Behind the scenes, negotiations for the positions were painful, right up until the last minute.
Surprise resignation
On Monday, it was the influential outgoing French Commissioner Thierry Breton who resigned with a bang, a victim of his execrable relations with Ms von der Leyen. To replace him, Emmanuel Macron proposed a close friend, Stéphane Séjourné, the resigning Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Paris is hoping for a vice-presidency of the Commission and a broad portfolio dedicated to “industrial and technological sovereignty and European competitiveness”.
The composition of the new team will send a signal about the weight of the member states, the political balances and the directions that the executive team intends to take in Brussels, three months after elections marked by the rise of the extreme right.
Presentation maintained this Tuesday
Reappointed in July, Ursula von der Leyen must present her casting to the group leaders of the European Parliament on Tuesday morning, on the sidelines of the plenary session in Strasbourg.
In addition to the surprise replacement of Thierry Breton, uncertainty remains in Slovenia, where the approval of the new candidate Marta Kos by the national parliament is slow.
Added to this is the controversy that European leaders are struggling to deflate over the lack of women in the future team: the new college could have around ten out of 27, without achieving the parity that was promised.
A “clone” of Macron
The replacement of Thierry Breton by another man, Stéphane Séjourné, has not failed to arouse criticism. Mr. Séjourné is a “clone” of Emmanuel Macron and “the choice as always of a man, why bother with parity. Old world”, grumbled MEP Manon Aubry, head of the radical left group.
Proposing a commissioner is a matter for the “competence of the Member States”, a Commission spokesperson said, citing “two criteria”: “competence and parity”.
In the wake of the recent Draghi report on competitiveness, the Commission could further display its economic priorities, in a Europe struggling to compete with China and the United States.
On the left and among NGOs, there is fear of a reorientation to the detriment of the climate ambitions of the previous mandate.
Very different parliament
“It's not that ambition is decreasing, it's an implementation phase,” assures a Source within the commission. But with fewer Green elected officials and a larger far right, the “Parliament is very different from that of 2019”, it will be necessary to see “what influence it will have on the subject”.
In this respect, the portfolio assigned to the Spanish socialist Teresa Ribera, who is committed to climate issues, will be scrutinized. Her anti-nuclear positions are not to the taste of certain European states, such as France.
After this presentation of Ursula von der Leyen's team, the potential commissioners will have to pass hearings before MEPs and submit to a vote of approval, an institutional arm wrestling match with the Parliament which often wants to mark its territory by rejecting certain candidates.
Far right or not?
“It's like taking an exam,” to prepare, the commissioner must review the “briefing book”, a “bible” on the action of the previous commission and what the objectives are, says a close friend of an outgoing commissioner.
Several MEPs would like to bring down the Hungarian candidate, accused of not listening to the European Parliament and being too close to the positions of nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban. As part of the Hungarian presidency of the EU, Mr Orban was due to speak in Strasbourg on Wednesday, but cancelled his visit due to the Boris storm affecting central Europe.
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