User:JoergenB/The 2018 Secretary-General of the European Commission appointment controversy

Sources

Wp 'sources': Martin Selmayr; Alexander Italianer?; Jean-Claude Juncker?; Directorate-General?; Secretariat-General of the European Commission; European Civil Service?.

External sources: In the relevant M. S. section, the following sources are quoted: , , , , , , , , , , .

Aftermath:Ombudsman welcomes new procedure for appointing European Commission Secretary-General.

There should be some clear references about the (EU) parliament resolution demanding Selmayr to resign; including, if possible, the resolution text itself. The first ombudsman statement and recommendations also should be added. Since some legal claims are involved, perhaps also the (EU) court decisions named by the ombudsman and the commission should be included.

The 'commission statements' might have to be clarified. Their "final statement" I read was neither dated nor signed. Since I've seen some statement about disagreements also within the commission itself, it should be important to clarify whether any 'commission statement' indeed has been taken at a commission plenary session (and, if so, if there were any formal reservations from some commission members), or e.g. by its secretariat or president, or by its employees, and, in the latter cases, whether there was a specific delegation at some commission plenary session to those answering, or this was done in accordance with general procedures for answers from the commission.

Since in the discussion the question whether the GS position should be treated as just a civil service position, with open and transparent application processes and subject to the rule that the best merited should get it, or should be considered as a position of political trust, where the commission and/or its president must have the possibility to choose someone they feel they can work smoothly with was rather important, preferrably some further sources about the legal status of the position should be included. One important question: Can the next commission fire the GS without any other reason than them preferring someone else? If instead the GS is a rather secure position, then the arguments in the commission final statement seem rather weak, IMHO. On the other hand, if indeed the GS position is declared to be a political trust position, and especially if cases of such fireing have happened and have been approved by the court, then the ombudsman's criticism in this respect seems weakly based.

For the preceding paragraph, the official staff regulations and the 2012 ethic principles by the ombudsman might be relevant. In the former document, note that in Article 29 there are some exceptions for the recruitment to the highest positions, as well as certain possibilities to fill vacancies by promotion.

There are references to supreme court cases; many from the commission; mainly one from the budget committee/EP, namely the Guggenheim case. Unhappily I only found the French version; there ought to be an English around somewhere. The commission claims that this case is not applicable here, and I tend to agree. (However, some of the arguments indirectly could be of juridical interest; in §77, close to the end, the court dismisses the argument of the defendant that the lack of vacancies were valid reasons for not-compliance with appointment regulations as simply being wrong, with a precise reference, namely (voir, en ce sens, arrêt du 6 juillet 1993, Rasmussen/Commission, précité, points 2, 3 et 37). This might or might not go against the arguments from the commission, which partly seem to stress the absence of a vacancy as relevant. However, even if indeed this reference would turn out to go against the commission juridically, this should hardly be mentioned here, provided that that case or fact were not referred to by one of the involved parties.)

Disposition

Some time line might be advantageous. There should be a factual description of what is undoubtedly known about the two promotions of Selmayr. Some facts are disputed; importantly, whether or not the forthcoming demission of Italianer was a known fact a sufficiently long time before the commission were asked to approve Selmayr's promotion to Deputy GS, and whether or not there were attempts up to the last minutes to make him stay. (The ombudsman claims yes to the former and no evidence found for the latter, referring to the emails sent back and forth preceding the appointment. The commission claims the opposite, criticising the ombudsman for not interviewing involved top persons. The ombudsman answers that this is not her rôle; she investigates actions of organs, not persons, and it is the task of the organs to include any relevant statements from any one of their involved personnel.) The various versions might be summed up briefly in the factual descriptions, including concrete claims that Selmayr instigated or was involved in the planning of the two-phase promotion.

The aftermath, possibly with a time line, to a high degree enumerating who stated what when. Actually, also here, there is some conflicts in the factual descriptions. The ombudsman claims that her statements explicitly pointed out the commission as breaking some explicitly named regulations; the commission claims that ombudsman found that the commission broke no rules. In this case, IMHO, the commission claim is strange. It either hints at a surprisingly large arrogance, or expresses opinions about the actual value of her statements in a weasle manner (easily making the reader confuse the commissions refusal to accept the validity of the ombudsman's claims about rule breaking with whether or not she made such claims; or, alternatively, confusing whether 'rule breaking' and 'misadministration' are disjoint concepts).

The issues probably should have their own (sub)sections. Among these would be: Dishonesty against the other commissioners; transparency in nomination and promotion processes; the GS and DGS positions stati; whether the president's prerogative to add new agenda items rather short time before the plenary meeting should be seen only as a tool for flexibly meeting unforeseen issues (as the ombudsman indicates), or also as a tool regularly to be employed in order to delay general foreknowledge about appointments as long as possible (as the commission claims); the parliament statement; Juncker's resignation threat; the wp issue.

As for the transparency, in the 2018-04-04 answers to the budget committee or to the EP (unclear which), on the one hand, the commission repeatedly declare its adherence to transparency (see e. g. answer to question 61), but on the other hand does not at all interpret this as implying that information about top positions should be made available to the commissioners in good time:

In accordance with normal practice, and in order to safeguard the necessary degree of confidentiality, senior management appointments at Director-General or Deputy Director-General level are presented directly to the College on the same day that the College decides on them.

In another place in these answers, reference is made to the use of some sort of advisory body(?) for evaluating appointments; and warnings are issued against the possibility of political or national groups trying to influence the assignments of top positions. Repeatedly, the appointment of top positions by other means than open application processes is declared to be the normal procedure (while the EP questions refer to them as exceptions to the normal procedure). The given rationale essentially is that these positions are positions of confidence.

---

The article outline

The 2018 Secretary-General of the European Commission appointment controversy concerned the manner Martin Selmayr was appointed first to Deputy Secretariat-General and then to Secretariat-General of the European Commission within a rather short time span in February 2018. The procedure was criticised by the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman for e. g. lack of transparency and as breaking some EU regulations, but was defended by the European Commission as being within the rules and even of a recommendable character.

Timeline

There is some controversy also about some of the facts; but not about the following points.

The appointments of Selmayr

• At his appointment to SG in 2015, Alexander Italianer informed Juncker that he would resign in March 2018. (Slightly unclear whether "in end of March" or "soon after 1 March" or vaguer.)
• In the second half of 2017, Juncker approached Selmayr about the possibilities of Selmayr to become SG. They and Italianer together planned for this possibility. (However, "the commission claims that Juncker and Selmayr hoped to be able to convince Italianer to stay, and continued to try to convince him to do so until "mid-February" 2018. In the descriptions of these tries, consistently 1 March is 'pushed' as the resignation date.)
• Deputy Secretariat-General application. (How open was this? Can a link be found? Dates?)
• Putting up DSG on the commission meeting agenda. (By Juncker.)
• Appointing Selmayr as DSG. (By the commission.)
• Announcing that Italianer would resign as SG "soon". (Announced openly by Juncker; as being at "End of Mars" or at "End of February"?)
• Appointing Selmayr as SG. (Slightly unclear; by the commission, seemingly.)
• Selmayr take over SG position (1 Mars 2018).

The official organ's aftermath

• First and second rounds(?) of Parliament and/or Budget committee questions to the commission, and answers. The second answers are the [], from 2018-04-04. Possibly, also, earlier, a question session with the budget commissioner.
• Seemingly, also, at this time, calls for transparency from one or more trade union.
• Parliament resolution naming the procedure as a coup and calling for investigation. (April 2018. Find resolution text!)
• Ombudsman's (preliminary) findings, and recommendations. (Autumn 2018)
• Parliament resolution demanding Selmayr's resignation. (December 2018. Find resolution text!)
• Commission's answer to ombudsman. (By who, written when? Undated! Unsigned! Possibly, several versions?)
• Ombudsman's "decisions" (answering the commission). (Spring 2019)