The European Parliament has given green light to the four candidate EU Commissioners who will replace those that opted to become MEP after their election. Among them, the Italian Nelli Feroci, who will replace Antonio Tajani as Commissioner for Industry. The four candidates appeared before the committees in their areas of responsibilities last Monday, and were all approved by the Parliament with 421 votes against 170, 32 abstentions.
Another new Commissioner together with Nelli Feroci is the Finnish Jyrki Katainen, who replaced Olli Rehn as Economic Affairs Commissioner. His appointment was the most problematic, due to the request made by Greens and Conservatives to vote each Commissioner separately – in an attemp of boycotting Katainen’s election. The Parliament has rejected the request (even though with a little margin of majority) and Katainen was approved as part of the total package. The other two new Commissioners are Martine Reicherts, from Luxembourg, who will substitute Viviane Reding as Commissioner for Justice, and Jacek Domink, from Poland, who will substitute Janusz Lewandowski as Commissioner for Financial Programming and Budget.
