HAS Ursula von der Leyen It is costing him more than expected to assemble all the pieces of the puzzle of his college of commissioners. The president, re-elected in July for a second term at the head of the Community Executive from 2024 to 2029, was summoned this Wednesday to the European Parliament to reveal the distribution of portfolios between the candidates sent to Brussels by the member states. The match was cancelled: the German ask for more time (at least one more week) solve sudoku.
The argument used by Von der Leyen before the European Parliament is that there is still a missing piece. Following the pressure she herself exerted for improve your team’s paritySlovenia has just changed its commissioner. Rather Tomaz VeselThe Ljubljana government, the former president of its Court of Auditors, sent the diplomat Marta Kos. However, the application is not yet final, as it requires the approval of the Slovenian Parliament.
“The Slovenian government has informed the Commission that the Slovenian Parliament will give its opinion on the proposed candidate for the post of Commissioner on Friday. Only after this step will the nomination of the candidate be finalised and made official,” explained Von Leyen’s spokesperson, Eric Mamer.
[Von der Leyen sopesa dar a Teresa Ribera la codiciada cartera de Competencia y alejarla de Transición]
“On this basis, the Commission has asked the European Parliament postpone the presentation of the school composition by President Von der Leyen until the list of candidates is complete,” the spokesperson explains. Provisionally, a new meeting of the Conference of Presidents (a body equivalent to the office of the spokespersons of the Congress) has been convened for next Tuesday, September 17 in Strasbourg.
The mandate of the current Community Executive expires on October 31, and the delay in the distribution of portfolios could force him to remain in office for an indefinite periodThe first Von der Leyen Commission has already suffered a month’s delay due to problems with the ratification of the college in the European Parliament.
Von der Leyen faces a complicated exercise in portfolio allocation. Not only does she have to take into account the competence and experience of the different commissioners, but she also has to respect a whole series of geographical, political and gender balances.
An example of the difficulties the president is facing is the case of the Spanish candidate, Therese Ribera. From the beginning, it was clear that she would be assigned a vice-presidency responsible for everything related to the green transition, given that she is an expert in the field and at the same time the main representative of the socialist family within Von der Leyen’s government team.
However, the German is now considering giving Ribera the highly coveted Competition portfolio (perhaps the one with the most direct power in Brussels) in order to distance him from the Ecological Transition. The reason for this would be that the European People’s Party is wary of Spanish “activism” and prefers that control of the European Green Deal be entrusted to one of its own commissioners, as published in Financial Time.
The other big issue facing Von der Leyen is gender parity. With the change in Slovenia, the German will have a college of commissioners of 10 women and 16 men. Once the distribution of portfolios is made public, Candidate Commissioners must pass the European Parliament’s exam at a public hearing. Ultimately, the college as a whole must be ratified by a simple majority in the European Parliament. The final vote was scheduled for the last week of October, but will most likely be postponed until November.
