European Commission

This poster outlines the main policy commitments made by the new commissioners during their hearings in early 2010 and by the President-designate, José Manuel Barroso, in 2009.

In some cases, the pledges were few in number and vague; at the time, some MEPs complained about the unwillingness of many nominees to explain their vision and make concrete promises for action. Nevertheless, the commissioners did make a number of clear commitments, which are reproduced here with an assessment of how the commissioners have lived up to their commitments. Preliminary assessments were already made in our ‘One Year On’ report card in February 2011 and our ‘Mid-Term Report’ in November 2012.

Since the initial round of hearings, one of the commissioners has left the College – John Dalli, who was replaced by a new Maltese nominee, Tonio Borg, who took over the Health and Consumer Protection portfolio in November 2012. In July 2013, Mr Borg’s portfolio was restricted to Health, with the Consumer Protection element taken on by Neven Mimica, the Croatian nominee to the Commission.

The commitments made by Tonio Borg and Neven Mimica during their hearings were also recorded and are outlined here along with an assessment of their achievement in their short periods in office.