BRUSSELS — You’ve got mail!
Before taking a break to spend time with her family, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will ask the EU’s national governments to send in the names of who they want to be in the next team of commissioners.
Each country gets one commissioner. Von der Leyen counts as Germany’s choice and Kaja Kallas, backed by EU leaders to be the next foreign policy chief, will be Estonia’s representative (the foreign policy chief is appointed by the European Council but is a vice-president of the Commission). Von der Leyen is asking each country to nominate a man and a woman, except when the incumbent commissioner is staying on.
Before you close your laptop to head out to the beach, POLITICO gets you up to speed with where things stand.
Who is staying?
Several governments opted to avoid a nasty domestic fight by sending back their current person in the Berlaymont, the Commission’s HQ. After all, their experience and personal relationship with von der Leyen could help clinch a better portfolio. Maroš Šefčovič (Slovakia) and Valdis Dombrovskis (Latvia) for example, known as two steady hands, will add another five years at the European Commission to their resumes. The same probably goes for Dubravka Šuica (Croatia), although she has not yet been officially named by her government. The Dutch commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra, entered the European Commission in October as a replacement for climate czar Frans Timmermans and is coming back for another five years, even though his party is not in the Dutch government. It’s still unclear whether the French and Greek leaders will decide to send back their current commissioners, Thierry Breton and Margaritis Schinas.
Which new names should we already learn to pronounce?
A growing number of countries have started putting forward names, even before von der Leyen sent her official request. Spain hopes to clinch a large energy and climate portfolio for Ecological Transition Minister Teresa Ribera, especially as she is likely to be the most senior socialist in the next Commission. Sweden is sending its EU Minister Jessika Roswall, Finland is sending MEP Henna Virkkunen, Slovenia sent the former President of the Court of Audit Tomaž Vesel, Ireland put forward Finance Minister Michael McGrath, and the Czech Republic nominated Industry and Trade Minister Jozef Síkela.
Great, but that still leaves over a dozen countries unaccounted for…
A lot of the puzzle is still unclear, despite the rumor mill working overtime in Brussels. More and more countries will be putting forward their names in the coming weeks.
So far, no one has publicly put forward two candidates, as requested. But European leaders are well aware that von der Leyen is eying another gender-balanced Commission. In some cases, there will be behind the scenes haggling about names and portfolios before anything official comes out, to avoid publicly damaging a candidate who might be rejected.
In other cases, national politicians are fighting each other over the nomination. In Lithuania, the prime minister and the president are openly fighting over the candidate. In Poland, the fight is happening behind closed doors. Other countries, such as Bulgaria and Belgium, are in the midst of forming new governments, which makes it difficult to decide on a name.
What are the big prizes to fight over?
It’s no secret that France envisages an economic super-portfolio that will help steer the bloc’s industrial agenda in the face of competition from the U.S. and China — potentially with oversight of areas where Brussels has hard power: trade and competition. But Italy is also fishing around for this role. One crucial question is whether von der Leyen decides to keep far-right leader Giorgia Meloni sweet with a prime job for an Italian from her camp, or leave her with the more symbolic new Mediterranean portfolio.
Enlargement will be a top-level portfolio because negotiations over expanding the EU to include Ukraine will be one of the Commission’s most politically sensitive jobs.
Agriculture commissioner is also one to watch given the EU’s outsize role in the farm and food sector. It’s also a post that exposes how hard it is to build a politically balanced Commission. Luxembourg’s Christophe Hansen from the center-right European People’s Party has emerged as an early hot tip in this area, as the Socialist camp seems to have given up hopes for Luxembourg’s current commissioner and the socialist lead candidate during the campaign, Nicolas Schmit, to do another term, potentially scotching Hansen’s hopes.
Didn’t I hear about some exciting new jobs on offer?
You sure did. Von der Leyen will be looking for a commissioner dedicated to the Mediterranean, which sounds lovely but is probably a hardcore job looking at immigration and the parlous security situation in the Middle East and North Africa. Cyprus has made early expressions of interest in that one.
There’s also the prospect of a defense commissioner, which generated some early excitement until candidates realized how little power the EU has in that domain. Speculation for a while focused on Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, until he counted himself out. Poland is sometimes also mentioned as a likely runner for the enlargement job given Warsaw’s support for Kyiv, but the role could open up prickly problems in domestic politics, with Polish farmers less than enthusiastic about integrating Ukraine’s huge agri sector into the EU.
So who gets what portfolio?
That’s up to von der Leyen. She has to take into account gender balance, political party balance and geographical balance. Leaders will (and already have, in return for their support for von der Leyen in the European Council) haggle over portfolios, hoping to secure a powerful post. It will be a challenge to find enough women, so countries putting forward a female candidate have an advantage over those sending a man. Von der Leyen has also made very clear to leaders that she wants experienced and capable commissioners, ideally with some previous executive experience in their home countries.
What happens next?
The European capitals have until the end of August to send in their candidates. Von der Leyen will start interviewing the (new) candidates as of mid-August, after which she will start putting all the puzzle pieces together. Von der Leyen was the first to set up a gender-balanced European Commission in 2019 and wants to repeat that this time around, which is why she is asking leaders to send a candidate from each gender.
In parallel, the homework for the next commissioners is being prepared. The political guidelines that von der Leyen unveiled before her confirmation vote in the Parliament — essentially, her plan for the next five years — will form the basis of the mission letters that will be sent to the new commissioners, setting out what will be expected of them.
Once von der Leyen’s work is done, it’s up to the European Parliament to grill the new commissioners in hearings that are set to take place at the end of September and in October. The Parliament can reject candidates, and likes to flex its muscle by giving a few the thumbs down. If that happens, the country in question will need to nominate a new candidate. In 2019, the first French, Romanian and Hungarian commissioner picks were binned.
The hope of EU officials is to have the new European Commission in place by November 1.
Max Griera, Eddy Wax, Nektaria Stamouli and Jacopo Barigazzi contributed reporting.