European Commission –
A painful agreement in Parliament
After difficult negotiations, an agreement was reached on Wednesday evening in the European Parliament to approve the new Commission team, including a vice-presidency awarded to the far right.
The new European executive, led by Ursula von der Leyen, will take office on December 1.
AFP
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MEPs will decide during a vote on November 27 in plenary session in Strasbourg, for the entry into office of the new European executive, led by Ursula von der Leyen, on 1is December.
According to the agreement reached on Wednesday, the leaders of the EPP (right), Renew (center) and the Social Democratic group (left) support all the European commissioners proposed by each member state, including the Italian Raffaele Fitto, member of the far-right Fratelli d’Italia party, chosen for a vice-presidency in Territorial Cohesion.
The Fitto houses
The social democrats were divided to the end on the Fitto case: the French socialists pleaded in vain not to seal an agreement with the other groups if the Italian retained his title of vice-president.
There could therefore be defections during the November 27 vote. “For the first time, the European Commission will have a far-right vice-president. I strongly condemn it and with the French socialists we will obviously vote against this Commission,” reacted MEP Pierre Jouvet.
The head of the Italian government and Fratelli d’Italia, Giorgia Meloni, conversely, celebrated the “important task” entrusted to Raffaele Fitto, a sign of the “rediscovered centrality of Italy in Europe”.
Negotiations were tense, but parliamentarians underlined the desire to move forward in order to avoid hesitation in Brussels, at a time when the election of Donald Trump in the United States calls for a strong European voice.
“Pro-European majority”
In their agreement, the three groups promise to “work together” in a “constructive” way and to defend European “values” in Parliament.
The left and the center demanded a commitment from the EPP, after having repeatedly criticized it for mixing its votes with the far right since the start of the legislature, for example on November 14 to relax a law against deforestation.
Wednesday’s “coalition” agreement marks the “return” of a “pro-European majority for this mandate”, argued the Renew group.
Since November 12, Parliament had completed the hearings of future commissioners, but MEPs were slow to evaluate the performances of the headliners of Ursula von der Leyen’s new team.
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