EU's new foreign policy chief, Commissioners face grilling

(BRUSSELS) - The European Union's new foreign affairs chief, Catherine Ashton, and would-be EU commissioners face a grilling over their suitability for the jobs from Monday in hearings at the European Parliament.

Ashton and the 25 other members of the new European Commission, the EU's unelected executive body, will be questioned by lawmakers from January 11-15 in Brussels, and January 18-19 in Strasbourg.

Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso has already been confirmed for a second five-year term.

The European Parliament, the EU's only popularly-elected body, wants to establish whether the appointees of the powerful executive body are competent to carry out their tasks, but also independent and pro-European.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland, a 53-year old British peer, will be the face and voice of the EU abroad, while the commissioners are in charge of drawing up legislation that impacts on the lives of half a billion Europeans, as well as policing the existing rules.

No obvious skeletons have been dragged from any closets this time but the hearings, which run for about three hours each, could create some surprises.

Ashton -- the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security and also vice-president of the commission -- has been criticised for lacking diplomatic experience. Officials say she has been preparing hard.

Critics have said the former EU trade commissioner was appointed on the basis of her nationality -- Britain failed to secure the post of new EU president or a commissioner linked to financial affairs -- and her gender alone.

"Madame Ashton has three qualities; she is a socialist, she is English and she is a woman," is how French President Nicolas Sarkozy has summed up her appointment.

In a first address to the parliament on December 2, Ashton struggled to convince the lawmakers that she had grasped the complicated diplomatic responsibilities under her remit, whether on China, Russia or energy security.

Then she admitted she had a lot to learn but presented that as an opportunity.

"I come to you with a sense of a blank piece of paper. I need your help to write on it," she told them.

Ashton's post was created by the Lisbon Treaty, which was introduced on December 1, but the vast package of reforms also grants significant new powers to the EU assembly and some lawmakers are keen to exercise them.

Indeed the parliament has already imposed its will in the past.

In 2004, the deputies rejected the candidature of Italy's Rocco Buttiglione, who had been in line to become the EU's top justice official but was considered inappropriate by them for his opposition to homosexuality.

Other states have been forced to change candidates for the portfolios, which wield influence over policy in areas ranging from EU markets and monetary affairs to agriculture, health and transport.

These setbacks are difficult to swallow, as the posts with five-year mandates are only shared out among the 27 EU nations after several rounds of hard bargaining and political horse-trading.

Technically speaking, the parliament cannot block the appointment of any single commissioner but it does have the power to reject the entire team under Commission head Jose Manual Barroso, in a vote in a plenary session on January 26.

France's Michel Barnier, who has been nominated for the sensitive and prized post of EU internal market and services commissioner, also faces a baptism of fire in the assembly.

His appointment particularly annoyed Britain, which worked to ensure that a senior official from London will be watching over the commissioner by running his day-to-day affairs.

Barnier, a former French agriculture minister and commissioner in the past, has taken particular advantage of the end of year holidays to pore over his material, members of his entourage say.

European Parliament Hearings of the 
Commissioners-designate