José Manuel Barroso and consists of 26 other Commissioners (24 between 2004 and 2007). There is one member from each European Union member state, nine are women and members are drawn primarily from the three major European political parties, Barroso himself being from the European People's Party. There are seven Vice-Presidents and the most senior is Catherine Ashton. President The President is the former Prime Minister of Portugal; José Manuel Barroso. He took over from former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi who served from 1999 (Prodi Commission). He is a member of the European People's Party and was appointed by the European Council in June 2004 in response to the victory of the EPP-ED in the 2004 European elections. Some of Barroso's stated aims are to tackle voter apathy and euroscepticism, visible during those elections, to work with the United States and to develop a "defence identity." Barroso comes from a small integrationist state and had become unpopular due to his economic policies. His government had backed the United States in the Iraq War. The leader of the socialist group, Martin Schulz, criticised him for his pro- war stance, optimised by his organisation of the Azores summit. Despite such opposition, the European Parliament approved him as president by 413, although there were difficulties over his choice of Commissioners (see below). He has earned some criticism due to his leadership of the expanded Commission – with it being notably more Presidential than his predecessors. Barroso had unusually been linked with all the commission's major initiatives, for example those on energy and climate change, rather than the particular Commissioner responsible. He also had a number of "pet projects" such as the Galileo positioning system and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. He had also been accused of acting in favour of larger states to secure a desired second term in office. This has gone so far as to overrule Commissioner McCreevy (internal market commissioner) from overhauling artists' levies after pressure from France, despite Barroso himself being an economic liberal. In July 2008 he succeeded in winning the support of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Parliament President Hans-Gert Pöttering and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. However he has stated it is up to the parties in Parliament to decide and that despite his attempts for re-election being well known, he never publicly declared this intention until an interview on 19 July 2008. He