Von der Leyen presents her new College of Commissioners focused on competitiveness

Today, Tuesday 17 September, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, presented her College of Commissioners for her second term.

• In total, the new Commission will have 26 Commissioners, and two new portfolios dedicated to Defence and the Mediterranean.
• After much political pressure in recent weeks, particularly on Central and Eastern European countries, von der Leyen has managed to approach parity: the new Commission includes 11 women, or 40% of the College – compared to 44.4% for the previous one.

The new Commission will have six executive vice-presidencies, including France, Italy and Spain.

• Teresa Ribera, the Spanish candidate proposed by Pedro Sánchez’s executive, will be one of the six executive vice-presidents, with a portfolio combining the green transition and competitiveness, at the head of the powerful DG COMP. The Draghi report, presented on 9 September, in fact highlighted the need to align the two policies.
• French candidate Stéphane Séjourné, nominated by President Emmanuel Macron after the highly publicized resignation of Thierry Breton on September 16, who accused President von der Leyen of forcing his departure, also obtains an executive vice-presidency dedicated to industrial strategy.. The departure of Breton, who had been in charge of the single market during the previous legislature, would have been made in exchange for a more important portfolio. Since his speech at the Sorbonne in 2017, the French president has been arguing in favour of a strategically autonomous Europe, making industrial policy a key element of his policy.
• Giorgia Meloni’s proposed candidate, Raffaele Fitto, will be the executive vice-president in charge of cohesion policies. Meloni, who abstained in the vote confirming von der Leyen as Commission president in July and whose party, Fratelli d’Italia, voted against, had asked for a key portfolio for her country. If Italy gets a vice-presidency, it loses the economic affairs portfolio, managed since 2019 by Paolo Gentiloni.
• Other important appointments include Valdis Dombrovskis (Latvia) as Commissioner for Economy and Productivity, Piotr Serafin (Poland) as Commissioner for Budget, Magnus Brunner (Austria) as Commissioner for Home Affairs and Migration, and Andrius Kubilius (Lithuania) as Commissioner for Defence and Space.

In terms of the weight of the groups in the European Parliament, the European People’s Party comes first with 14 commissioners, compared to 10 in 2019 – to which is added President Ursula von der Leyen – indicating a certain shift to the right of the Commission.

The new team must be confirmed by a vote in the European Parliament, the date of which is still unknown. Hearings of the commissioners are scheduled for early November. Historically, this process can result in the rejection of one or two candidates, who will then have to be replaced.