22 September 2014
Bilbao Campus
In an article published in the digital edition of El País on Sunday 21 September, and in the printed version on the 22 of September, UD lecturer in European Law, Prof. María Luisa Sánchez Barrueco, wrote a letter to the president of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker, to ask him to safeguard " institutional legitimacy".
With the text entitled “What am I asking Juncker for?”, she began by recognising that his term in office as President of the European Commission would not be an easy time".
She set the letter within the framework of “times of crisis” in which “our trust will be directly proportional to the efficacy of European public policy". She acknowledged the "efficacy of the Juncker Commission" which put its commissioners to work from day one".
She supported her opinion with facts. “As 25% of Europeans seem to think that the EU is an unnecessary waste of money, thousands of eyes are focused on analysing their proposals. I admit that the organisation chart with 28 commissioners under six vice-presidents should make coordination easier and the policies proposed by the Commission more effective.
It would be unfair to blame you for everything, since the Lisbon Treaty has fractured the previously solid power of the Commission as regards the other institutions”.
It would be unfair to blame you for everything, since the Lisbon Treaty has fractured the previously solid power of the Commission as regards the other institutions”.
Sanchez Barrueco not only asked Juncker for " the legitimacy of citizen participation, although I do have doubts about the goodness of popular legislative initiatives after having read the progress reports on the two projects that have materialised to date"; she also urged him to keep "good government for the Commission during his five year term".
