On Thursday 27 June, the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, said that the political groups had given themselves until “Thursday 4 July” to form, after which they will begin negotiations on the distribution of posts in the parliamentary committees according to their size.
The European Parliament’s parliamentary committees will hold their constitutive session in the week commencing Monday 22 July. The question of reorganising these committees could be raised again by mid-July (see EUROPE 13431/25).
Ms Metsola also confirmed that the MEPs’ vote on the President-designate of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, would take place on Thursday 18 July in Strasbourg in the event of a decision by the European Council at the end of June on the trio of personalities to occupy senior European posts (see EUROPE 13441/1). The decision to hold the vote will be taken at the Conference of Presidents (CoP) of the political groups on Thursday 11 July.
Asked about a letter from the EU Council expressing concern about the Parliament’s desire to reform the hearing process for European Commissioners-designate and the MEPs’ request to be informed by the Commission President-designate about the future structure of the College before the plenary vote, the Maltese Christian Democrat stressed that the Parliament’s aim was to correct the current “institutional imbalance” between the EU’s co-legislative institutions. A very large majority of MEPs want the Parliament, “like any other Parliament, to exercise scrutiny”, she said.
Ms Metsola is also due to be reappointed in mid-July as President of the Parliament for 2.5 years, in accordance with an informal agreement between the EPP, S&D and Renew Europe groups, which hold an absolute majority in the Parliament.
As the European Parliament plenary session in mid-July will be constitutive, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose country will hold the six-month presidency of the EU Council from July (see other news and EUROPE 13420/18), will not present his country’s political priorities at that time, but rather in September.
See the updated breakdown of seats between the Parliament’s political groups: https://aeur.eu/f/cvn (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)