Toia: “Why Denmark proposed a Liberal Commissioner? PES was short of courage”

PES “didn’t take on its coordination role” and several Socialist governments “were short of courage” during the negotiations for the creation of the Commission – thus there are now only 8 Socialist Commissioners out of 27. This is a targeted criticism made by the Head of the Democratic Party Delegation, Patrizia Toia, who praised instead the behaviour of the S&D Group at the European Parliament, “which made it in getting important improvements of the initial program Jean-Claude Juncker had,” and of some governments, the Italian and the French ones first, which obtained key posts in Brussels.

“How was it possible for the Danish government (led by the Socialist Helle Thorning-Schmidt, editor’s note) to propose a Liberal candidate? There are two possibilities: lack of possibilities, or lack of boldness,” and for sure “PES didn’t offer its support,” attacked Toia talking with eunews. The MEP acknowledged that EPP showed more ability: “They have too much power in this Commission, but I’m not getting angry with those with the power, but with those who are supposed to have it and are unable to use it,” she added.

That is, governments moved in open order, and they made it in achieving important posts in the new Commission but ending up in being under-represented. “For sure it is positive when Moscovici gets the Economic Affairs, Mogherini becomes High Representative, Timmermans becomes Juncker’s Deputy and Cretu gets Regional Policies. But as a whole, the political result for Socialists is far from being sufficient, beyond any evaluation we could give the Commission, because our political weight in the team is not enough.”

In this case, PES is the one to blame: “he could be more influential as a whole” and wasn’t like this instead – it is now time to draw some conclusions. “We need a new ruling class,” and the Democratic Party, strengthened by the result obtained during the European Election – which made it the first Socialist force of the Union – could and should play a main role in this change. “We’ve been in the party for a short time and I have to admit that I’m not completely aware of the force and the structure of this organisation, of which I hadn’t been part before, but it is clear we need a remarkable improvement with the injection of new forces showing more boldness and ability.”