Italy’s Antonio Decaro (S&D) was elected Chair of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) on Tuesday 23 July. He thus takes the place of Frenchman Pascal Canfin (Renew Europe), who has become ENVI coordinator for his political family.
As the only candidate put forward by the S&D Group, which had the right to chair this committee under the ‘D’Hondt’ system, Mr Decaro was elected by acclamation by the 90 members of the European Parliament’s largest committee (along with the Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) committee).
This is Mr Decaro’s first term as an MEP. A member of the Italian Democratic Party, he was previously mayor of the city of Bari and a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.
He acknowledged that the European ‘Green Deal’ was “an ambitious objective”, but “not impossible to achieve”. Welcoming the results achieved during the previous term of office, he said that the ENVI committee had “no reason to go back”.
On the contrary, according to Pascal Canfin, “certain key elements were not adopted in the first ‘Green Deal’”, including “those relating to adaptation”. Other measures, such as those relating to agriculture, were “unravelled” at the beginning of the year, regrets the MEP, who wants to return to pesticides (see EUROPE 13264/5).
Interviewed by Agence Europe, the former Chair of the ENVI Committee notes that there is a real “desire to depolarise the debate” between the EPP and the Greens, who will now work together within the majority of four political groups: “It won’t go as far as the Greens would like, or as far as the EPP would like, but in the end it allows us to move forward”.
Tiemo Wölken (S&D, German), S&D coordinator for the ENVI committee, told Agence Europe that not enough attention had been paid to public acceptance and just transition during the previous legislature. He therefore believes that the needs of all citizens must be taken into account when defining environmental policies.
The members then voted on the four Vice-Chairs who will sit on the committee for a two-and-a-half-year term, as will Mr Decaro.
Spain’s Esther Herranz (EPP) was elected First Vice-Chair by acclamation, thus respecting the principle of gender parity between committee chairs and vice-chairs.
At the request of the S&D, Greens/EFA and Renew Europe Groups, the vote for the Second Vice-Chair was held by secret ballot to elect Italian Pietro Fiocchi (ECR), a member of the Fratelli d’Italia party (52 votes in favour, 25 against and 12 abstentions).
The Third Vice-Chair goes to Anja Hazekamp (The Left) from the Netherlands.
The ‘cordon sanitaire’ interfered with the ‘D’Hondt’ rule for the election of the Fourth Vice-President, allowing Andras Kulja (EPP, Hungarian) to be elected in place of Jorge Buxadé (Patriots for Europe), by 64 votes in favour of Kulja, 24 in favour of Buxadé and 2 abstentions. The latter was outraged: “This committee has decided to ignore the democratic rules of this assembly”, he denounced, after claiming that not being elected vice-chair of this committee was a “real honour for him”. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys and Florent Servia)