European Commissioners-designate face parliamentary grillings

euronews (in English)

Some Commissioner candidates including Raffaele Fitto and Olivér Várhelyi face tough scrutiny in the hearings. Countries whose candidates are rejected must restart the process with a new nominee.

Transcript

00:00The European Parliament will kick off the hearings of the Commissioners-designate on

00:06Monday.

00:07During this type of interview, Commissioners answer both written and oral questions from

00:13MEPs to demonstrate their expertise, commitment to Europe and integrity.

00:19Over the next weeks, every Commissioner-designate will go through a hearing.

00:31That is three hours where the Commissioner-designate will have 15 minutes to expose their program

00:36for the Commission, then they will have questions from the different committees and he can answer

00:41the questions and there will be a debate on these issues.

00:44Then there will be an evaluation by the chairs of the committees and the presidents of the

00:48different groups and they will decide if they accept or reject the Commissioner.

00:54If a Commissioner-designate is rejected, their role may be adapted or another name from the

01:00same country must be proposed and the procedure must start over.

01:04In 2019, the Hungarian conservative László Troskányi and the Romanian socialist Rovanna

01:10Plum were rejected.

01:12The MEPs also rejected the candidacy of French Sylvie Goulart because of doubts about her

01:18integrity and independence.

01:20This time, it is the Patriots for Europe and European conservative and reformist candidates

01:25who are most at risk.

01:27There is the Italian candidate Raffaele Fito that has been criticised, you know, I don't

01:33think so much to be honest for, you know, his persona, but for his party because he

01:39comes from the far-right party of Miloni in Italy.

01:44Another candidate that had been discussed a lot as, you know, maybe facing troubles

01:49also for political reasons is the Hungarian Commissioner that is actually right now already

01:55the Commissioner and that wants to stay on for a second term, Olivia Vaheli.

02:00The hearing of the Commissioner-designate is a deeply political process.

02:05According to the researcher, political groups are not hesitant to retaliate against one

02:10another.

02:12It might also be that everybody is a bit more mild towards each other because they want

02:17to prevent the tit-for-tat and so they kind of carefully, you know, avoid too tough questioning

02:23to not, you know, to not endanger their own candidates by being too tough on the candidates

02:29of the other parties.

02:31Roussac also anticipates that the toughest questions will come from the Greens and the

02:36left as they have no candidates and therefore have nothing to lose.

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