European Parliament’s first rule: do not disturb governments

The painful theatre of the hearings of European commissioner candidates seems to have come to an end. What has it been for? To keep some spotlight on a European Parliament (which created this procedure that is not provided for in the Treaties) that has shown it does not deserve it. The only real change is that some delegation has been taken away from Viktor Orban’s chosen commissioner (who had shown himself embarrassingly unfit to deal with some of the issues that affect people’s rights).

It also served another purpose, which, however, was already known: to show that this legislature has shifted to the right, with the European Conservative Party taking a vice president of the Commission for the first time and in which votes are actively sought by the People’s Party even for ordinary legislation.

It’s not that a vice president matters all that much. It’s more of an honorific title than anything else, and a few more hassles than colleagues to ensure sectoral coordination, even though Ursula von der Leyen has created such a stew that the only, real, sector that exists in the Commission is her almost absolute power over the other 26 members of the college.

It has been distressing in recent weeks to see parliamentarians jumping into the trenches of insurmountable “red lines” that were then flooded by the first morning frost. In the end, nothing happened, and the European Commission is what the governments and von der Leyen drew.

It was well shown by the fact that after a few weeks during which the Parliament boys were throwing the direst threats at each other, the heads of state and government (Macron, Sanchez, Tusk, probably Meloni as well) came in to say “okay, enough, the Treaties say it’s up to us to designate the commissioners, we left you some space, you couldn’t handle it and therefore you do as we say, go back to your seats.” And the deputies complied.

In recent weeks, there has been a bit of work on the domestic politics of some countries, notably Spain and Italy. The results achieved will be seen in the countries. Still, at the level of the European Parliament, the only thing that has really happened is that the Greens, who had also supported von der Leyen’s new mandate, will probably pull out, and the Conservatives, at least on the Italian side, will support the encore. The only one who is said to be very angry in Europe is Orban because of the delegations taken away from his commissioner, so maybe the game is not quite over yet,. However, the Patriots (his parliamentary group) have their commissioner who has the confidence of the Parliament.

The People’s Party, but it is almost trite to say it, comes out victorious. Despite written agreements and votes that will be cast in this process, it has confirmed that, in this legislature, there’s no political majority because, as Emanuele Bonini and Simone de La Feld wrote in this newspaper, there is no longer trust among the “allies” and because it has now legitimised the possibility of allying itself right or left according to the convenience of the moment.