If I were to suggest at the next Civitas Christmas Party that we all play a round of the ingenious parlour game ‘Name Your Favourite EU Commissioner’, then my greatest difficulty would be in fielding the volley of bread rolls that would undoubtedly fly my way! There is not a lot about most of the current EU Commission to inspire admiration. Take the British Commissioner Peter Mandelson, example par excellence, who has refused to bang heads together in an attempt to reach a conclusion of the Doha round of WTO talks. Yet there is one figure amongst the current bunch who stands out as an example of how EU Commissioners should behave: the Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes.
Dr Kroes does come from an auspicious lineage – the previous Dutch Commissioner was the heroic Frits Bolkestein, who made brave attempts to push much needed services reform through the EU during his tenure. Yet Dr Kroes also stands on her own merits as a cut above her current Commission colleagues.
Kroes first came to public attention soon after her appointment when she made it clear that the EU would not relent in its pursuit of Microsoft for unfair practices in relation to its XP operating system. Then, in 2005 she was one of the major forces pushing for reform of mobile phone tariffs that would end the ridiculous and unnecessary variations of call charges for people travelling across the EU. She has also been vocal in calling for the end to energy monopolies. And now she has confronted another great shibboleth of the consumer world – exorbitant credit card rates that she claims are kept in place by the stranglehold that Visa and Mastercard have on the industry.
Of course, it is very well to go around taking pot shots at the most obvious targets of unfriendly business practices if, like Mr Bolkestein, Commissioner Kroes fails to push through her liberalising vision. Given the glacial pace at which policies move through the EU, it is unlikely that we will fully be able to judge her impact until after her time in office, yet in the meantime she should be commended for using her position to focus in on the areas where the EU can usefully make a substantial difference to the lives of Europeans in a globalised world. Given the dire progress of more sweeping reform in many ‘core’ EU countries, lower mobile tariffs and cheaper credit may be the best we can hope for.