Barroso Wins Second Term as E.U. Chief

Barroso Wins Second Term as E.U. Chief
By STEPHEN CASTLE
copyright by The New York Times
Published: September 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/world/europe/17union.html?ref=global-home


STRASBOURG, France — José Manuel Barroso on Wednesday won a parliamentary vote endorsing his second term as European Commission president, confounding his critics by securing a larger-than-expected majority.

The European Parliament voted 382 to 219 to approve Mr. Barroso, who was the only candidate for the post and already had the unanimous support of the heads of all 27 member states. There were 117 abstentions.

The decision means that the European Union’s executive body will be led for five more years by Mr. Barroso, the pragmatic, center-right, former prime minister of Portugal who has promised to defend the European Union’s internal market from protectionist threats.

With extensive powers over antitrust policy, trade, agriculture and several other fields, the European Commission is an important regulator in some areas, and it has the right to propose legislation in many others.

After the vote, Mr. Barroso promised to help build a “stronger Europe of freedom and solidarity” and to work more closely with the European Parliament.

The endorsement is a relief to Mr. Barroso, who had hoped to be approved by European deputies in July but, instead, had to outline a policy program for the next five years and court support among the Parliament’s divided political groups.

The fact that Mr. Barroso won an absolute majority of all deputies — not just a simple majority of those who were present for the vote — means that he is unlikely to face a second vote if the European Union succeeds introducing its new Lisbon Treaty. That treaty would increase the threshold of support needed from the current simple majority to an absolute majority.

Though he already had support from European Union leaders, the worry for Mr. Barroso was that if he were not formally approved by October, they might go back on their word during horse trading on a bigger package of European Union posts due to be decided at the end of next month.

The risk of him losing out would have been increased if he had not been approved by Oct. 2, when Ireland votes in a referendum for a second time on the Lisbon Treaty, a new charter intended to enhance the bloc’s role on the global stage, which Ireland rejected last year. In the event of a “no” vote, some deputies could have called for a senior European Union figure — like Mr. Barroso — to take the blame and resign.

During a heated debate in the European Parliament on Tuesday, Mr. Barroso was accused of bending too easily to the will of the bigger member states, such as Germany, Britain and France.

But his majority in this election compares reasonably with the one he secured in July 2004 when he won 413 votes, with 251 opposed and 44 abstentions.