The Rey Commission is the European Commission that held office from 2 July 1967 to 30 June 1970. Its president was Jean Rey.
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.
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
| Jean Rey | PRL | |||
Vice-president
| Sicco Mansholt | PvdA | |||
Vice-president
| Lionello Levi Sandri | PSI | |||
Vice-president
| Fritz Hellwig | CDU | |||
Vice-president
| Raymond Barre | none | |||
| Budgets, Credit and Investment, Press and Information | Albert Coppé | CVP | |||
| Internal Market and Regional Policy | Hans von der Groeben | none[2] | |||
| Competition | Maan Sassen | KVP | |||
| Development Assistance | Henri Rochereau | none | |||
| Industrial Affairs | Guido Colonna di Paliano | none | Resigned 8 May 1970, not replaced. | ||
| Foreign Trade, Enlargement and Assistance to developing countries | Jean-François Deniau | UDF | |||
| Transport | Victor Bodson | LSAP | |||
| Vice-president | Wilhelm Haferkamp | SPD | |||
| Foreign relations | Edoardo Martino | CD |
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 |