European Parliament leaders have reached a deal to approve the slate of 26 policy commissioners who will join European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for the next five years. The commission is the only EU body with the ability to draft laws, giving it extensive power over the EU’s policy direction. (The Guardian)
Our Take
The finalization of the commission is always a tricky balancing act. Every EU member state must be represented, with the individual national governments determining who they will send to Brussels. At the same time, the distribution of posts is meant to correspond to the political distribution in the European Parliament. That complicated this year’s process, because the European Parliament elections in June resulted in greater representation for the far right, which is split into multiple blocs, while the three main centrist groups maintained their majority but were weakened.
Those results secured a second term for von der Leyen, but led to a standoff over the rest of the commission. The center-left group, the Socialists and Democrats, objected to the inclusion of Raffaele Fitto, a member of Italy’s far-right ruling party, in a VP position overseeing cohesion and reforms. In turn, the center-right European People’s Party threatened to block Teresa Ribera, a Socialist from Spain, from a senior VP position overseeing competition and climate.