners in place.

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Lee is a Research Fellow at the TPA. Co-author of the hit Bumper Books of Government Waste, he is an extensively published EU expert and front bench adviser.