Reding Seen as Keeping Information Society Seat

Reding has been proposed by her country, Luxembourg, for three commissioner positions, an EU source said: internal market and consumer; enterprise and innovation; and justice, consumer and citizen’s rights commissioner. If any of these doesn’t pan out, she’s likely to keep her telecom and media assignment, perhaps with responsibility for intellectual property rights, the source said.

Reding has been “very proactive in promoting competitive issues, doesn’t shy away from conflicts with national regulatory authorities, and has a lot of expertise,” Bingham McCutchen lawyer Axel Spies said for the German Competitive Carriers Association. If she keeps her information society job, she'll provide continuity in a body that may have many personnel changes, he said.

Whoever takes over digital-agenda duties must be “very robust on competition policy and against protectionist tendencies by certain national administration,” said Ilsa Godlovitch, the European Competitive Telecommunications Association’s regulatory affairs director. One of the first important decisions that the new commissioner must make is to complete EU rules on access to next-generation networks, a sphere in which competition is already faltering, she said. How the EC ensures a choice of high-speed services for European consumers “will set the tone for the whole of their term,” she said.

Members of Reding’s cabinet assume she'll retain her position, possibly with copyright issues added, an industry source said. Others, however, think she'll move to internal market, but with responsibilities for financial services shifted to another commissioner, the source said. Germany is also said to be pressing to take over internal market issues, he said.

There’s some evidence that Reding is carving out copyright and some other issues for the information society position, another industry source said. She recently gave a speech on the importance of Europe’s single digital market, and soon afterwards Barroso said the next commission will concentrate on relaunching the single market.

Current Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes was widely expected to leave the EC but is also vying for a slot, the industry source said. She’s unlikely to keep competition, which will probably go to France or Germany, he said.

“My experience of the two previous Commissions is that speculation is almost always wrong,” an online freedoms activist said. News reports last week had French Commissioner-Designate Michel Barnier heading to the internal market arena in line with deals that led to Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy becoming the first permanent European president, the source said. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been lobbying for the internal market job to go a countryman, he said. But Reding’s push for control over copyright matters could mean that they'll be taken from the internal-market position, he said.

If given internal market, Barnier will do what Sarkozy and the music industry want, as shown by France’s adoption of a three-strikes system the source said. If Barnier doesn’t get internal market, he may get trade, which the U.K. or France has had the past four commissions, he said.

Whoever is in charge of copyright issues “will be more powerful than before,” because Barroso has promised to streamline oversight, which now falls within the ambit of the internal market, justice, trade and information society directorates, the activist said.

“Predicting the composition of the College of Commissioners has never been more difficult, with many names being circulated for these posts,” Weber Shandwick’s European Commission Tracker said. Friday, it was projecting Reding staying on in her current role, and Kroes, Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva and others being replaced.