Called to account
IT IS selfless of Tom King to argue that Brussels should no longer be a dumping ground for politicians. Under happier stars, Mr King — a minister for 15 years, an MP for nearly 30, and Alan Clark's candidate to take over from Margaret Thatcher would be the European Commissioner for Extraterrestrial Affairs and Decent Lunch- es. Lesser men (I forbear to name Frites or Exorbitos) have bagged the tables. In the Commission that Romano Prodi is sup- posed to have reformed, 18 of the 20 jobs have gone to politicians, and a mixed lot they are. Two have got into trouble over tax and another over flax, while a fourth did his best to silence Paul Van Buitenen, whose revelations brought the old Commission down. Listing them in The European Com- mission (Centre for Policy Studies, £7.50), Mr King says that these jobs should not go to political discards but to top-class admin- istrators. His model owes something to Whitehall and Westminster, with the com- missioners as mandarins and the Council of Ministers as — well, as ministers. I fear that he underestimates the official impulse to build empires, reinforced as it has been and would be in Brussels by the acquis commu- nautaire, which impels the Commission to arrogate decisions to itself. (Just wait until Jean-Anonyme Enarque gets going.) As for the chance that the Council will learn to keep the Commission in order; that is a hope that would have to triumph over expe- rience. In practice, neither the Council nor the Commission are accountable to any- body, and it shows.
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