ABSTRACT
There have been many little arithmetical wrinkles worth noting about the EC, which have sometimes been important to the way things happen. One such fact is that, up to this time (until the TEU changed the situation), in only very few years had there been both a new Commission and a newly elected EP; 1989 was such a year. However, since these elections were not due until mid-year, it was to the old EP that Delors made his 17 January speech setting out the perspectives and programme of the incoming Commission.
