Ursula von der Leyen unveils proposed team of European Commissioners

Top of the pecking order with executive vice-president roles are the French, Finnish, Estonian, Italian, Romanian and Spanish nominees.

Transcript

00:00After weeks of consultations behind closed doors, the Commission's president announced

00:05on Tuesday the policy portfolios of her 26-strong team of commissioners.

00:14There will be six executive vice presidents who will deal with big umbrella portfolios.

00:19In picking these specific ones, Ursula von der Leyen ensured that her new team will have

00:24geographical as well as political representation.

00:27Two from Socialists, Spain and Romania, one from EPP, Finland, one from ECR, Italy, and

00:33two from Liberals, France and Estonia.

00:37Six executive vice presidents, four women, two men.

00:41If you look at the geographical balance, three are from member states that joined before

00:48the fall of the Iron Curtain.

00:51We are from member states that joined after Europe was reunited.

00:57From the Baltics, the Nordics, and Eastern Europe.

01:02We have ministers and prime ministers, very different backgrounds, with one common goal

01:09and that is to make Europe stronger.

01:13One of the names that are more controversial is Rafael Lefito from Meloni's hard right

01:17party who has been nominated to be executive vice president for Cohesion and Reforms.

01:24The 22 commissioners from the other member states complete the team.

01:28There are some new portfolios such as Energy and Housing, Mediterranean and Defense.

01:35Last time the topic of global warming was absolutely top and this was the reason why

01:43I started the European Green Deal.

01:45The dominance of this topic is still there, but this time, for example, the topic of security

01:52triggered by the Russian war in Ukraine, but also the topic of competitiveness has a much

01:59broader, much more impact on the composition and the design of the political guidelines

02:05and then of course the organization of the college.

02:09It was also a surprise that the hardliner Austrian commissioner, Magnus Brunner, will

02:13be the commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration.

02:17The Hungarian commissioner, Oliver Varhely, got the weak portfolio for Health and Animal

02:21Welfare.

02:22Ursula von der Leyen's first goal was to have gender balance in her new team, but the best

02:29she could do was the 40-60 ratio.

02:33She gave, however, four of the executive vice president positions to women.

02:37One of them is Romania, which retracted its original candidate after von der Leyen lobbied

02:42for that.

02:43After the first relief, now comes the hard part of the commissioners.

02:49The new commission is expected to be in place at least the 1st of December.