Juncker accepts nomination of Violeta Bulc
Sources say the Slovenian nominee will be given the transport portfolio and Šefčovič will become vice-president for energy union.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the president-elect of the European Commission, has accepted Slovenia’s nomination of Violeta Bulc to be its European commissioner.
According to officials, Juncker has decided to assign her the transport portfolio and to promote Maroš Šefčovič of Slovakia from transport commissioner to vice-president for energy union.
Juncker met Bulc on Tuesday night in Brussels and told journalists after the meeting that she had left an “excellent” impression. He later issued a press release saying he had submitted an amended list of commissioner-designates, with her name added, to the Council of Ministers for approval.
The Council must now agree to the updated list by written procedure and publish its decision in the EU’s official journal. Juncker said he will only announce the portfolio he intends to give Bulc after the Council has given its assent. This could be done Wednesday morning with publication in the official journal Wednesday afternoon as long as there are no objections, according to Council sources.
Bulc, who is minister for development and regional policy and is a deputy prime minister, was put forward for the Commission job on Friday by her party leader and prime minister, Miro Cerar, after Alenka Bratušek had withdrawn her candidacy. Bratušek was to be vice-president for energy union, a post that Juncker has now decided to give to Šefčovič.
Bulc has been in Brussels since Monday morning. She is a political newcomer and has been in her ministerial position for only a few weeks, since Cerar formed his new government.
Bulc will have to face a confirmation hearing with MEPs, and it is expected that Šefčovič, given his re-assignment, will also have another hearing.
There is some resistance to Bulc’s nomination among MEPs because of her lack of experience. There are also concerns that her nomination process will end up being just as controversial as Bratušek’s. A vote in Cerar’s cabinet yielded a vote of seven to six against Bulc. But three ministers were not present, and Cerar used special rules of procedure to count these three abstentions as positive votes. This was the same mechanism used by Bratušek in July to push through her own nomination, a move that Cerar criticised at the time.
An association called “Taxpayers will not give up” and the leader of the opposition Christian Socialist party have filed a complaint with the anti-corruption commission, the same commission that found that Bratušek had acted unethically in her nomination process.
MEPs in the two main groups of the Parliament, the centre-left S&D and centre-right EPP, are already irked about Bulc’s nomination because Cerar rebuffed their request that he nominate Slovenian centre-left MEP Tanja Fajon. Fearing another rejection, Juncker wanted guarantees from the two groups that Bulc can be confirmed before he officially accepts her nomination.
However, both the Parliament and the Commission are nervous about delaying the start of the new college of commissioners. A final confirmation vote on the new Commission is scheduled for next Wednesday (22 October) in Strasbourg. The Parliament’s group leaders are meeting on Thursday (16 October) in the Conference of Presidents configuration to decide when to hold new hearings.
The hope is that the hearings could be scheduled for next Monday or Tuesday in Strasbourg and a vote could be held next Thursday (23 October). However that would leave Bulc only a few days to prepare. It now appears more likely that the final vote will have to be delayed until the mini-plenary session in Brussels on 12-13 November. This would delay the start date of the new Commission, which was supposed to be 1 November, by at least two weeks.
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