Three nominees for the European Commission submit their answers to extra written questions they received after failing to convince MEPs to confirm them.
A second week of confirmation hearings for members of the next college of European commissioners began today (6 October) with three problematic candidates submitting their replies to extra questions.
Jonathan Hill and two other European commissioners-designate were asked for clarification of various aspects of their tense confirmation hearings last week, and Hill has been summoned back for a second hearing with the economic affairs committee tomorrow (7 October). Hill, a UK Conservative, is the only one of the commissioners-designate heard so far who will have to return to face a committee.
The questions – for Hill; Věra Jourová, a liberal Czech; and Tibor Navracsics, a centre-right Hungarian – followed hearings in which MEPs felt the commissioners-designate had given less than satisfactory answers, and decided to delay their approval.
Pierre Moscovici, France’s centre-left nominee to be commissioner for economic and financial affairs, taxation and customs union, has until tomorrow (7 October) to submit his replies to a written questionnaire drawn up after his hearing last week.
Click here for the agenda of the next four days.
Hill, the nominee for commissioner for financial stability, financial services and capital markets union, had been controversial because of his close links to the financial industry in London, but he also failed to impress MEPs on the economic affairs committee with his replies to specific policy questions.
The extra questions for Hill ranged from the general – “What legislation can be adapted or introduced to support the further development and diversification of capital markets? How would this lead to SMEs gaining better access to long term funding via capital markets?” – to the very specific (a question about how to regulate bitcoin, for example).
Hill, in his replies, committed himself to a proposal by Michel Barnier, the outgoing commissioner for internal market and financial services, to break up a handful of Europe’s largest banks that are of systemic importance to the stability of the financial system (known as ‘too big to fail’).
Navracsics, a key aide to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and who has been nominated for the education, culture, youth and citizenship portfolio in the next Commission, received just six questions that were highly political in nature. Hill, by contrast, received 23 questions and Jourová received 32, most of them very specific questions on particular policies or draft laws. This suggests that unlike with Navracsics, MEPs doubts were primarily about Jourová’s grasp of her future portfolio – justice, consumers and gender equality.
Navracsics was asked to “officially and publicly condemn” reforms to Hungary’s media law and its judiciary system that he had drawn up as justice minister and minister for administrative reform, and to “take officially distance from the stances of your party Fidesz, the Hungarian government and your Prime Minister Viktor Orbán”.
Navracsics replied that “numerous aspects of this original text [of the reforms] did not reflect my personal views”. He also said that through a process of dialogue with the Council of Europe and the European Commission, all disputes over the legal changes were settled. “I learnt that it would have been wise to engage in these discussions and consultations earlier, and in a more sensitive manner as regards the importance of fundamental rights and the rule of law across the European Union,” he wrote in his answer.
Jourová, in addition to questions about her views on data protection reform and similar policy issues, also received two questions about her take on how the Juncker Commission, with its empowered vice-presidents, will work in practice. Might the involvement of several commissioners and a vice-president in a single policy area such as the overhaul of the EU’s data protection regime lead to a lack of leadership?
Jourová did not answer the more general dimension of the question and simply asserted: “If I am confirmed as commissioner I am fully aware that I will have the main responsibility of pushing this project ahead and successfully complete it in close co-operation with my colleagues and in a constant dialogue with the European Parliament.”
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