EU funds 27 September 2019, 8:45am

EP committee blocks Hungarian nominee for Commissioner

Portfolio

The president of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, has called upon the EP's legal committee to review its rejection of Commissioners-designate from Romania and Hungary, after the committee rejected both nominees, Romania's Rovana Plumb and Hungary's László Trócsányi, at its Thursday hearing citing conflict of interest. According to Sassoli, the committee's written opinion does not conform to requirements. This opens the way for the nomination process to resume.

Citing concerns about conflicts of interest, the EP's Legal Affairs Committee blocked Rovana Plumb of Romania, the nominee for transport commissioner, and Hungary's László Trócsányi, who was in line to be commissioner for relations with the EU's neighbors.

The unprecedented move means the pair cannot proceed to confirmation hearings that begin next week for von der Leyen's Commission, which is due to take office on 1 November.

According to EU rules, if the committee concludes a nominee could not carry out the duties of a commissioner, the Parliament president should ask the Commission chief how she plans to proceed. Von der Leyen could try to address the committee's concerns and ask MEPs to reconsider the nominees. She could also withdraw the nominees and ask their governments to put forward new candidates.

Sassoli's move could now solve the problem, provided the legal committee arrives at a more favourable conclusion the second time around.

This article is part of the work programme titled "The impacts of EU cohesion policy in Hungary - Present and Future" which is carried out by Net Média Zrt., the publisher of Portfolio.hu, between 1st April 2019 and 31st March 2020 with European Union financing. The views in this article solely reflect the opinions of the author. The European Commission as the funding entity does not take any responsibility for the use of information presented in this article.