Brussels (The Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Patriots for Europe, led by Jordan Bardella, seek the leadership of the European Parliament’s Culture Committee. MEPs vote Tuesday; implications span media freedom, education, cultural funding, and international relations.
Patriots for Europe headed by National Rally’s Jordan Bardella is competing for the chairmanship of the Committee on Culture and Education. MEPs will vote Tuesday on the chairmanship of parliamentary committees, with the far-right Patriots for Europe aiming to lead the body’s culture committee.
What responsibilities does the Culture Committee oversee?
Members of the European Parliament’s CULT committee manage files related to education approaches— such as Erasmus programmes, which allow students to study in different member states media and audiovisual procedures (through the Media Freedom Act), the funding of cultural funding programmes (Creative Europe), and are also involved in citizens’ outreach activities such as the European Capital of Culture or the Lux Prize, the European film awards.
How influential is the Committee Chair’s role?
How influential is the Committee Chair’s role?
The position of the chair is particularly significant. As the main personality of the committee, the chair has executive prerogatives: organising conferences, setting the agenda, and assigning debating time to members. The chair also settles on the live broadcasting of council debates and access for reporters. It is also a symbolic place, as the chair symbolises the committee to other European institutions and during discussions with parliaments abroad.
How do committee dynamics affect decision-making?
The seat also has a chair at the table of the Conference of Committee Chairs, the political body of the European Parliament that harmonises the work of the committees and ensures smooth collaboration between them. This body resolves disputes over which committees have competence for dossiers that touch on multiple sectors.
What are the committee’s key legislative priorities?
Parliamentary committees are especially where texts are drafted and decided upon before being submitted for a vote in plenary sessions to become the function of the European Parliament. Pro-European parties (Greens, S&D, Renew, and EPP) hold a bulk in this committee of 19 MEPs out of 30. An association of these strengths in the committee could theoretically override the function of the four Patriot MEPs.
The biggest dossier of the prior legislature was the European Media Freedom Act, legislation developed to guarantee the transparency and autonomy of media in Europe. This mandate will partly be committed to its performance and monitoring.
“These programmes that build intercultural skills and tolerance, increase support and trust in the European Union, and promote a European identity are too important to be left in the hands of self-proclaimed Eurosceptics,” according to a statement by the European Youth Forum, a youth representation NGO.
“Letting the Patriots chair this crucial group would send out the message that it is acceptable to sabotage media freedom principles,” Pamela Morinière, the head of communications of the International Federation of Journalists, said.
