46-Year-Old Slovenian Economist to Succeed Belgian's Philippe Busquin as New European Commissioner for Research. (August 19, 2004)

    Janez Potočnik--the lead negotiator for Slovenia's entry into the European Union has been named as one of the 25 incoming European Commissioners. Slovenia is one of the ten new chums who have recently boosted the EU membership to 25 nations. Each of the 25 E.U. member countries appoints a commissioner to the E.U.'s executive branch for a 5-year term, and according to Science, "E.U. commissioners are chosen more for their political experience than their field of expertise." Busquin, for example, while he studied physics, was in fact a mover and shaker in Belgian politics.

Assuming his appointment is confirmed next month, Potočnik will take office November 1, and Science reports, "Many E.U. scientists hope that he will back the formation of a European Research Council (ERC), a program to fund basic research proposals from individual scientists, which would represent a shift from the past emphasis on funding large multinational collaborations. A commission proposal in June called for doubling the E.U. research budget to an annual average of €10 [A$17] billion from 2007 to 2013 and using part of the increase to start an ERC."

Potocnik is considered an experienced and skilful negotiator and  according to Robert Blinc, a physicist at the Jožef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana, "He can sell science"; while economist Vladimir Gligorov of Vienna's Institute for International Economic Studies added he also "knows the E.U. inside and out".

In any case the next 18 months will show whether or not the optimism is well founded.