Ireland's experiences in appointing Commissioners:

Richard Burke gave a revealing interview

John Cooney wrote that:

From my experience inside the Delors Commission, I was shocked to encounter a bureaucratic-paternalist system that was Napoleonic in spurning democratic principles of accountability. Delors' hatchet man was his chef de cabinet, Pascal Lamy, who made even Commissioners tremble. This technocratic regime, which thrived on the centralisation imposed by Lamy, produced the present malaise of inefficiency and corruption that was outed by the Strasbourg Parliament

margaret Thatcher intervented to prevent O'Kennedy getting a job coordinating the EU budget, probably because it would give him influence over the CAP.