President Rey
Term: 1967-1970  Party: LDR

The Rey Commission is the European Commission that held office from 2 July 1967 to 30 June 1970. Its president was Jean Rey.

Work

The Rey Commission

It was the first commission of the merged European Communities. It was the successor to the Hallstein Commission and was succeeded by the Malfatti Commission. The commission worked to reinforce the Communities' institutions and increase the powers of the European Parliament. It also campaigned for an elected parliament, which was achieved later in 1979. It oversaw the competition of the customs union in 1968.[1]

Rey played an important role the Summit of The Hague in 1969, where the European leaders decided to relaunch European integration with two new initiatives: on the one hand, Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union (EMU), and on the other hand, European Political Cooperation (EPC), which foreshadow the euro and the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union today.

Finally, in 1970, the last year of this mandate, Rey managed to win the European governments' support for his proposal to give the Community "own resources". This meant that the EEC no longer depended exclusively on contributions by the member states, but could complete these with revenues from customs duties, levies on agricultural products from outside the EEC, in addition to a share of the VAT revenue.

Membership

The commission was composed of 14 members, 3 from Italy, West Germany, and France, 2 from Belgium and the Netherlands and 1 from Luxembourg.

Portfolio(s) Commissioner Member state Party Notes
President;
Secretariat General, Legal Service and Spokesman’s Service		 Jean Rey  Belgium PRL
Vice-president;
Agriculture		 Sicco Mansholt  Netherlands PvdA
Vice-president;
Social Affairs, Personnel and Administration		 Lionello Levi Sandri  Italy PSI
Vice-president;
Research and Technology, Distribution of Information
and Joint Research Center.		 Fritz Hellwig  West Germany CDU
Vice-president;
Economic and Finance, Statistical Office		 Raymond Barre  France none
Budgets, Credit and Investment, Press and Information Albert Coppé  Belgium CVP
Internal Market and Regional Policy Hans von der Groeben  West Germany none[2]
Competition Maan Sassen  Netherlands KVP
Development Assistance Henri Rochereau  France none
Industrial Affairs Guido Colonna di Paliano  Italy none Resigned 8 May
1970, not replaced.
Foreign Trade, Enlargement
and Assistance to developing countries		 Jean-François Deniau  France UDF
Transport Victor Bodson  Luxembourg LSAP
Vice-president;
Energy		 Wilhelm Haferkamp  West Germany SPD
Foreign relations Edoardo Martino  Italy CD

Summary by political leanings

The colour of the row indicates the approximate political leaning of the office holder using the following scheme:

Affiliation No. of Commissioners
Right leaning / Conservative 8
Liberal 2
Left leaning / Socialist 4

References

  1. ↑ Discover the former presidents: The Rey Commission, Europa (web portal), Accessed 23 August 2007
  2. ↑ But was an advisor to the CDU party


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