EUROPEAN Commission chief José Manuel Barroso moved to expedite the formal appointment of his incoming EU executive by declaring he will put Bulgaria’s new nominee, Kristalina Georgieva, into the portfolio vacated by her predecessor.
His decision represents an effort to minimise the disruption caused by the withdrawal from his new executive of Rumiana Jeleva after her weak performance in a confirmation hearing before MEPs last week.
Her departure emphasised the growing might of the parliament, whose members frequently feel overlooked, even though their powers were enhanced by the Lisbon Treaty.
In advance of his first meeting today with Ms Georgieva, Mr Barroso said she will take charge of the commission’s humanitarian aid division. “I’m not planning any changes to the portfolios.” This was seen as a bid to move quickly from the controversy over Ms Jeleva’s commission nomination, an appointment Mr Barroso himself endorsed as late as last Friday.
Although the Bulgarian government declined at first to accept Ms Jeleva’s resignation as foreign minister when she took her exit from the commission, she confirmed yesterday that she is withdrawing from political life.
Bulgarian prime minister Boiko Borisov chose defence minister Nickolay Mladenov to succeed her in the foreign ministry.
The prospects of Mr Barroso’s new team taking office soon improved yesterday as the dominant group in the parliament, the European People’s Party (EPP), suggested it had little appetite for retaliation against Ms Jeleva’s withdrawal, which came after Socialist, Green and Liberal MEPs opposed her.
The new commission cannot take office until the entire executive is approved by the European Parliament, which has the power to reject the entire team if it deems any single candidate unsuitable.
The centre-right EPP, of which Ms Jeleva had been a vice-president, said it had not asked Mr Barroso to change the composition of his team.
“At the moment we have no such request before the commission,” said the group’s chief spokesman.
He went on to say that the group’s “guiding priority” was to ensure the installation of a new commission as planned by about February 9th. “Everything else is secondary because there are serious problems facing Europe and we need a functioning commission.”
Ms Georgieva has been a vice-president of the World Bank in Washington since March 2008, a role in which she oversees dialogue between the boards of the bank and its senior management. She joined the bank in 1993, working in a range of lecturing and consulting positions before that.
A holder of a doctorate in economics from a university in Sofia, she carried out postgraduate work at the London School of Economics and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
European Parliament president Jerzy Buzek told reporters that nearly all other commissioners-designate have been approved by committees of the parliament.
“So far my office has received 22 of the 25 evaluation letters from the European Parliament committees assessing the performance of the commissioners-designate,” he said.
“We expect the three outstanding letters to be sent to my office today before the conference of presidents meets on Thursday in Strasbourg. This will enable the conference . . . to make an initial evaluation of the hearings.”