European Commissioners don’t, as a rule, resign or get sacked. The last notable resignation was that of the UK’s commissioner in the wake of the Brexit referendum vote in June 2016.

There was one glaring exception to this rule. In 1999, the Santer Commission, so-named after the Commission President Jacques Santer, resigned en-masse four years into its five-year term of office.

This followed a stand-off between the European Parliament and the Commission over the annual budget. The final sign-off of the budget of 1996, scheduled for the end of 1998, was challenged by MEPs who wanted to question the Commission over alleged financial mismanagement.

In a reversal of the current position, a commissioner could not be sacked by the Commission, but could only be recalled by the government that appointed them.

Edith Cresson, the French commissioner, was at the centre of the allegations. The then French government refused to recall the woman who had previously been the French prime minister. With no other avenue open to the Commission, as Cresson refused to resign, the mass resignation took place on 15 March 1999.

Those events led to a shake-up in procedure.

Now, the commissioner is nominated by the government of the member state, allocated a portfolio by the President of the Commission, and then scrutinised and ratified by both the relevant committee of the Parliament and the Parliament itself.

Phil Hogan’s fate thus rests solely in the hands of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.