Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Jose Barroso picked Spain’s Joaquin Almunia to be the European Union’s antitrust chief and France’s Michel Barnier to lead a push for tougher bank regulation on a new team that will manage the EU’s $15 trillion economy as it emerges from the recession.

Barroso, president of the European Commission in Brussels, also chose Olli Rehn of Finland as economy commissioner and Karel De Gucht of Belgium as the EU’s top trade negotiator. Denmark’s Connie Hedegaard will be climate commissioner, Guenther Oettinger of Germany energy chief and Italy’s Antonio Tajani industrial-policy head.

The new five-year team announced today will take office as Europe is recovering from the credit crunch and the worst recession in more than half a century. Under Barroso, the EU’s executive arm has cracked down on cartels, pledged to sharpen scrutiny of banks, hedge funds and credit-rating companies, forced industry to reduce emissions blamed for climate change and broken down national barriers in the EU electricity and natural-gas markets.

“Generally, the new team matches talent and jobs,” said Michael Tscherny, who advises companies on EU policy at GPlus Europe in Brussels. “I fully expect it to continue the trend toward more regulation in areas such as financial markets and climate as well as enforcement of existing rules.”

Global Clout

Europe aims for more global clout as a new European governing treaty takes effect and the top EU political and regulatory jobs are filled. Last week, European government heads named Belgium’s Herman Van Rompuy as the EU’s first president and Catherine Ashton of the U.K. as top diplomat, two posts created by the 27-nation bloc’s new treaty.

“This team is a perfect blend of experience and new thinking,” Barroso said. Almunia, Rehn, De Gucht and Tajani are currently commissioners in other areas, while Barnier is a French member of the European Parliament and Hedegaard and Oettinger are newcomers to EU jobs.

The commission proposes legislation, enforces antitrust rules, manages trade policy and administers the bloc’s 123 billion-euro ($184 billion) budget. National governments put forward the candidates for commissioners while letting Barroso assign the portfolios.

“Given the material he was presented with, Barroso’s appointments are quite clever,” said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform in London.

EU Parliament

The new lineup will have to win approval from the EU Parliament, which plans to hold hearings with individual commissioners in mid-January before a vote. In 2004, the assembly delayed the start of Barroso’s first term for three weeks by forcing changes to some of his initial team of commissioners.

Barroso, a former Portuguese prime minister, himself won reappointment as commission president in September.

In the past five years, the commission has used its regulatory powers to impose record antitrust fines, including a penalty of 1.06 billion euros on U.S. chipmaker Intel Corp. for abuses of competition and fines of 553 million euros each on GDF Suez SA of France and Germany’s E.ON AG for colluding on gas sales.

Neelie Kroes, the current EU competition commissioner, led that campaign and will stay on as the Dutch appointee to the new commission to become European telecommunications chief.

Antitrust Job

Almunia will take over the antitrust job after being economy commissioner, overseeing the expansion of countries using the euro and seeking to maintain the credibility of EU budget-deficit limits as national spending surged amid the recession. Barroso called the Spanish Socialist “one of the best commissioners of the last five years -- a very competent man.”

Almunia’s Finnish successor in the economy post has been EU enlargement commissioner, steering policy toward aspiring members in the Balkans including Turkey, Croatia and Serbia after 10 mainly ex-communist countries joined in 2004. The Czech Republic’s Stefan Fule is moving from his job as that country’s European affairs minister to succeed Rehn as EU enlargement chief, who must also manage a membership bid from Iceland.

Belgium’s De Gucht moves from development commissioner to the top EU trade job, marking the first time in more than a decade an appointee from a smaller EU state will hold that post. Ashton has been trade commissioner since succeeding fellow Briton Peter Mandelson, who followed France’s Pascal Lamy, now head of the World Trade Organization.

Lehman Brothers

The fallout from the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. prompted the commission to turn its sights to stricter financial-market rules -- the focus of Barnier’s new job and a priority of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Barnier, a former French agriculture minister and an ex-EU commissioner for regional policy, will also be in charge of enforcing EU common-market rules aimed at curbing subsidies and promoting cross-border commerce within the bloc.

“Putting Barnier in charge of the single market could be very clever,” said Grant of the London research group. “If you want the French to support the single market, which they’re not naturally massive enthusiasts for, he could be the best person to explain to the French people the motivations.”

With the U.K. resisting the EU’s drive for a revamp of banking rules, Barroso sought to ease concerns in London by assigning the top civil-servant position in the commission’s financial-market unit to a Briton named Jonathan Faull, now the head bureaucrat in the justice department.

Financial Regulation

The commission proposed in April the first EU law on hedge funds and buyout firms, seeking to force money managers to report regularly on their main investments, performance and risks. In September, as part of plans for the most sweeping overhaul of financial regulation, the commission presented draft legislation that would create an economic-risk watchdog led by central bankers and agencies to unify oversight of banks, insurers, investment firms and credit-rating companies.

Charlie McCreevy oversaw these initiatives and is being replaced as Ireland’s appointee to the commission by Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, who is due to become research commissioner.

Hedegaard, now Danish climate and energy minister, will oversee a possible EU decision to force energy and manufacturing companies in the world’s biggest greenhouse-gas market to deepen emission cuts. The EU is already on course to cut greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide by 20 percent in 2020 compared with 1990. The bloc is due to decide at a United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen next month whether to deepen that reduction target to 30 percent over the period.

Climate Portfolio

Barroso is splitting the climate portfolio from environment, the rest of which will go to Slovenia’s Janez Potocnik, now research commissioner. The current environment commissioner is Stavros Dimas, who is being replaced as Greece’s appointee to the commission by Maria Damanaki, the new EU fisheries chief.

Tajani has held the post of transport commissioner, which will go to Estonia’s Siim Kallas, currently commissioner for administration. Oettinger, who has been governor of the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, takes over the energy job from Latvia’s Andris Piebalgs, who becomes development commissioner.

Romania’s Dacian Ciolos, an agricultural engineer, will become European farm commissioner, who oversees spending that accounts for about half the EU’s total budget.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Stearns in Brussels at jstearns2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 27, 2009 10:20 EST