It's D-Day for the first European Commission presided by a woman, the German Ursula von der Leyen. It must get the green light from MEPs Wednesday, November 27, in a vote scheduled around 12 pm after a speech by the President-elect followed by a debate.
Between re-elected commissioner candidates - three, an unprecedented figure -, a Brexit still pending and controversial portfolio titles, the delivery of the team of former Defense Minister Angela Merkel has been laborious. Its entry into office, which will take place on December 1, had to be delayed by one month because of the rejection of three candidates, including the French Sylvie Goulard.
The result of Wednesday's vote will be a valuable indication of the support that Ursula von der Leyen will have during the five years of her term. Parliament had given it a very short majority of nine votes in July.
Disciplined
The vote for the nomination will not be secret, which should favor the discipline within the groups of a strongly renewed, more fragmented Parliament which showed teeth during the hearings of the commissioners.
"We will be united in our support for the Commission," promised Tuesday the German Manfred Weber, leader of the 182 elected from the group of the European People's Party. His candidacy for the post was rejected by Emmanuel Macron, main support for the appointment of Ursula von der Leyen. The 154 elected social democrats and the 108 Renew Liberals should also vote "overwhelmingly" in favor of the nomination.
"We will have the most progressive European Commission of recent times, the most equal and it will have among its priorities policies which, for our group, are essential," argued the Spanish Socialist Iratxe Garcia Perez.
Topics that annoy
But discordant voices were heard. The five French Socialist MEPs will abstain. They join the position of the Greens, who should almost all abstain.
Among the hateful subjects is the appointment as Commissioner for the Enlargement of a Hungarian, seen by his detractors as a support for the anti-EU positions of the government of Viktor Orban.
The appointment of the French Thierry Breton, former CEO of Atos, a company specializing in digital services for the important portfolio of the single market and digital also displeases some. For the Socialist Sylvie Guillaume, the French had "insufficient" answers during his hearing "on lobbying while he lobbied on just about all topics in his portfolio."
The extreme left (GUE) denounces for its part the "similar liberal recipes" to the previous Commission and will vote against, just like the extreme right.
With AFP