[denton-scratch]

> selected by the Council of Ministers

I don't think that's right, is it? Apart from anything else, the Council of Ministers isn't a fixed group of people; if the meeting is about fisheries, then it's the fisheries ministers from the member governments, and so on. Each meeting of the Council of Ministers is a different group of people. And anyway, they can't select anyone they like, because each member country gets an allocation of commissioners (one or two, I think).

I believe there are plans afoot to remove that rule, so that countries like Liechtenstein no longer get one commissioner. About time too.

[matthewdgreen]

This is what the Wikipedia article says. The EU itself has a series of websites that describe the various EU institutions and their selection processes, but they are much less descriptive about the appointment process.