Share
26 August 2019 Italy, which together with France is the only country that has not yet indicated the European commissioner, will ask for "postponement of the deadline", which was set for today. This is what is learned from qualified sources. Today's date, they said in recent days in Brussels, "is not legally binding".The president-elect of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, intends to ask some member states to change the name of the commissioner they proposed, before formally announcing the composition of her team. "Not all the candidates presented will be part of the final team that the president-elect intends to present to the European Parliament," Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said today.
At present 25 of the 27 Member States have presented their candidates for the position of European Commissioner. The appeal is lacking only France and Italy, while the United Kingdom has announced that it will not designate a commissioner due to the exit from the EU scheduled for next October 31st.
Von der Leyen's talks with commissioners begin today, but the president-elect has already had several informal discussions in recent days and is in contact with governments.
According to reports, some names proposed in recent weeks by the Member States are no longer on the table because they are considered by von der Leyen not adequate.
The governments concerned must therefore present new candidates. At present Austria has named Johannes Hahn, Belgium Didier Reynders, Bulgaria Mariya Gabriel, Croatia Dubravka Suica, Cyprus Stella Kyriakides, Czech Republic Vera Jourova, Denmark Margrethe Vestager, Estonia Kadri Simson, Finland Jutta Urpilainen, Greece Margaritis Schinas, Hungary Laszlo Trocsanyi, Ireland Phil Hogan, Latvia Valdis Dombrovskis, Lithuania Virginijus Sinkevicius, Luxembourg Nicolas Schmit, Malta Helena Dalli, Holland Frans Timmermans, Poland Krzysztof Szczerski, the Slovakia Maros Sefcovic, Slovenia Janez Lenarcic, Spain Josep Borrell and Sweden Ylva Johansson.
The only countries that have accepted von der Leyen's request to present the name of a man and a woman to achieve the goal of gender equality are Portugal (Pedro Marques and Elisa Ferreira) and Romania (Rovana Plumb and Dan Nica). Portfolio allocation negotiations are underway. For the moment the only certainty based on the agreements reached at the European Council level is that the Dutch Timmermans and the Danish Vestager will be vice-presidents, while the Spanish Borrell will replace Federica Mogherini as High Representative for EU foreign policy .