The European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) should be able to start analysing the declarations of interest made by the European Commissioners-designate on Friday 20 September. According to a senior European official, the documents Parliament needs to analyse the candidates should be ready by Thursday 19 September.
This gives hope of holding the hearings the hearings of the European Commissioners in October and of having a College of Commissioners ready to take office on 1 November. “The general understanding we had is that the Commission should be able to start its work as soon as possible, while allowing the European Parliament to have the scrutiny it is allowed to have according to Treaties”, said this source.
The first stage of analysis in Parliament, which involves checking candidates for potential conflicts of interest, could be completed quickly. “Last time, it took between 24 and 48 hours to complete this analysis”, said the Chairman of the JURI Committee, Ilhan Kyuchyuk (Renew Europe, Bulgarian). However, he insisted on the fact that the members of this committee would take as much time as necessary if they had clarifications to ask for from certain candidates.
Assuming that the JURI Committee finds no conflict of interest in the candidates' declarations, Parliament may decide to hold its hearings of Commissioners-designate in mid-October. However, this timetable remains ambitious, according to several parliamentary sources, as the preparation of these hearings may take time. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)