Perhaps I'm being naive and ill-informed but is there anywhere else in the EU where the government intervened so systematically post facto with decisions of the judiciary?
Are there any other commissioners with a record to beat Ms. Geoghegan-Quinn?
Connie Hedegaard, environmental minister, for the environmental commissioner. She wouldn't be too bad. She doesn't quite grasp the magnitude of our environmental problems, but she's at least not actively obstructionist.
Bertel Haarder, education minister, for the science and technology portfolio. He would be a disaster. His views of education are more or less suitable for primary education, but secondary and post-secondary education is... well, not his strong point.
Marianne Fisher-Boel, our current agricultural and rural development commissioner. The only fitting description I can conjure up of her is the timeless Douglas Adams quib "mostly harmless."
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Haarder (V - ALDE-lunatic, governing party) has a long and illustrious history in Danish politics. Half the population hates him, the other half loves him.
Hedegaard (C - EPP, governing party) used to be retired from politics after a stint as MP, but was pulled in to greenwash Fogh II once they realised that climate change denial really wasn't such a good selling point anymore. She's as untainted a person as you're likely to find in the EPP.
Fisher Boel (V - ALDE-lunatic, governing party) is your run-of-the-mill dynastic politician, who as far as I can tell owes her career more to her farther than any particular talent or skill. As I said, "mostly harmless."
As for the selection criteria, it's probably going to be some combination of availability, desire and portfolio.
Fisher Boel will probably want to continue in federal politics - she hasn't really got anything prominent to return to in Denmark. And Venstre like having the agricultural portfolio. They're still partly a farmer/agribiz party, so it allows them to sell some favours to some of their backers. But she's 66 years old this year, and may well opt to retire instead (politicians can still afford to retire by age 65 - apparently there's no demographic crisis in their pay grade...).
I have a hard time seeing Hedegaard whisk off to the EU just before COP15, which she's been putting a lot of work into organising (and a lot of work into preventing her fellow party members from sabotaging). And she's the only one in the Danish government who has any serious interest in the environmental portfolio, so it won't be a case of wanting the portfolio and letting someone else pick the (wo)man. If she's appointed, my take is that it is to get her out of the way while the last vestige of ambition for COP15 is dismantled.
Haarder is a possibility. If he believes that Løkke is going to lose the next election (which seems probable), then he can take the science and technology portfolio as a retirement office (he's 65 this year). Or he could take his chances with the election and retire if they lose. There's moderate interest in the subject in the government, so if they can't get the agriculture portfolio, they may go for this one.
Barosso and Danish PM Løkke have both signed off on it.
Hedegaards replacement as environmental minister is Lykke Friis, currently deputy headmistress of the University of Copenhagen. The university has considerable institutional prestige invested in COP15, and as such Friis has considerable personal prestige invested in it as well.
So it could have been worse. COP15 isn't quite dead, and Hedegaard is the best of the three candidates. Hands down, no contest. And Friis becomes a career politician, a role that has always suited her better than university chairmanship, in my considered opinion.
The desirability of a revolving door between the top leadership echelons of the universities is another matter, of course.
