EU Commission deal puts center-right in driver's seat

Almost six months after European elections that bolstered the political right, the team of top officials that will lead the next European Commission until 2029 looks on track to take office on December 1.

The three major centrist political groups in the European Parliament announced a deal to approve the entire 27-strong lineup on Wednesday night after weeks of grappling, pledging in a joint statement to "work together with a constructive approach."

With burning questions about the climate and migration on the table, it is the center-right European People's Party (EPP) group that seems to have most strengthened its hand.

"I promised people a [...] Europe without bureaucracy and I will deliver. And if I do not deliver, then we will wake up in 2029 in an extremely populistic Europe," EPP head Manfred Weber said in comments reported by the Financial Times.

Weber's center-right EPP, the largest bloc in the EU legislature, struck a deal with the second-largest group — the center-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) — plus the smaller pro-business, Renew group to put new commissioners in place.

Led by President Ursula von der Leyen, herself a German EPP politician who was approved for a second term at the helm of the EU executive branch in July, the European Commission's team of 27 officials will guide the EU's climate, trade and migration policy.

Italy's Fitto, Spain's Ribera clear final hurdles

Under the EU's complicated division of powers, each member state gets to nominate a candidate to send to the powerful commission, but it's up to von der Leyen as president to assign portfolios, at which point the European Parliament approves the candidate.

Before giving that blessing, however, EU parliamentarians spent the past several weeks grilling the 26 remaining candidates. In the end, the two that faced the biggest resistance were Teresa Ribera, a Spanish Socialist from the EU's S&D group, and Raffaele Fitto, an Italian from the far-right European Conservative and Reformists (ECR) group.

Teresa Ribera, a Spanish Socialist from the EU's S&D group, faced some of the most resistance in the European ParliamentImage: Kamran Jebreili/AP Photo/picture alliance

Ribera, Spain's outgoing environment minister, faced resistance from the Spanish contingent of the EPP over her and the government's handling of recent disastrous floods in Valencia.

Fitto's nomination as an executive vice president of the European Commission was considered unacceptable for many on the left, and even controversial within the S&D group. Many bristled at the thought of having a member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party, with its neofascist roots, in such a position.

Socialists accused of 'breaking promises'

In the end, both nominees got a thumbs-up from EPP and S&D leaders, putting them in a good position ahead of a broader vote in the European Parliament next week.

Ribera's compatriot and S&D group leader Iratxe Garcia defended the deal. "This agreement unblocks a situation that was putting the European Union's stability at risk," she said in a statement on Wednesday.

Sidelined from the deal altogether were the Greens, who fared poorly in the June polls while the far-right Patriots for Europe and right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists made gains.

It's unclear whether the Greens will sign off on the appointments when they come up for a vote. "The Social Democrats are breaking a core campaign promise — they are siding with the far right to support commissioner candidates from Hungary and Italy," Daniel Freund, a Green lawmaker from Germany, told DW.

In Budapest, far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban of the Patriots for Europe group renominated incumbent European Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi, who had his health portfolio trimmed slightly to remove reproductive rights issues. A contentious figure, Varhelyi, too, made it over the line.

A more right-wing EU Commission?

While the Greens may accuse the Socialists of enabling the far right, according to Eric Maurice of the European Policy Centre, an independent think tank, this new college of European commissioners (as the entire 27-person team is known) isn't significantly more right-wing than its predecessor — at least not in terms of the balance of commissioners.

There will, however, be policy shifts, said Maurice — "on climate and agriculture, so everything related to green policies." Over the past year, right-wing parties have become more powerful in many European capitals, said the analyst, so "it's not a surprise that this is reflected in the composition of the Commission."

"There is a backlash from industry, there is a backlash in public opinion, which is reflected in the bad results of the Greens in different countries and by the shifting of the position of some parties, mainly the center-right parties, or even some liberal parties," Maurice told DW.

Indeed, the EPP has emerged as kingmaker in a more politically fragmented parliament, he argued, and will be able to team up with forces to its political left and right.

Challenges on the horizon

In 2019, during the first 100 days of her first term in office, von der Leyen unveiled major environmental policy aims. This time around, she is set to lay out a new concept for agriculture policy and present new ideas for defense in an increasingly precarious geopolitical environment. She must also quickly set out a new long-term budget for the EU, Maurice said.

But whoever ends up in controlling key portfolios in the civil service — with its staff of 32,000 — the pending return of Donald Trump as US president will likely dominate the EU policy agenda. His promise to rapidly end the war in Ukraine may force the EU to answer difficult questions in terms of its support for Kyiv, and his threat to slap tariffs on the EU will also keep the bloc busy.

Edited by: Jon Shelton