The suspense is over! After the frenzied speculation that this topic generated over the summer, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has finally revealed her line-up of 26 European Commissioners-designate today.
Accommodating the various demands of the political factions in the European Parliament (EP) and satisfying national interests whilst meeting her own goal of gender parity was a complex feat for her. Of the six Executive Vice Presidents four will be women. Unfortunately, the new European Commission (EC) still falls short on gender parity with only 11 female Commissioners including the Commission President. Apart from those Commissioners staying on for another term, von der Leyen had requested each EU Member State (MS) to nominate one male and one female candidate but was met with resistance with many countries only nominating a male candidate. She had tried to provide an incentive by hinting that she might allocate more powerful and sought-after portfolios to female candidates. It might therefore not come as a surprise that one of the most coveted portfolios now goes to Teresa Ribera, the Spanish Vice-President and Minister for the ecological transition. Ribera intends to follow in the footsteps of the Danish Commissioner Margrethe Vestager who has headed up DG Competition since 2014. Teresa Ribera is known for her expertise on the environment and climate change issues. Due to this focus it was rumoured that she could become Commissioner for environment or climate change. The Commission President has taken this expertise into account by nominating Ribera as Executive Vice President for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition thereby adding climate issues to her remit.
What will be the priorities and challenges for the new Commissioner?
During her tenure, Margrethe Vestager was known for taking an aggressive approach towards Big Tech companies. In this regard she is leaving office in the wake of two mega victories. Only last week, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) validated her decisions in the Apple tax ruling case and the Google Shopping case. She was also the initiator of important new legislation such as the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR). Whilst the Finnish nominee Henna Virkkunen will be tasked with enforcement of digital policies among them the DMA, Teresa Ribera will still have to tackle the thorny issues around implementation of the FSR.
The new Commissioner for Competition will inherit some other difficult issues as well.In the merger sphere, the repercussions of the ECJ's recent Illumina GRAIL judgment, in which the court struck down the EC's referral policy, are significant (see our briefing here). The position of Chief Economist still remains to be filled after Margrethe Vestager was not successful in pushing through her candidate due to French resistance. It might be an additional complication for the new Commissioner that Olivier Guersent, the current Director General, a heavyweight in DG Competition, has confirmed that he will retire from the EC in the summer of 2025.
Margrethe Vestager demonstrated her willingness to push back against MS's wishes to promote the creation of European champions. The new Commissioner might face increasing pressure to give in to these demands. In her Political Guidelines that von der Leyen presented in July 2024, before being elected as the Commission President for a second term, she expressed her aim to implement "a new approach to competition policy". In his report on European Competitiveness delivered last week Mario Draghi also suggested innovation should be incentivised and play a bigger role when the EC is assessing mergers. The question is therefore whether the new Commissioner will build on Vestager's legacy and continue in the same vein as her predecessor or choose a more lenient enforcement approach to appease discontent in national governments.
What are the next steps?
The European Parliament (EP) will need to elect or reject the Commission by majority vote. In preparation for this vote each Commissioner-designate will be scrutinised by the competent EP Committee in a single confirmation hearing. Parliamentarians will place special focus on the candidate's expertise in relation to the respective portfolio and on potential conflicts of interest. The respective Committee will prepare an evaluation letter for each candidate. The EP can then only accept or reject the College of Commissioners as a whole. We expect the new Commission to take up office at the latest at the beginning of December 2024 for a term of five years.
Ursula von der Leyen, the German head of the EU executive, on Tuesday put forward her new team of commissioners, saying it was "dedicated to . . . competitiveness, digitalisation and decarbonisation" and "not preserving the old . . . but embracing the new".
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