Brussels, 25/08/2014 (Agence Europe) - In an interview with the Austrian daily newspaper Der Kurier on Monday 25 August, the new president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, expressed his hopes that the new college of European commissioners would take up office as planned on 1 November.
Juncker expressed his hopes of this, even though he is struggling to finalise his team. Belgium has still to appoint its candidate to the post of commissioner (Didier Reynders and Marianne Thyssen are in contention) and the post of high representative of the EU foreign affairs remains vacant.
A few days ahead of the European Council meeting on 30 August, to decide, amongst other things, between the declared candidates to take over from Catherine Ashton - Italy's Federica Mogherini, Radislaw Sikorski from Poland or the Bulgarian Kristalina Georgieva (Mariano Rajoy is also reported to have put his Commission candidate, Miguel Arias Canete, forward for this role, according to the Wall Street Journal) - Juncker called on the member states to make efforts to ensure greater representation for women, and therefore to put women candidates forward to him. So far, just four women have been appointed by their government: Sweden's Cecilia Malmström, Federica Mogherini from Italy, the Bulgarian Kristalina Georgieva and Vera Jourova from the Czech Republic. In the second half of José Manuel Barroso's term in office, the college of commissioners included nine women.
This numerical weakness in Juncker's new Commission could, however, be offset by giving the women commissioners major posts, Juncker explained. Ambitious portfolios could indeed go to the women. Given these various parameters, the former Eurogroup boss will, in any case, only be able to put his team together a week or two after the European Council of 30 August, he told the Austrian newspaper.
A few more clarifications: the Luxembourger confirmed that he hoped to create a post of vice-president with responsibility for coordinating growth and the investment package of €330 billion announced in July. This post is of interest to France, amongst others. “I could also envisage a vice-president assessing and coordinating the budgetary, economic and employment strategies of the member states and trying to reconcile these with the social dimension”, said Juncker (our translation). “This commissioner could present the Commission's recommendations to the national parliaments and ensure that the MPs' reactions are fed back into the Commission's subsequent work”, he explained.
In a press release, the leader of the ALDE Group at the European Parliament, Guy Verhofstadt, said that in its current configuration, the future European Commission does not fulfil the expectations of the European Parliament or those of the European Liberal family. Calling for his family to be represented in the various top jobs as part of the alliance between the EPP, the PES and ALDE, which backed Juncker in his election by the European Parliament, Verhofstadt spoke out against the political imbalance, arguing that the EPP family is over-represented within the Commission, as well as pointing out the gender imbalance. At this stage, this Commission “is simply not acceptable to us”, Verhofstadt warned. (SP)