Parliament's leaders: rows on new EU commission all ironed out

Jan 21, 2010, 12:16 GMT

Strasbourg, France - The new European Commission is set to sail through a confidence vote in the European Parliament on February 9 after a series of rows on would-be commissioners have been ironed out, the legislature's leaders said on Thursday.

'Everything has been agreed,' the head of the conservative EPP group leader, Joseph Daul, told journalists after a meeting with his socialist, liberal, green, hard-left, eurosceptic and hard-right colleagues in Strasbourg.

On Tuesday, socialist and liberal members of parliament (MEPs) forced the Bulgarian nominee, Rumiana Jeleva, to withdraw her candidature even though she was cleared of financial impropriety. Her critics argued she showed herself to be incompetent in a confirmation hearing on January 12.

The affair fuelled speculation that the EPP would target a socialist or a liberal nominee to avenge Jeleva, who also resigned from her foreign minister post and checked into a hospital in Sofia to nurse a nervous breakdown.

But Daul signalled to journalists that his group - the largest in the parliament - does not want to make life difficult for commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, who also hails from the EPP.

'I think his team is going to be approved with a very, very large majority,' he said, in view of a confidence vote scheduled for February 9 in Strasbourg.

'We don't expect any hiccups,' a spokesman for the socialist group - the legislature's second largest - confirmed to the German news agency dpa.

However, green leader Danny Cohn-Bendit explained to the press that the parliament's go-ahead will depend on the conclusion of an interinstitutional agreement that is supposed to reinforce the legislature's powers vis-a-vis the commission.

MEPs are keen to flex their muscles after the EU's Lisbon treaty - in force since December - gave them more legislative powers. So they decided to vote on the interinstitutional agreement just before giving their confidence to Barroso's team.

Parliament president Jerzy Buzek confirmed that he received '25 letters of evaluation, all positive' on commissioners designate. He is only missing the one on Jeleva's replacement, Kristalina Georgieva, who is to be heard by MEPs on February 3 in Brussels.

Georgieva, a World Bank vice president, is set to meet Barroso on Thursday, in order to receive the humanitarian aid portfolio originally intended for Jeleva.

Under EU rules, legislators cannot formally reject individual candidates, but can threaten reject an entire commission if, after holding a series of confirmation hearings, they find one or more nominees inadequate.

Jeleva is the third scalp claimed by the parliament in recent years. In 2004, MEPs forced the withdrawal of the Italian and Latvian candidates, Rocco Buttiglione and Ingrida Udre. Buttiglione had offended MEPs with his views on gays, while Udre had been accused of financial impropriety.