On Tuesday, 8 October, the European Parliament’s Conference of Committee Chairs (CCC) studied two options aiming to determine the order in which the European commissioners-designate will appear before MEPs during their hearings in early November.
These options are now subject to the approval of the Conference of Presidents (CoP) of the political groups, which will meet in Strasbourg on Thursday, 10 October. The two options differ in that the performances of the five executive vice-presidents—Spain’s Teresa Ribera Rodríguez, Finland’s Henna Virkkunen, France’s Stéphane Séjourné, Romania’s Roxana Mînzatu, and Italy’s Raffaele Fitto—as well as that of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas would be scheduled for either the beginning (Tuesday, 5 November) or the end (Monday and Tuesday, 11 and 12 November) of this political sequence.
The option where the executive vice-presidents’ hearings are planned for Monday and Tuesday, 11 and 12 November, follows the same logic that prevailed in 2019.
According to some observers, the question of order may prove to be a political one: it would be easier, or more difficult, to trip up a specific candidate, particularly once it is seen how the other commissioners-designate perform. It is also possible that the CoP will decide to modify whichever option is selected.
In both options, the planned sequence of hearings begins with that of Maroš Šefčovič, the commissioner responsible for relations with the European Parliament.
See the two options: https://aeur.eu/f/drt and https://aeur.eu/f/dru (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)