Commissioner-designate from Slovenia had a tough time in her hearing.
The nomination of Alenka Bratušek, the former Slovenian prime minister who is nominated to be the European Commission vice-president for energy union, was hanging by a thread following her disastrous performance at the confirmation hearing in the European Parliament.
MEPs from across the political groups expressed surprise at just how badly the hearing had gone. Bratušek had come into the hearing facing concerns over appointing herself to be Slovenia’s commissioner, some anti-EU language she had used in an election campaign, and her lack of experience for such a high-profile position. Her hearing went off the rails within the first hour as MEPs grew frustrated with her boiler-plate responses.
Within 45 minutes, Bratušek was already repeating lines from her opening statement when answering questions, prompting British Conservative MEP Julie Girling to accuse her of giving only “fairly bland and repetitious statements”. From then on the gloves were off.
Dutch centre-right MEP Esther de Lange mocked Bratusek’s remark in her opening statement that she used “a woman’s soft touch” to calm down chaotic Slovenian politics. “I hope I can also bring, to my question, a woman’s soft touch,” she said. “Please give us a glimpse as to what type of vice-president you’re really going to be. Because I think I speak for most people in this room when I say that currently we are having a hard time seeing beyond your general answers.”
Bratušek was unable to answer even basic questions about EU energy policy with anything other than generic answers. Perhaps most troubling for MEPs was that she seemed unable to identify what her new job would be. Asked by centre-left MEP Kathleen Van Brempt what the job of the vice-president for energy union would be, and what would be the difference between her and the commissioner for energy and climate, Bratušek said only that she would “co-ordinate and orient the actions and work of several commissioners”. She would not answer whether it would be her or Miguel Arias Cañete who would attend international climate talks, or who would be devising new EU climate targets.
“Yes, I know that there are many misgivings about the new set-up of the Commission,” she said. “But I stand convinced that President Juncker thought this out very well before setting out this new structure.” But she went on to say that exactly who does what still needs to be decided by the Commission, suggestion that the structure is not as thought-out as she had just claimed.
It was another British Conservative, Ashley Fox, who brought up the scandal over Bratušek appointing herself to be commissioner after she had lost an election. “As you seem to know so little about energy union, I’ll ask you something that you should know something about,” he said.
“You said in your introductory statement that you stood before us in great humility,” he said. “That seems an inappropriate way to describe yourself when, after polling 4% in your election, you nominated yourself to be commissioner.” He asked her if she had purposefully delayed publication of an ethics report into her actions by nominating herself to be commissioner by not picking it up from the post office.
She did not address why she did not pick up the letter with the results of the ethics report. Instead she said: “I have never been at odds with the law. The worst I have ever done was once I got a parking ticket and a speeding ticket.”
“I have received the post package, it was addressed to me, and I have done everything that the law requires me to do.” She insisted that the investigation found that there were no signs of corruption. But the MEPs had to take her word for it, since her delay in picking up the letter meant the results had not yet been published. Later, she refused to promise that she would resign if it emerges that the investigation did find evidence of an ethics violation.
She also had to deny charges that during her election campaign she had demonised the EU. Perhaps the strangest moment of the hearing came when she was asked about a recording that had circulated on the internet of her singing the Communist anthem “Avanti Popolo”. She said she was singing the song at a Slovenian national day celebration, among many others. “It’s an anti-fascist song, I myself have never been a member of the Communist party,” she insisted.
Read the live blog from the hearing – as it happened