The President of the European Commission is the head of the European Commission ― the executive branch of the European Union (EU) ― the most powerful officeholder in the EU. The President is responsible for allocating portfolios to members of the Commission and can reshuffle or dismiss them if needed. He determines the Commission's policy agenda and all the legislative proposals it produces (the Commission is the only body that can propose EU laws).
The Commission President also represents the EU abroad, although he does this alongside the President of the European Council and, at foreign minister's level, the High Representative (who sits in his Commission as Vice President). However the President, unlike a normal head of government, does not form foreign policy, command troops or raise taxes as these are largely outside the remit of the EU.
The post was established in 1958 and is elected by the European Parliament, on a proposal of the European Council for five-year terms. Once elected, he, along with his Commission, is responsible to Parliament which can censure him. The current President is José Manuel Barroso, who took office in October 2004. He is a member of the European People's Party (EPP) and is the former Prime Minister of Portugal. Barroso is the eleventh President and in 2009 was re-elected for a further five years. His vice president, as of 2010, is High Representative Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland.
Read more about President Of The European Commission: History, Appointment, Term of Office, Duties and Powers, Privileges of Office, List of Presidents
Famous quotes containing the words president of, president, european and/or commission:
“You are, or you are not the President of The National University Law School. If you are its President I wish to say to you that I have been passed through the curriculum of study of that school, and am entitled to, and demand my Diploma. If you are not its President then I ask you to take your name from its papers, and not hold out to the world to be what you are not.”
—Belva Lockwood (1830–1917)
“The President has apples on the table
And barefoot servants round him, who adjust
The curtains to a metaphysical t
And the banners of the nation flutter, burst
On the flag-poles in a red-blue dazzle, whack
At the halyards.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“What is the first thing that savage tribes accept from Europeans nowadays? Brandy and Christianity, the European narcotics.—And what is it that most rapidly leads to their destruction?—The European narcotics.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The Church seems to totter to its fall, almost all life extinct. On this occasion, any complaisance would be criminal which told you, whose hope and commission it is to preach the faith of Christ, that the faith of Christ is preached.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)