Vice-President and Relations with the European Parliament
While de Palacio (49) will also have responsibility for Transport and Energy (middle rank responsibilities), she will have to work closely with Kinnock when it comes to re-building relations with the MEPs. The new Commission will be anxious to ensure that the whiff of revolution surrounding the battle between the parliament and the Santer Commission - which led to its resignation en masse, - does not last and develop into a state of permanent conflict between these two centres of power at the heart of the EU.
A former agriculture minister in Spain's conservative government (1996-99), the one that ousted the socialists, de Palacio was elected an MEP in June. A former lawyer, as minister she fought vigorously in Brussels on behalf of Spain's olive growers.