THE DEVELOPMENT of a European civil code of law has been mooted as incoming members of the European Commission set out their stall to the European Parliament before a key series of confirmation hearings next week.
Luxembourg’s nominee to the justice, fundamental rights and citizenship portfolio, Viviane Reding, said in a submisssion to MEPs that she wanted to make significant progress in work towards a European contract law in the first three years of her mandate.
Such a law would facilitate cross-border transactions in the business-to-consumer field particularly, she said, adding that this could evolve in the medium term into a European civil code.
“The move from the first building blocks of European contract law (common frame of reference, standard terms and conditions, consumer rights) to a European Civil Code . . . could take the form either of a voluntary tool to improve coherence, or of an optional 28th contract law regime or of a more ambitious project,” she said.
Ms Reding and 25 other commissioners designate will be questioned by MEPs on the plans in a series of hearings beginning next week in Brussels.
The parliament has already endorsed a second term for José Manuel Barroso, the commission president.
The responses of the commissioners designate to written questionnaires from the parliament were notable for their repeated commitments to keep MEPs fully abreast of their policy work.
The powers of the parliament, which can reject the entire Barroso team if it deems any candidate unsuitable, were significantly enhanced with the enactment of the Lisbon reform treaty.
The submissions to MEPs from the incoming commission members were made public as the outgoing EU executive initiated legal action against member states over their move to halve a pay award to civil servants working for the union.
The commission said it had no political discretion in respect of its action in the European Court of Justice because the reduction of the pay award was an illegal violation of the members’ own system for determining pay.
Ireland’s nominee to the new commission, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, said she would work in the research, innovation and science portfolio to ensure the “completion” of the European Research Area, a slow-moving project to set up unified research systems throughout the EU.
Ms Geoghegan-Quinn also pledged in her submission to MEPs to review the union’s current research programme, with the aim of simplifying procedures. Given moves to develop a new economic plan for the union in the years to 2020, she also plans to publish a new policy paper on innovation next year.
Olli Rehn, the incoming economic and monetary affairs commissioner, said his top priority would be the battle to rekindle economic growth and boost employment. With governments throughout the union struggling to balance their books, his second priority was to work to ensure the sustainability of public finances.
“We have to strengthen existing instruments for EU policy co-ordination, while using their flexibility to cope with the exceptional depth and duration of the current economic crisis.”
Incoming foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she hoped to finalise plans for the development of the union’s External Action Service in April.
