The temporary chairwoman of the European Parliament's Employment and Social Affairs Committee (EMPL), Agnes Jongerius (S&D, Netherlands), announced to member MEPs at the end of the day on Wednesday 17 July that a new extraordinary meeting of the EMPL Committee would be held on Thursday 18 July at 10a.m.
This would suggest that the ECR group was able to nominate a candidate for the chair of the European Parliament's Employment and Social Affairs Committee (EMPL), following the double rejection of the candidature of the former Polish Prime Minister, Beata Szydło (see EUROPE 12296/28) for this post, although internally, it would seem that the negotiations were still "very dynamic" at the time of writing.
The Conservative group, and in particular its Polish delegation, was given an ultimatum the day before by the coordinators of the EMPL committee, set for Wednesday evening, to nominate a new candidate.
According to several sources, if the ECR group decided in favour of the German Helmut Geuking, it would easily find a majority among members of the RE, S&D, Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL groups.
If the meeting were to result in the election of a Committee Chair, this would make it possible to organise the constituent meeting of the Conference of Chairs of Parliamentary Committees and, thus, the hearings of the Romanian and Estonian candidates for the two posts left vacant by the departure of Corina Crețu and Andrus Ansip, who took their seats in the European Parliament (see EUROPE 12297/4). (Pascal Hansens)