A political row in Slovenia is threatening to further delay the allocation of portfolios to new EU commissioners, including Ireland’s nominee Michael McGrath.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is finalising what portfolios she is going to assign to commissioners nominated by each EU country, before a planned announcement on Tuesday.
Efforts by the Slovenian opposition party to delay Dr der Leyen settling on what jobs to allocate her team of commissioners would damage the country’s reputation, an MEP has said.
The commission president was expected to detail what job each commissioner would be given this week, but the process was held up when Slovenia replaced its nominee.
The central European country had originally put forward Tomaz Vesel, the former president of its court of auditors, as its next commissioner. However, at the last minute, Mr Vesel pulled out and the government picked Marta Kos, a former diplomat and liberal politician, as its nominee at the start of this week.
The switch has stirred up domestic political controversy in Slovenia, with the opposition complaining pressure was put on the country to replace Mr Vesel with a woman.
Dr von der Leyen had asked member states to send her two names, at least one being a woman, to allow her to put together a gender-balanced team of 26 commissioners.
In nearly every case national capitals sent a single name, with only nine countries nominating a woman. The German politician is reported to have privately asked some countries that nominated male candidates to consider sending a second, female name.
Dr von der Leyen is due to brief the leaders of all the European Parliament political groupings on the composition of her team of commissioners on Tuesday in Strasbourg. However, the formal nomination of Ms Kos as Slovenia’s pick has still to be rubber-stamped by a parliamentary committee, potentially delaying the announcement of the commissioner roles further.
The conservative Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), which chairs the committee, has so far refused to schedule a meeting to sign off on the nomination, citing concerns with how Mr Vesel was treated.
Romana Tomc, an MEP from the opposition party, said it was not to blame for holding up the announcement of the EU commissioner portfolios.
The right-wing MEP criticised prime minister Robert Golob for bowing to the wishes of Dr von der Leyen “at the last moment” and replacing the country’s candidate. “With this, he damaged the reputation of Slovenia and did not protect the sovereignty that we have as a member of the EU,” she said.
Vladimir Prebilic, a Slovenian MEP who sits with the Greens group, criticised the SDS for using its “five minutes” in the spotlight to hold the EU process up over a domestic political row. “I am strongly opposed to that,” he said.
The opposition party needed to see the “bigger picture” and avoid harming Slovenia’s reputation on the European stage by playing politics, he said. The government had also walked themselves “into a hole” by handling the commissioner nomination process poorly, he said.
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