According to qualified parliamentary sources, President Ursula von der Leyen has postponed the presentation of the new EU Commission scheduled for tomorrow. Von der Leyen will present the team next week, during the Strasbourg Plenary. "The Commission has asked to postpone," the sources explain.
The nomination game has proven to be extremely complicated. The climate is extremely tense with a majority that, especially on the choice of giving Raffaele Fitto the executive vice-presidency, seems to be heading towards a sensational split . After the vehement protest of the Liberals, it was in fact the Greens who launched a clear warning to von der Leyen: placing Fitto at the top of the Berlaymont Palace could split the pro-European coalition.
Among the pro-European parties, the inclusion of the Italian minister is seen as a first clear sign of the two-oven policy that von der Leyen could use in the European Parliament, playing on variable majorities that sometimes include - in addition to the EPP - the Greens, the Liberals and the Socialists and other times instead rely on the support of the Conservatives and Reformists. But Fitto, with the passing of the days and despite his reputation as a man of dialogue with the European institutions, has become part of a wider battle, which has also seen the Socialists enter the field. The French and German delegations, in particular, have shown growing discontent with von der Leyen's choices .
One above all, not having worked decisively - this is the accusation - to convince the Luxembourg government to change candidate, the popular Christophe Hansen with Nicolas Schmit, socialist Spitzenkdandidat in the European elections. That same determination, instead, von der Leyen has put it into play to increase the quota of female commissioners. Slovenia, after Romania, finally nominated the former diplomat Marta Kos after the withdrawal of Tomaz Vesel. The problem, for the PSE, is that it has only 4 members out of 27 in the Commission.
But it was the group leader Iratxe Garcia Perez herself who preached calm in view of the hearings of the individual commissioners. Von der Leyen now seems oriented towards six executive vice-presidencies: in addition to Fitto (with the delegation for Economic Affairs, Recovery and Cohesion) there would be Valdis Dombrovskis (with the portfolio of Enlargement and Ukrainian Reconstruction), Thierry Breton (with the delegation for Industry and Strategic Autonomy), Teresa Ribera (Climate and Transition), Marso Sefcovic (Simplification and Implementation) and the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Kaja Kallas.
Von der Leyen wants to go all the way on the ad hoc commissioner for Defense, who could be the Polish candidate or one of the three Baltics. The issue, as this postponement also demonstrates, is that the game is not over. In the hearings one or more candidates could fall and in the plenary the majority could waver again. Von der Leyen, formally, would still remain president. But perhaps irremediably weakened.
(Unioneonline/D)
