The members of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) elected their bureau at a constitutive meeting on Tuesday 23 July.
By acclamation, they elected German Christian Democrat Sven Simon as Chair for a two-and-a-half-year mandate. Wishing to follow the example of his predecessor, Salvatore De Meo (EPP, Italian), he promised to do his utmost to “be impartial and effective” and to ensure that the parliamentary committee becomes a place where MEPs can think about the institutional future of the European Union.
In November 2023, by a narrow majority, the Parliament asked the Council of the EU to activate Article 48 of the EU Treaty, with a view to convening a Convention to reform the institutional architecture of the Union (see EUROPE 13298/7). Speaking to Agence Europe, Charles Goerens (Renew Europe, Luxembourg), who was elected as the third Vice-Chair, predicted that the political reality of the European Parliament’s new chamber will make things difficult for MEPs in favour of institutional reform, while it is clear, in his view, that an enlarged EU will not function properly without changing the Treaty.
Gabriele Bischoff (S&D, German) and Adrián Vázquez Lázara (EPP, Spanish), the former Chair of the Committee on Legal Affairs, were elected first and second Vice-Presidents respectively by acclamation.
It should be noted that Hungarian MEP Péter Magyar was elected by secret ballot (18 votes in favour, 5 against, one abstention), at the request of the S&D group coordinator, Spaniard Juan Fernando López Aguilar, former Chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties. He even asked the AFCO Committee to request an opinion from the European Parliament’s Legal Service on the merits of the decision by the Conference of Presidents (CoP) of the political groups to authorise derogations from the gender balance in the composition of the Vice-Chairs of parliamentary committees.
Mr Magyar said ironically to Agence Europe that Hungary’s socialists and far right, who wanted a gender balance in the composition of parliamentary committee Vice-Chairs, had joined forces to try to block him. As an alternate member of the AFCO Committee, he has chosen to sit on it, in particular to keep a close eye on institutional issues and issues relating to the rule of law, at a time when the Orbán government is the subject of an “Article 7” procedure concerning respect for the rule of law in Hungary. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)