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European parliament leaders have reached a deal to approve Ursula von der Leyen’s top team, paving the way for the new European Commission to take office on 1 December.
Leaders of the centre-right European People’s party (EPP), the Socialists and the centrist Renew group – who between them have 56% of the parliament’s 720 seats – forged a compromise on Wednesday intended to ensure that von der Leyen’s nominees would be approved in a vote next week.
Von der Leyen has chosen 26 European commissioners to lead EU policies including the climate crisis, competitiveness, trade, industry, agriculture and nature, but the whole team has to be approved by MEPs in one vote, which is expected next Wednesday.
Each commissioner faced a three-hour hearing in the parliament, but the approval process began to unravel when the Socialists threatened to block the appointment of Italy’s vice-president nominee, Raffaele Fitto, a member of Giorgia Meloni’s hardline Brothers of Italy party.
The EPP in turn threatened to block the Spanish Socialist vice-president nominee, Teresa Ribera, who conservatives have attempted to blame for the catastrophic floods in Valencia.
Ribera, who is a deputy prime minister of Spain as well as its environment and energy minister, said climate change was responsible for the deadly floods and Spain must improve officials’ capacity to respond. Speaking to the Spanish parliament on Wednesday, she said actions, protocols, regulations and alerts were of little use “if those who have to respond do not know how to do so”.
The regional president of Valencia, Carlos Mazón, of the centre-right Popular party (PP), has faced calls to resign over his handling of the floods that killed 216 people in his region. His administration has been criticised for the hours-long delay in sending an alert to people’s phones.
Spain’s sharply polarised politics arrived in Brussels last week when Mazón’s allies in the PP attacked Ribera during her hearing, seeking to blame her for the floods.
She is in line to be von der Leyen’s most powerful commissioner, responsible for the green transition and competition.
The standoff meant all six vice-presidential nominees were held up. They were Kaja Kallas, who is also the EU’s high representative for foreign policy; France’s Stéphane Séjourné, who will be in charge of industrial policy; Henna Virkkunen, intended to lead on technology policy; and Roxana Mînzatu, given the job title of people, skills and preparedness. Hungary’s nominee, Olivér Várhelyi, was also blocked amid concerns about his country’s democratic backsliding.
If several candidates were rejected, von der Leyen would have had to seek new nominees from national governments, delaying her commission beyond 1 December, which is already a late start.
Diplomats took an acid view of what they saw as a circular firing squad. It meant the EU was squabbling over internal processes rather than presenting a united front while facing a dire situation on the Ukrainian battlefields, with Donald Trump poised to return to the White House.
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The new commission is now expected to start work on 1 December, almost six months after European elections when voters returned more far-right MEPs than ever before in a vote that weakened governments in France and Germany.
Under the agreement hashed out on Wednesday, the three groups have agreed that “the rule of law, a pro-Ukraine stance and a pro-European approach are core aspects of our cooperation”.
Agreement by party leaders does not guarantee every vote, so the commission will be looking for votes from Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists, as well as the Greens.
One French socialist MEP, Christophe Clergeau, said he condemned the “validation of a far-right executive vice-president of the commission,” referring to Fitto, as he announced he would vote against the commission.
In her first 100 days, von der Leyen has promised a clean industry strategy to ensure good jobs as the EU prepares for net zero emissions by 2050, a white paper on European defence, and plans for agriculture, artificial intelligence and getting the bloc ready for enlargement.