Poland’s Piotr Serafin (EPP) is being considered for the post of European Commissioner for Budget, Anti-Fraud and Public Administration.
Under-Secretary of State for European Integration at the end of the 2000s, then Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Serafin was then Chief of Staff to Donald Tusk, when he was President of the European Council (2014-2019). He has been Poland’s ambassador to the EU since December 2023.
His first task will be to work on the establishment of the next Multiannual Financial Framework (2028-2034), while Ursula von der Leyen envisages a European ”investment” Commission for this new mandate.
Piotr Serafin’s priorities: guaranteeing competitiveness and respect for the rule of law
Competitiveness. The new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) should provide an opportunity to move “to a policy-based budget from a programme-based budget”, as requested by the President of the European Commission.
Competitiveness being the watchword of Ursula von der Leyen’s second mandate, Piotr Serafin will be responsible for establishing a ‘European Competitiveness Fund’, the aim of which will be to develop the EU’s investment capacity.
Own resources. If the European Commission wants to invest, it will have to find the funds to do so. Piotr Serafin will be responsible for introducing new own resources and to “modernise” the EU’s revenue system.
Review the fight against corruption. In the fight against fraud, the Pole will have to review the “overall anti-fraud architecture linked to the EU’s financial interests”. To this end, the President of the European Commission is asking him to draw on the work of Europol and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and to monitor the administrative investigations into irregularities carried out by the European Anti-Fraud Agency.
Rule of law. At a time when the last mandate saw EU funds allocated to Hungary blocked because of a decline in the Rule of law in that country, and when the same issue is currently being raised for Slovakia (see EUROPE 13478/16), Mr Serafin will have to be one of the guarantors of respect for the Rule of law, in coordination with Michael McGrath, Commissioner-designate for Democracy, Justice and the Rule of Law, in this new Commission which is intended to be ‘horizontal and holistic’. Specifically, Mr Serafin will have to ensure “that respect for the Rule of law will remain imperative for EU funds”.
Hope and questions: MEPs await the hearing of the future Commissioner
Deemed “hollow” by S&D budget coordinator Jean-Marc Germain, the mission letter is “a disappointment”. Rapporteur for the Greens/EFA, Germany’s Rasmus Andresen agrees: “We’ll have to take a closer look” at these announcements.
What is there to look forward to? On own resources, for example, Mr Germain said that Mr Serafin “will have to specify this part, which will be at the centre of his hearing”, while Mr Andresen was hoping for “a bold proposal” that would mix “green own resources and resources generated by the taxation of financial speculation or excessive profits”.
The same goes for competitiveness, which is supported by MEPs as long as it does not lead to cuts in social and environmental areas, two issues dear to the hearts of the Greens/EFA and Social Democrats. “But it is reassuring to see that Teresa Ribera’s mission statement says just that”, with the new Commissioner-designate for a Just, Clean and Competitive Transition tasked with “directing [EU] investments towards a just and social transition through the Social Climate Fund and the Just Transition Fund”.
However, Rasmus Andresen warns that the funding granted through the future ‘European Competitiveness Fund’ must not benefit “large companies without any form of ecological or social conditionality”.
What about debt repayment? While the debt linked to the Next Generation EU (NGEU) Recovery Plan and the interest on the loan it entailed are not mentioned in the mission statement, Jean-Marc Germain warns that the S&D expects the Budget Commissioner to “come up with a proposal that not only covers the annual costs of the NGEU of €30 billion, but also offers greater investment opportunities”.
What “national, private and institutional funding” will be mobilised to achieve this? MEPs will expect answers as soon Piotr Serafin’s hearing takes place.
Contacted by Agence Europe, Younous Omarjee (The Left, French) preferred not to comment on this mission letter before Mr Serafin’s hearing. His budget coordinator counterparts for the EPP, Karlo Ressler (Croatian), and for Renew Europe, Lucia Yar (Slovakian), were respectively unable to answer our questions in time or left us with no response.
To see Piotr Serafin’s mission statement: https://aeur.eu/f/dho (Original version in French by Florent Servia)