Responsibility and Resignation in the European Commission

Abstract

The European Commission imploded in ignominy and mass resignation on 15 March 1999. It was the most dramatic week in the forty-two year history of the European Community. It was reported across Europe to mark a watershed, a cultural revolution, Parliament's coming of age, and the ending of the democratic deficit. And yet, as Europe went to the polls three months later, Santer's Commissioners remained in office. This note addresses two issues: why did these astonishing events occur, and what do they mean for the future of European governance? The first question is easier to answer than the second. The Commissioners resigned because of the damning conclusions reached in the first report of the Committee of Independent Experts. Those conclusions were, most notoriously, that 'it is becoming difficult to find anyone [in the Commission] who has even the slightest sense of responsibility' (para 9.4.25).1 The directness, force, and sheer unambiguity of this now famous sentence is perhaps unique in the vast documentation of the European Union. In a world of endless translation and of the lowest common denominators which are the essence of international diplomacy this single sentence is shocking indeed. How did the Commission come to sink so low?