EU Commission ready to go - after much wrangling
The European Parliament has cleared the way for the new EU Commission to take office. On Wednesday, the leaders of the political groups approved the seven Commissioners who had not yet been confirmed. The nominations of Raffaele Fitto (ECR/Fratelli d'Italia) and Teresa Ribera (S&D/Social Democrats) as vice presidents were the subject of heated debate. Commentators are unsparing in their criticism of the process - and of the results.
Personal feud at Europe's expense
La Repubblica looks at the winners of the tug-of-war:
“The Meloni government has made it. It has secured one of the six vice-presidential posts. A chair that counts for nothing when you have it but from which it would have hurt to be ousted for political unworthiness. Ursula von der Leyen emerges victorious from another trap set for her by her party colleague, EPP leader Manfred Weber. Five years ago, Weber was set to become Commission President, but Ursula von der Leyen snatched the job from under his nose with Merkel's and Macron's support. The CSU politician from Bavaria has been seeking revenge ever since.”
Parliament's credibility takes another hit
The hearings degenerated into a party-political spectacle, criticises Le Soir:
“On paper, the hearings of the commissioners-designate by the parliamentarians are an expression of sound governance. ... In reality, the big rounds of hearings in November only served to further discredit the Parliament. The leaders of the largest political groups, the Conservatives, the Socialists and the Liberals, spent ten days proving that their assessments are not based on merit but on party-political and electoral interests. A simulation of a fact-based process that was instrumentalised by national interests and electoral tactics.”
In for a complicated legislative period
El País analyses:
“EPP leader Manfred Weber has managed to take Ribera hostage and get the social democrats to endorse Raffaele Fitto, the candidate of far-right leader Giorgia Meloni, and Viktor Orbán's candidate Oliver Várhelyi. ... Weber is thus continuing his strategy of whitewashing the far right. ... The social democrats were naive to think that the EPP would accept Ribera as number two in the Commission without asking for anything in return. ... Moreover, they made the vote on Fitto a decisive issue without taking into account that the electoral results make it inevitable that representatives of ultra-conservative governments will come to Brussels. ... All this makes for a very complicated European legislative period.”