South-Eastern Europe mulls over who to propose as EU Commissioners

The deadline for the nomination is 30 August and both Romania and Bulgaria are taking their time in coming up with the names. Each EU member country gets one commissioner and their job is to defend the interests of the EU as a whole – rather than national interests. The Council of the European Union, in agreement with the Commission’s president-elect, adopts a list of commissioners-designate based on suggestions from EU member states. So each state has to come up with name.

The countries that have not yet officially nominated a commissioner are: Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Portugal and Romania, though regarding Romania there are indications the PM Marcel Ciolacu would pick MEP Victor Negrescu to become the next Commissioner from Romania.  Romania's Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu declared that his commissioner should have a portfolio touching on economic policies, after a meeting held with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels on Thursday, 23 August.

So far the social democrats have locked horns with the liberals in Romania, the latter backing Rareş Bogdan, the member of the European People’s Party within the European Parliament.

Rareş Bogdan had been saying that for him EU enlargement is of essence: “I am directly interest in the Republic of Moldova. My dream and probably the biggest victory of the National Liberal Party in Romania would be that the spot left empty by the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union be filled by the Republic of Moldova as EU’s newest member state”, he told EU Reporter.

But Moldova’s road to EU accession will not be an easy one. The accession of Moldova to the EU is on the current agenda for future enlargement of the EU. Following an application by Moldova in March 2022, Moldova was officially granted candidate status by EU on 22 June 2022. Moldova set a target date of 2030 for EU Accession.

The stability of Moldova is of most concern for its western neighbor Romania, an EU and NATO member state. Romania has thrown its full support for the EU integration of the tiny Eastern European republic.

The process for appointing new commissioners includes several steps.

Each nominee for a Commissioner must appear before the parliamentary committee with responsibility for his or her proposed portfolio. Committee members then vote on the nominee’s suitability for the position. The President, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the other members of the Commission are then subject, as a body, to a vote of consent by the Parliament. Following Parliament's vote, the president of the European Commission and the commissioners are appointed by the European Council. All commissioners are equal in the decision-making process, and held equally accountable for these decisions. The Commission collectively decides on its work through written or oral procedure.

Share this article: