{"id":403218,"date":"2024-11-08T13:18:06","date_gmt":"2024-11-08T12:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/11\/08\/audizioni-commissari-ue-ecr-fitto\/"},"modified":"2024-11-14T18:05:55","modified_gmt":"2024-11-14T17:05:55","slug":"green-light-for-19-of-20-eu-commissioners-with-majority-and-the-ecr-votes-a-message-in-view-of-the-vice-presidents-and-fitto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/11\/08\/green-light-for-19-of-20-eu-commissioners-with-majority-and-the-ecr-votes-a-message-in-view-of-the-vice-presidents-and-fitto\/","title":{"rendered":"Green light for 19 of 20 EU commissioners with majority and the ECR votes. A message in view of the vice presidents (and Fitto)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – The hearings<\/a>\u00a0for the simple European commissioner-designate ended under the banner of collaboration among the political groups of the majority<\/strong>. With the four approved\u00a0yesterday<\/a> (Nov. 7)\u00a0– Marta Kos, Wopke Hoekstra, Piotr Serafin, and Valdis Dombrovskis – 19 of the 20 candidates reviewed\u00a0by the European Parliament\u00a0got the green light. For all of them, the endorsement came with the united vote of the Populars, Socialists, Liberals, and Greens<\/strong>. They were, however, steadily joined<\/strong> by the conservatives of ECR, performing a surprising turnaround<\/a>\u00a0after their opposition to the re-election of Ursula von der Leyen.<\/p>\n

A clear message: the ECR does not want to stay on the sidelines in Brussels, and, more importantly, it\u00a0wants to protect its only candidate in the circle of executive vice presidents, Raffaele Fitto<\/strong>. On Tuesday, Nov. 12, it will be the turn of von der Leyen’s six deputies to undergo review\u00a0by the parliamentary committees responsible for their portfolios. Fitto, who will open the day of hearings, has been in the balance since his designation as executive vice president with responsibility for Reforms and Cohesion. Beyond the cordon sanitaire against the far right, a stigma from which ECR has long been trying to extricate itself, for socialists, liberals, and greens, it is a matter of political consistency: Fitto is part of Fratelli d’Italia, a party that did not support the confirmation of von der Leyen<\/strong> as head of the European Commission, so he cannot be part of the inner circle of vice presidents.<\/p>\n

\"raffaele<\/a>
Raffaele Fitto (Photo by JOHN THYS \/ POOL \/ AFP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The leader of the French Socialists in the European Parliament, Rapha\u00ebl Glucksmann,<\/strong> also reiterated this yesterday: “Raffaele Fitto should not be vice-president of the EU commission and, as far as I know, my group has not changed its position. It is simple: the alliance that supported von der Leyen in July does not include the\u00a0ECR. Therefore,\u00a0there is no reason to give him a vice-presidency<\/strong>.” Not all delegations of the second group in the European Parliament share the firmness of the position of the French\u00a0socialists, starting with the Italian one (the largest in the S&D family), with the Democratic Party likely to push for the compatriot’s approval once its “reliability on a pro-European mandate” has been verified.<\/p>\n

The European Conservatives and Reformists, led by Giorgia Meloni, have been flirting with Ursula von der Leyen and the European People’s Party<\/strong> for some time. However, when needed, they are ready to side with the two far-right groups in the European Parliament,\u00a0Viktor Orb\u00e1n’s Patriots and the Sovereignists that revolve\u00a0around Germany’s AfD. It even happened\u00a0during the commissioners’ hearings: the Hungarian Oliv\u00e9r V\u00e1rhelyi, the only one not yet approved, was\u00a0rejected<\/a> with the votes of the EPP, S&D, liberals, and greens. On Orb\u00e1n’s man in Brussels, the ECR preferred to wink at the far right.<\/p>\n

However, the constant alignment on all the other candidates is a strategic choice to be able to say: “We’re there too,” to be able to claim the right to enter the control room and show that it is well disposed to the three groups threatening to reject Fitto next Tuesday. The\u00a0ECR can count on the strength of the European People’s Party and the timing of the hearings <\/strong>that the European right imposed<\/a> to secure its candidate. There was already a\u00a0hint of what may happen\u00a0with the cross\u00a0veto<\/a>\u00a0over commissioners Jessika Roswall (EPP) and Hadja Lahbib (Renew), with the EPP threatening to stall the Belgian liberal until the progressives unblocked the green light for the Swede.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Fitto, Ribera, and all the others will have to get the\u00a0go-ahead from at least two-thirds of the political group coordinators<\/strong> in the relevant parliamentary committees. If the majority splits, it would be necessary to resort to a simple majority vote in the examining committees.<\/p>\n

Fulvio Martusciello<\/strong>, head of Forza Italia’s delegation, which is part of the EPP, immediately responded to the\u00a0French Socialists’ statement\u00a0on Fitto. “Glucksmann and his people continue to threaten Fitto with an unloaded gun, forgetting that Teresa Ribera’s hearing is scheduled after Fitto’s<\/strong>,” Martusciello pointed out: if the Italian executive vice president falls, the Spanish Socialist will also fail. Moreover, with this in mind,\u00a0the EPP,\u00a0the ECR, the Patriots, and the Sovereignists voted to begin the vice presidential hearings with Fitto and close them with a figure the Socialists are unlikely to sacrifice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kos, Hoekstra, Serafin, and Dombrovskis also pass the hearings with votes from the EPP, S&D, Renew, Greens, and the ECR. Conservatives try to secure the Italian candidate and Martusciello (FI) warns, “If Fitto falls, so will Ribera”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":403172,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[25871,29093,26339],"class_list":["post-403218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-hearings-commissioners-en","tag-eurocamera-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403218"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":403264,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403218\/revisions\/403264"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}