Janez Potocnik

EU Commissioner for Science and Research
Brussels, Belgium

photo credit: EC

When the President of the European Commission, former Portuguese Prime Minister José Manuel Barroso, presented the line up of this future commission to the European Parliament (EP) at the end of October 2004 he was not quite prepared for what was to come: A united front of EP delegates opposing key nominees of his commission proposal. When it became clear that Barroso would not be able get a majority vote—Parliament can only opt to reject the entire team and not individual commissioners—he was forced to withdraw his proposal and return to the drawing board. Three weeks later, on November 18 the stand-off with Parliament was resolved, when Barroso presented a slightly modified team. Franco Frattini, the Italian foreign minister, replaced Rocco Buttiglione. Latvia brought in Andris Piebalgs to replace much-criticized Ingrida Udre, and Hungarian nominee Laszlo Kovacs was moved from the energy to the taxation portfolio. On November 22, the 24-member commission finally took office.

While some nominees were strongly contested by the EP, Janez Potocnik, Commissioner for Science and Research, was not one of them. He had already passed his litmus test with the EP some months ago.

In January 2005, Josef Penninger, scientific director of the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMBA), will be the first speaker of the newly launched lecture series by the Office of Science and Technology (OST) at the Austrian Embassy in Washington, D.C. The series will feature recipients of the “Austrian Scientist of the Year Award,” an award created by the Austrian Club of Education and Science Journalists.