The drama surrounding the election of the new EU Commission is coming to an end: Next Wednesday, the European Parliament will vote on the team of future Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The confirmed parliamentary president David Sassoli in Brussels.
Previously, the group leaders met with three future Commission vice-presidents Frans Timmermans, Margrethe Vestager and Valdis Dombrovskis for an exchange of views. It had become clear that von der Leyen can count on a majority for their commission, as participants of the meeting told SPIEGEL. In her own election as Commission President in July, Leyen had yet to shake: she received only nine votes more than the required majority of 374 MPs.
Also, the concerns about the missing commissioner from the UK have apparently been dispelled. Since the Brexit is now postponed to the 31 January, the British government has to nominate a commissioner under EU law.
However, London has rejected this with a view to the general election on 12 December, whereupon the EU Commission has opened proceedings for breach of EU treaties - also to ensure that their decisions can not be judicially challenged in retrospect. However, the Legal Service of the Parliament had no further objections to the election of a commission with initially only 27 members, as participants of the meeting reported on Thursday.
Von der Leyen before laborious majorities search in parliament
If Parliament confirms the Commission next week, Leyen could take over the duties of Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on 1 December.
But then lurking in Parliament, the next problems. In particular, the Social Democrat Timmermans should have made it clear at the meeting with the Commission's vices that there will be changing majorities in the future - a clear rejection of an informal grand coalition, as they had been in the past legislative period. Von der Leyen will probably have to work for ad hoc majorities in parliament in many legislative proposals.
Actually, von Leyens was inaugurated on November 1st, but the deputies had rejected three of their candidates. France, Romania and Hungary then had to propose new candidates and send them back to Parliament for a hearing.
Another consequence is that the new commission will now consist of 15 men and 12 women, including Leyen. The reason: After the Frenchwoman Sylvie Goulard was rejected by the parliament, the government nominated a man in Paris with Thierry Breton. Thus, von der Leyen has missed her goal of gender parity. However, the previous ratio of 14 men to 13 women was a coincidence, as most of the member countries had failed to comply with Leyen's request to propose one man and one woman each.
