The EPP group continues to criticise the EU SME Envoy, Vazil Hudák, especially the way he was appointed. On Monday 28 June, the co-chairs of the EPP Group’s SME Circle - Henna Virkkunen (Finland) and Jens Gieseke (Germany) - called on the European Commission in Parliament “to put an end to the ambiguities and obscurities” in the appointment of an SME Envoy.
The group pointed out that Mr Hudák was appointed EU SME Envoy, “with no further details of his mandate”. However, only two days after the Commission’s announcement, Mr Hudák was also appointed by the Prime Minister of Georgia as the new Special Adviser on Foreign Investments (see EUROPE 12736/7). The EPP would therefore like to know whether Mr Hudák's appointment as SME Envoy is “part-time”.
“This is, after all, a public appointment, paid for with taxpayers’ money”, stress the two MEPs, who want to know when the European Commission intends to make the appointment official and why it is taking so long (more than one and a half years).
It is a “strange story”, a parliamentary source told us. The EPP normally has good contact with the European Commission, but on this particular point, there is a total lack of transparency, our source continued. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)