Hard-right ECR group gets powerful EU Commission post, stirring Parliament

euronews (in English)

Socialists, Liberals and Greens oppose von der Leyen's appointment of Italian hard-right Raffaele Fitto (ECR) as executive vice-president of the new European Commission.

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00:00The choice of the Italian Raffaele Fitto as one of the six executive vice-presidents of

00:06the next European Commission wasn't appreciated by most of the political groups that backed

00:10Ursula von der Leyen.

00:13Socialists, liberals and greens don't like having a vice-president coming from the group

00:19of European conservatives and reformists that they consider as far-right.

00:24With regard to the vice-presidency of ICR, President von der Leyen knew perfectly well

00:34our position against it.

00:36In any case, now the work begins, the hearings process, and throughout this process we will

00:41have to evaluate the capacity, knowledge and European commitment of each and every one

00:46of the commissioners, also of the Italian commissioner, and finally we will take a final

00:51position regarding it.

00:53Fitto, who served as minister in the government of Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni,

00:56will be strictly analysed by the parliament before getting the green light.

00:59The opposing groups must decide whether accepting his post is a viable way to manage the rising

01:03pressure from the far-right, or if rejecting him now could lead to even greater pressure

01:07in the future.

01:08With the Group Renew, we have already alerted about Ursula von der Leyen's political choice.

01:14She confirmed it.

01:15We are taking action on it.

01:16From now on, there will be auditions and our demands will be real towards Mr. Fitto.

01:21We will examine all the candidates.

01:22We will examine the candidates based on their skills, pro-European commitment and independence

01:27towards the member states.

01:28The Greens' AFA group also expresses doubt on two other appointments, the commissioner

01:33of Austria that got internal affairs and migration, and the Hungarian that got health and animal

01:38welfare.

01:39First of all, Vareli, our Hungarian commissioner, we do not understand that he is being put

01:45back there in the college.

01:46He did not perform very well in the previous term, so we have our concerns there.

01:50Also, as far as I know, he doesn't know anything on animal health, on animal welfare and on

01:56health, so in that sense also there are concerns.

01:59And, of course, on migration, having an Austrian conservative on migration also is a big concern

02:04for us.

02:06Each commissioner needs the approval of at least two-thirds of the competent European

02:10Parliament's committee to be approved.

02:12For some of them, it won't be an easy task.

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