It has taken a while but it's finally done and dusted: we have a new European Commission.
Although a lot of media and public attention has been going to Mr Barroso's new team, a lot of power is actually in the hands of officials that the average European never gets to see or hear about. These are the members of the different cabinets, the private offices of the commissioners.
It is surprising, if not worrying, to see that for 27 EU commissioners there is no single senior Cabinet member from Poland, let alone a Head of Cabinet. Why not? Poland has been a Member of the European Union for long enough to be considered equal when it comes to such strategic appointments. More than half a decade since Poland's accession, there are plenty of competent Polish officials who know how to navigate the Brussels bureaucracy and its political intricacies.
Members of cabinet are appointed by every commissioner personally, in a rather opaque process and without much accountability.
Often times they largely determine their commissioner's agenda. A commissioner typically surrounds him- or herself with about six or seven of these confidants whose topical knowledge is often limited but whose political intuition is all the more outspoken.
The Polish commissioner, Janusz Lewandowski, picked a Luxembourgian Head of Cabinet, Marc Lemaître. In fact, Mr Lewandowski has only two other Poles among his private staff, Angelika Chomicka and Przemysław Słowik. This would all be fine, if it wasn't for the fact that commissioners from other countries - in particular the usual suspects such as France, Germany, and Spain - appoint their compatriots, and often their political friends, to highly influential and very well-paid posts in their private offices.
These people do push a national agenda although they are in fact not supposed to. Strategic posts in the key Cabinets of Competition, Internal Market and Industry, are full of French, Italians and Spaniards, especially now that some of these legacy Member States start realizing that the end may be near for the more-than-average privileges they have enjoyed for so long.
A missed opportunity for Mr Lewandowski and Poland? A lack of involvement from Warsaw in what are important decisions for Poland's future in the EU game? Stay tuned.
