Presidents of the European Commission Quiz

Answer: Luxembourg

In 2014, each major European political party (which are usually aligned to, or consist of groups of individual national political parties) was given the opportunity under the terms of the 2009 Lisbon Treaty to nominate their candidate for the post of President of the European Commission prior to the European Parliamentary elections.

The choice of the winning party - the European People's Party (EPP) - was Jean-Claude Juncker, a former Prime Minister of Luxembourg. On his appointment, Juncker suggested that his priorities were the Transatlantic Trade Agreement with the United States and reform of the European monetary system.

However, the United Kingdom's 2016 decision to withdraw from the EU left him with the issue of Brexit to grapple with as well.

Answer: France

Jacques Delors, a Parisian, was the 8th President of the European Commission and held the post for ten years from 1985 to 1995 over a total of three terms in office. One of the major achievements of his tenure was the development and introduction of the European Single Market, which removed trade barriers between member states and opened up the free movement of people and workers.

He is also remembered for his early work on the idea of a single European currency. Prior to his presidential term, Delors was France's Minister of Finance.

Answer: United Kingdom

The United Kingdom's Roy Jenkins held the post of President of the European Commission from 1977 to 1981 and was another president who devoted a lot of time to the development of European economic policy. He was a long-term member of the British Labour Party who is probably best known for being a member of the "Gang of Four" - the four senior members of Labour who defected from the party to form the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

He held two of Britain's great offices of state during his political career; he was Home Secretary on two separate occasions in the 1960s and 1970s and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1967 to 1970.

Answer: West Germany

Hallstein is recorded as the first President of the European Commission, although at the time he held the office (1958 to 1967) the organisation was known as the Commission of the European Economic Community. In those early days of European integration, the European Commission represented only six countries: Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany - the latter being Hallstein's home country. Hallstein's time in the job came to an abrupt end in 1967 when he resigned following a series of conflicts with Charles de Gaulle, the President of France. Prior to his presidency he had been a professor of law; served in the German army during the Second World War; and worked as a diplomat with the German Foreign Office.

Answer: Italy

The central-leftist politician, Romano Prodi, was President of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. He was a member of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (ELDR) and got the job despite the fact that the party had emerged from the 1999 European Parliamentary elections in only third place. Prodi's time in office covered several significant periods in European history - the Euro was introduced in 2002 and in 2004 the European Union underwent significant expansion when 10 new countries joined the group. Previously Prodi had been the Italian Prime Minister (from 1996 to 1998) and after he left European office he returned to that job and served again from 2006 to 2008.

Answer: Belgium

Jean Rey was a French-speaking Belgian (Walloon), born in the city of Liège in 1902. He was the second President of the European Commission and held the job from 1967 to 1970. Rey had previously had a career in the law before joining the army following the outbreak of the Second World War.

He spent most of the war in a Nazi concentration camp after being captured and on his release entered politics, with a particular interest in Belgian independence and neutrality. He served as both Minister of Reconstruction and Minister of the Economy in the post-war Belgian government and from there developed the interests and connections that led him to European politics.

Answer: Spain

Manuel Marin's tenure as President of the European Commission was short - lasting from March to September 1999. In fact, he was really only the acting president and was not directly elected to the position. He had instead been one of the first people elected to the commission's two Vice Presidential positions. Marin first entered European politics when his country, Spain, joined the European Union in 1986.

He remained a member of the European Commission until his period as acting president came to an end with the appointment of Italy's Romano Prodi and he returned to the Spanish national political scene.

Answer: The Netherlands

Sicco Mansholt was the 4th President of the European Commission, and served in the post for just under one year between March 1972 and January 1973. He was from the Dutch province of Groningen and had served as Dutch Minister of Agriculture in the post-war period.

He had been a member of the European Commission since the organisation's inception in the 1950s and spent much of that time as the European Minister of Agriculture - a remit that includes some of Europe's most controversial areas such as the Common Agricultural Policy and fishing issues. Mansholt's period as president coincided with a series of both political and economic difficulties.

Answer: Luxembourg

Jacques Santer was the second Luxembourger to hold the position of President of the European Commission, the first being Gaston Thorn (who served from 1981 to 1985). Santer's period in office came ten years later, from 1995 to 1999, and he represented the European People's Party (EPP).

He was not the first choice for the job, but a compromise candidate who was acceptable to all parties. (The original choice, a Belgian named Jean-Luc Dehaene, had been vetoed by the British.) Santer's presidency had both an inauspicious start and an ignominious end - he was eventually forced to resign after a lengthy investigation into corruption, incompetence and malpractice within his team.

Answer: Portugal

The 115th Prime Minister of Portugal, José Manuel Barroso, became the 11th President of the European Commission in November 2004. He had in fact prioritised the European job over his senior position in the Portuguese government and resigned as Prime Minister in order to take up the presidential position.

He served two terms in the office and eventually resigned in November 2014, only a few days short of his ten-year anniversary. The early part of his term in office was focussed on issues such as EU reform and expansion, while the second half was dominated by the serious effects of the global economic depression on the European economy and, in particular, on the economies of individual member states such as Greece and the Republic of Ireland.