Parliament has forced reshuffles before when faced with nominees not to its liking
JOSÉ MANUEL Barroso’s incoming European Commission faces robust questioning from MEPs at confirmation hearings in the coming days, the final hurdle before his new team takes office.
The hearings before committees of the European Parliament start this afternoon in Brussels. They stand as a crucial test for the new EU executive, whose Irish member is former Fianna Fáil minister Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, as MEPs can block the appointment of the entire college if they deem any nominee unsuitable.
In 2004, MEPs forced a mini-reshuffle on Mr Barroso after demanding the withdrawal of Italian nominee Rocco Buttiglione over his views on homosexuality.
Rumiana Jeleva, the Bulgarian nominee for the international aid post, is seen as potentially the weakest link in the new EU executive over her business interests.
Agriculture nominee Dacain Ciolas is likely to be asked about irregularities in Romania’s management of EU funds when he was farm minister. The Danish nominee for the climate action post Connie Hedegaard is set for tough questioning from Green MEPs over her poor performance as chair of the Copenhagen summit.
Amid persistent doubt about the level of expertise Baroness Catherine Ashton brings to the foreign portfolio, the British nominee will be questioned on her preparations to finalise the structure of the EU’s diplomatic service by April. “There is a certain feeling that she doesn’t have any obvious qualifications to do all of that,” said a senior source in the European Peoples’ Party (EPP).
Ms Geoghegan-Quinn, who is taking the research portfolio, will be questioned on Wednesday.
German Christian Democrat MEP Herbert Reul, chairman of the research and industry committee, said he wants to hear how Ms Geoghegan-Quinn chooses and justifies research priorities.
Mr Reul hopes for a pragmatic approach to research financing. “On the one hand, it must be ensured that the funds are spent according to the rules. On the other hand, these same rules must not be so tight that they scotch risky, but promising projects.”
Informed sources said Green MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit has written a letter to Mr Barroso in which he called on Ms Jeleva, an EPP vice-president, to clarify her response to certain questions.
Although her husband’s business dealings have come under scrutiny in the Bulgarian and German press, documents circulating in the parliament have questioned whether Ms Jeleva herself did enough to halt her own business interests when she became foreign minister last summer.
Dublin Fine Gael MEP Gay Mitchell, the EPP co-ordinator on the development committee, will ask the first question of Ms Jeleva.
Although close observers in Brussels believe there could be a rerun of the Buttiglione affair in Ms Jeleva’s case, Mr Mitchell insists the EPP would not tolerate that. “She comes with some standing. We won’t let that happen. She has to be given the same fair hearing as any commissioner designate,” he said. “This is meant to be a quasi-judicial process where people are not pre-judged and are given a fair chance to demonstrate that they can do the job.”
A commission official questioned the credibility of reports that Mr Barroso has a “Plan B up his sleeve” to rotate portfolios if a candidate was blocked. “We have not even had the first hearings and people are already talking about scenarios we have no idea will even come about.”
Finnish Green MEP Satu Hassi said Ms Hedegaard “did her best” as chairman of the UN Copenhagen summit, a post she quit midway through the talks after she was criticised by African countries for favouring wealthier states.
“The Danish government was not as sensitive to developing countries as it should have been but it’s hard to judge how much this was down to Hedegaard and how much to the Danish prime minister.” The hearings conclude next week in Strasbourg. A vote is due on January 26th.