EU parliament to hold hearings on commissioners in November

Brussels (The Brussels Morning Newspaper) – In November, the European Parliament will hold hearings on the commissioners.

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Who supports the proposal for mid-October hearings?How are committee screenings scheduled before the hearings?

The hearings for EU commissioners look increasingly likely to be carried out from Nov. 4 to Nov. 12 after a majority of chairs of European Parliament committees approved those dates Tuesday.

A final decision will be assumed Wednesday by the Conference of Presidents (CoP), the Parliament’s top decision-making body. The other option is to begin the hearings in mid-October.

Holding the hearings in November would represent the earliest date for the Commission to start work in early December. It could even be postponed to January if the Parliament refuses several nominees and European Union capitals have to appoint replacements.

Bernd Lange, the German MEP who leads the Conference of Committee Chairs (CCC), “will summarize” Tuesday’s meeting “and bring both proposals to CoP, emphasising a clear majority in CCC for November,” stated two parliamentary officials.

Who supports the proposal for mid-October hearings?

The only coalition pushing for a mid-October start date is the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), home of Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. However, the EPP has not been capable of gathering enough support as lawmakers want to confirm they have enough time to scrutinize the commissioners-designate before the hearings.

“[EPP chair Manfred] Weber wants hearings in October, but he is isolated and has no majority,” stated an EPP MEP.

How are committee screenings scheduled before the hearings?

According to the current draft program, the final deadline for committees to transmit written questions to the nominees is Oct. 10, with the answers shipped back by Oct. 22. The nominees will occur before the Parliament‘s legal affairs committee before Oct. 18 for screenings on possible conflicts of interest, with the policy committees examining the prospective commissioners from Nov. 4 to Nov. 12.

The CCC also examined which committee will deal with which portfolio. One of the officials mentioned above expressed the economy committee demanded to be affected in the hearing of Stéphane Séjourné, the commissioner-designate for prosperity and industrial strategy, alongside the industry, internal market, and environment committees.