PARIS -- In many respects, the main body of the European Union is the European Commission, the mass resignation of which was announced last week. The commission's president and its 19 other members are appointed for five years by the European Council, which consists of the heads of state or of government of the 15 member states. The commissioners, who are supposed to act independently of their own countries' governments, are responsible only collectively and only to the European Parliament. Never since the creation of the European Community in 1956 has a commission been overthrown. No wonder some of its members had developed a feeling of impunity, unavoidably leading to various abuses.

The commission is often described as the "executive" of the EU. In fact, it has no power to define its policies, which is a prerogative of the European Council, where all member states are represented on a theoretical basis of total equality. But the commission is in charge of enacting these policies through decisions called directives, which deal with a lot of practical regulations concerning food, as well as many services. The only limit to its power is that its budget has to be approved by the Parliament of the 15. This means that the commission needs to be headed by a prominent figure, someone able to impose his personal authority on all members and "sell" the body's image both to the European Assembly and to the public. Until 1995, the commission's various presidents -- who are appointed by the council, with the Parliament's approval, to five-year terms -- broadly met these requirements. France's former finance minister, Jacques Delors, a strong believer in Europe, was one of the most successful.

When Delors' term ended five years ago, 14 of the 15 member states were willing to replace him with Belgian Premier Jean-Luc Dehaene, who had demonstrated his skills in the difficult art of appeasing tensions between the two communities of his country: the Dutch-speaking majority Flemings and the French-speaking Walloons. But Dehaene's appointment was vetoed by the then British prime minister, John Major, who had inherited the anti-European feelings of his predecessor Margaret Thatcher and therefore didn't want to see a "heavyweight" at the EU's helm. Finally, a compromise candidate was chosen: Jacques Santer, previously prime minister of tiny Luxembourg, a man of good will, but lacking both vision and charisma.