Hearings: Orbán’s EU commissioner-designate fails to convince MEPs: in the balance Olivér Várhelyi

Brussels – It was hardly surprising: of the 26 European commissioners-designate, the Hungarian Olivér Várhelyi was in many ways the weakest choice. He was unconvincing in his five years as Enlargement Commissioner; he is Viktor Orbán’s man in Brussels, and he does not seem to have the expertise to ensure the health of European citizens in emergencies. Not least, because of a settling of scores that some political groups in the European Parliament have been waiting for. So Várhelyi is, so far, the only candidate to be held up by parliamentary committees: to get the green light, he will have to answer additional written questions by Monday.

It was in February 2023 when the Hungarian commissioner, during a debate in the Strasbourg hemicycle, failed to notice that his microphone was on and called MEPs “idiots.” The episode created outrage and led several MEPs to call for Várhelyi’s resignation. It was a gaffe that certainly did not help him when he had to return to confront members of the European Parliament’s Environment (ENVI) and Agriculture (AGRI) committees last night (Nov. 6) to convince them that he was up to the task of Animal Health and Welfare delegation entrusted to him by Ursula von der Leyen.

Várhelyi announced that he intends to propose a regulation on critical medicines “within the first hundred days as a priority action of this new mandate,” an “EU cardiovascular health plan,” promising to cooperate “constructively with Parliament and the Council to reach a balanced compromise” on the revision of the EU Pharmaceutical Strategy.

However, when pressed on issues such as abortion rights and vaccines, Várhelyi failed to change the outcome of an already-made decision. In fact, the commissioner-designate floundered when he invoked his wife and three daughters as proof of his attachment to women’s rights. As he did not reach the two-thirds majority of political group coordinators, Várhelyi received a request to answer additional written questions. According to the rules, the ENVI and AGRI committees have 24 hours to draft the questions, and the candidate will have 48 hours to respond. If he/she does not get the green light from two-thirds of the coordinators even after providing the requested answers, a simple majority vote will be held in the examining boards.

Opposing the Hungarian nominee were the coordinators of the Populars, Socialists, Greens, and Liberals. The groups that supported the re-election of von der Leyen in July. Várhelyi “seemed too business-focused, lacked commitment to animal welfare, and fell short on women’s health and reproductive rights. We seek clarification through written questions,” the S&D group said in a post about X. “Commissioner-designate Oliver Varhelyi has not convinced us,” the coordinator for the Greens in the Environment Committee, MEP Sara Matthieu, confirmed in a statement.

A decision also revived by the Liberals: “In the absence of concrete measures and ambitious targets to improve public health care across the EU, the commissioner-designate did not deliver in meeting the Renew Group’s expectations on health care,” according to a statement from the Liberal group. While Renew’s coordinator on the ENVI committee, in a post on X, asked, “How can we support a Health Commissioner who is unable to criticize a member state (his own) that chose Russian and Chinese vaccines against Covid instead of those approved by Europe or explain how to ensure women’s access to sexual and reproductive health and rights?”

In defense of Orbán’s loyalist -though not a member of his Fidesz party – Patriots for Europe, the sovereignist group founded by the Hungarian prime minister after June’s European elections. According to Kinga Gál, a member of Fidesz and vice-president of Patriots, the stop to Várhelyi “despite his convincing performance was a purely political decision,” taken “by the leftist groups in agreement with the EPP well before the hearing began, just because Várhelyi was appointed by Viktor Orbán.”