EU socialists: 'Fitto? We are negotiating, we will see'. Schlein: 'Consistency with majority needed'
Failure of the Slovenian Parliament to vote also delays the procedure in Brussels
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Key points
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The list of European Commissioners with their assignments will not be presented this week (there was talk of Wednesday 11 September) but next week. The meeting of President von der Leyen with the group leaders of the Europarliament scheduled for Wednesday 11 September for an initial discussion will not take place. It will be postponed until next week, when the MEPs will meet in plenary session in Strasbourg.
Under fire the idea of giving the executive vice-presidency to Fitto
The delay is supposed to be caused by the Socialist and Democrat group facing the prospect of, among other things, having an executive vice-president from the Conservatives and Reformists. In practice, the idea of giving the executive vice-presidency to Raffaele Fitto is under fire.
EU Socialists: "Fitto? We are negotiating, we will see'
"We are negotiating, we will see". So says the president of the EU Socialists' group, Spain's Iratxe Garcia Perez, responding to a question about her group's reservations about the possible support for Raffaele Fitto's candidature as EU commissioner. "We have demands that we want to be heard. It's a general issue not a problem of individual issues,' Garcia Perez added as she left the group leaders' conference room at the Euro Chamber.
Another reason for the delay would be that 'the Slovenian government has informed the Commission that on Friday the Slovenian parliament will give its opinion on the proposed candidate for the post of commissioner and only after this step will the appointment of the candidate be complete and official'. This was explained by official EU Commission sources. "On this basis, the Commission asked the European Parliament to postpone von der Leyen's presentation to the Conference of Presidents, scheduled for Wednesday morning, where the President of the EU Commission was supposed to announce the composition of the future College of Commissioners," it is further explained.
Schlein: EU Commission needs consistency with majority
"We expect and have always supported a portfolio of weight for Italy, which is a founding country. It is equally clear that in the overall proposal that Commission President von der Leyen will make, she will have to take into account the majority that voted for it in the European Parliament'. This was said by PD secretary Elly Schlein on the sidelines of the presentation of her book 'Imprevista' in Rome. "We expect," she added, "consistency of the proposal with the majority that voted Ursula von der Leyen in Parliament and also with the programmatic framework she committed to in her inauguration speech.
