Günter Verheugen

Infobox_Officeholder | name =Günter Verheugen


order =Vice President of the European Commission for Enterprise & Industry
term_start =22 November 2004
term_end =
predecessor =Erkki Liikanen and Ján Figeľ
successor =Incumbent
order2 =European Commissioner for Enlargement
term_start2 =13 September 1999
term_end2 =11 November 2004
predecessor2 =Hans van den Broek
successor2 =Olli Rehn
birth_date =birth date and age|1944|04|28
birth_place =
profession =politician
party =Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (PES)|__NOTOC__Günter Verheugen (born 28 April 1944 in Bad Kreuznach, Rhineland-Palatinate) is a German politician, currently serving as European Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry. He is also one of five vice-presidents of the 27-member Barroso Commission.

Günter Verheugen was previously Commissioner for Enlargement in the Prodi Commission, presiding over the accession of ten new member states in 2004.

Verheugen studied history, sociology and political science at the University of Cologne and at the University of Bonn. He was secretary general of the FDP (liberals) from 1978 to 1982. He left the FDP with many left-liberal party members in 1982, because the FDP left the government of the federal chancellor Helmut Schmidt. In the same year he joined the SPD (social democrats).

In 1983 he became member of the federal parliament. He was member of the committee on foreign relations from 1983 to 1998. From 1994 to 1997 he was deputy chairman of the parliamentary group of the SPD. He served as minister of state in the department of foreign affairs from 1998 to 1999. In 1999 he left parliament and became EU commissioner for Enlargement of the European Union.

On 5 November 2004, during a press conference, Verheugen mentioned that the future prime-minister of Romania would be Mircea Geoană (of the PSD) and that Romania would end negotiations with the EU with just four days before the Romanian legislative and presidential elections. Following this, Romanian journalists accused him of meddling in Romanian politics.

In October 2006 he accused European Union officials of being impossible to control, stating "inter alia" the purported impossibility of firing Directors-General (the highest grade in the EU civil servants structure). However, Article 50 of the EU's Staff Regulations empowers the Commission to do precisely that. Former civil servant Derk Jan Eppink described Verheugen's position in the following terms:quotation
Verheugen is worried about mandarins having too much power because he's really not in charge. If you've been in a job for eight years and you're still not in charge, you have a problem. Verheugen is a foreign policy man; he was one with the FDP (Germany's free-market liberals) and then the SPD (Social Democrats). That's his thing. In Brussels, he's weighed down in the details, he gets lost in legislation and he's not really interested in the Enterprise and Industry portfolio. That's why he was so enthusiastic about enlargement because that's foreign policy. But he's been weakened by the mandarins, and by complaining about the bureaucracy he has only made things worse. Employing his girlfriend as his head of cabinet didn't help. He has become ridiculous, but no one wants him to go. When you have a commissioner who is so undermined, you stand a good chance of overruling him and getting your way. [ [http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2790009,00.html Former EU Mandarin Spills the Beans on Commission Intrigue] Deutsche Welle]

At around the same time, salacious photographs appeared showing him holidaying with the head of his private office, a woman 14 years his junior [ [http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,444308,00.html Verheugen's Fall from Grace: Political Scandal Hits the EU - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News ] ] he had appointed; however the EU Commission spokesman at the time backed him by saying "the private holidays of Vice President Verheugen in Lithuania this summer did not violate the rules applicable to members of the Commission".

Quotes

On cutting EU bureaucracy

* "Many people still have this concept of Europe that the more rules you produce the more Europe you have."
*: (October 2006)

* "The idea is that the role of the commission is to keep the machinery running and the machinery is producing laws. And that's exactly what I want to change."
*: (October 2006)

References

External links

* [http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/verheugen/index_en.htm Official website]
* [http://ec.europa.eu/archives/commission_1999_2004/verheugen/index_en.htm Archived website as Commissioner for Enlargement]
* [http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/infoBios/setimes/resource_centre/bios/archive/verheugen_guenter Biography] from the "Southeast European Times"