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Hearings of the Commissioner at the beginning of November, Šuica at a hearing before the Foreign Policy Committee

by AI | 04.Oct 2024 | Europe in brief AI

The leadership of the European Parliament has finally set the calendar for the hearings of the commissioner candidates. The Croatian candidate will answer questions before the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

Zagreb, August 20, 2024 - The Croatian candidate for Commissioner for the Mediterranean will be heard before the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee. photo HINA/ Edvard ŠUŠAK/ es

BRUSSELS – The hearings for candidates for European Commission commissioners will be held at the beginning of next month, from November 4 to 12, decided the leadership of the European Parliament on Wednesday.

 The hearings of the new  commissioners will be held between November 4 and 12. With the mandate given by the European citizens, the representatives will ask questions, assess, examine, and vote,” announced the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola on the social network X.

The decision was made at the conference of European Parliament presidents, a body composed of the president and the leaders of parliamentary groups.

It was also determined at the meeting which parliamentary committees the individual candidates for commissioners will be responsible for. Croatian candidate Dubravka Šuica, who has been proposed as commissioner for the Mediterranean, will be heard before the Foreign Affairs Committee.

This week, the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs (Juri) began the process of checking the declarations of interest of candidates for commissioners to determine the possible existence of conflicts of interest for the duties for which they are proposed.

Before the candidates for commissioners can even participate in the hearings, the Legal Affairs Committee checks the financial situation of each candidate to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. A hearing can only take place when this committee approves it.

The committee’s assessments of potential conflicts of interest are based solely on the candidates’ declarations of interest for commissioners. If a conflict of interest is found, the committee can propose a solution for the candidate to resolve it, and as a last resort, may conclude that the candidate cannot be a commissioner.

During the formation of the current Commission in 2019, two candidates did not pass that first test. Due to suspicions of conflict of interest, the Legal Affairs Committee rejected the candidates from Hungary (Laszlo Trócsányi) and  Romania (Rovana Plumb).

The Committee on Legal Affairs has until October 18 to complete the verification process for any potential conflicts of interest. (October 2, 2024)