Von der Leyen starts shaping her next European Commission

Brussels – How many vice presidents and with what weight, i.e., whether executive or “simple”, and what new roles compared to the outgoing EU executive? There is no assignment of roles, just the composition and structure. Ursula von der Leyen is beginning to shape the team for her second term, and the president of the European Commission is doing so together with the presidents of the parliamentary groups in a meeting to lay the groundwork for the next five years. Wednesday (Sept. 11), she was invited to attend the conference of presidents to unravel first doubts and knots over a working breakfast (meeting scheduled to start at 8:00 a.m.).

From the community executive, the head of the spokesperson’s service, Eric Mamer, clarifies that it is a matter of discussing “the final structure” and that this is not the time for von der Leyen to indicate who will be responsible for what, and therefore, for Italy, it will still be too early to know for which post Raffaele Fitto, minister for European Affairs and the South whom the government chose for the European legislature will be designated. The question is primarily organisational. The number of commissioners will remain the same, but compared to the current college, new figures will emerge, and this implies that some of the existing ones will have to disappear.

There will undoubtedly be a person in charge of housing issues, which von der Leyen promised Parliament in exchange for confirmation. Representatives of Italian local authorities and the European Committee of the Regions are concerned that the Commissioner for Cohesion will disappear and everything will merge into the figure of a super-commissioner who will manage the community budget and resources for the territories. Von der Leyen will first explain how she intends to reorganise her team, explaining, for example, where she will hinge Defens or whether she plans to change anything for Agriculture.

From the point of view of political balances, it will be time for her to offer guarantees and reassurances to the liberals, who came out downsized from the European elections with power relations completely changed compared to the previous legislature. It is a necessary confrontation if the ground is to be prepared in the best possible way for the vote that the Parliament will have to hold on von der Leyen’s team.