The right, the center and the social democrats reached a political agreement this Wednesday evening to approve the new team of the European Commission, sources within the three groups of the European Parliament indicated.
The leaders of the EPP, Renew and the Social Democratic group support all of the proposed commissioners, including Italian Raffaele Fitto, a member of the far-right Fratelli d’Italia party. The European Parliament will decide in a vote on November 27 in Strasbourg, for the new European executive, chaired by Ursula von der Leyen, to take office on December 1.
Negotiations were difficult in Brussels. Parliament had heard potential European commissioners from November 4 to 12, but MEPs were slow to evaluate the performances of the headliners of Ursula von der Leyen’s new team.
Political tensions
Three names caused a blockage: the Spanish Teresa Ribera (Ecological transition and competition), the Italian Raffaele Fitto (Cohesion), both potential vice-presidents of the future Commission, and the Hungarian Oliver Varhelyi, European commissioner for health and to animal welfare.
The right pointed the finger at the socialist Ribera, current minister of Pedro Sanchez, accusing her of having mismanaged the deadly floods which hit her country. The EPP waited for Teresa Ribera’s explanations before the Spanish Parliament this Wednesday, before sealing an agreement in the European Parliament. The left and the center for their part denounced the vice-presidency attributed to the Italian Fitto, even though he belongs to Fratelli d’Italia, the far-right party of the head of government Giorgia Meloni. They also criticized the profile of the Hungarian Varhelyi, close to nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, for health. The social democrats were divided to the end on the Fitto case: the French socialists pleaded in vain not to seal an agreement with the other groups if the Italian retained his title of vice-president.
Among environmentalists, Frenchwoman Marie Toussaint denounced this agreement, a “historic and dramatic rupture” due to the arrival of a representative of the extreme right as vice-president of the Commission.