On Wednesday the 27th of November, The European Parliament has finally voted to approve the team proposed by Mrs. von der Leyen, the first woman elected to the Presidency of the European Commission.
The new European Commission took office on Sunday, 1st of December, a month later than planned, because the Parliament rejected the original nominees from France, Hungary and Romania and the procedure was thus extended.
In the following lines there is a list of new Commissioners with tasks impacting on EurEta related professions. While of course all Commissioners in their fields of competence work on matters of interest or relevance to our field and the decisions in all matters are taken by the College as a whole, we felt it was useful to list some outstanding portfolios:
DIGITAL AGE and COMPETITION: Margrethe Vestager (Denmark): Executive Vice -president for a Europe adapted to the digital era and Commissioner of Competition. She will work hand in hand with the Commissioners of the Internal Market, Innovation and Youth, Transport, Energy, Employment, Health and Justice.
INTERNAL MARKET: Thierry Breton (France), is a French businessman, a former Professor at Harvard Business School, and a former Finance Minister of France. He has been Vice-chairman and CEO of Groupe Bull, Chairman and CEO of Thomson-RCA (1997–2002), Chairman and CEO of France Télécom (2002–2005) and Chairman and CEO of international information technology services company Atos until his nomination. In the new Commission, he will be responsible for the new Directorate General for Defense, Industry and Space.
ECONOMY: Paolo Gentiloni (Italy), former Italian Prime Minister, as well as Foreign Minister.
EMPLOYMENT: Nicolas Schmit (Luxembourg) brings the experience acquired in the European Parliament and his service as national minister of Employment and Labor Affairs.
EQUALITY: Helena Dalli (Malta) has dedicated her political life to equality, from her position as Minister of Social Dialogue, Consumers and Civil Liberties, as well as as Minister of European Affairs and Equality.
At the same time, after negotiations lasting 3 years, with a thousand ups and downs, the EU and U.K. have agreed a new Brexit deal. The United Kingdom and all British delegates within the European institutions are supposed to leave the European Union on the 31st of January.
The European Parliament decided that most of these seats would simply be abolished and the House is going to be streamlined from 751 members down to 705.
However the remaining 27 seats would be redistributed among countries that had been left underrepresented. Seats in the European Parliament are allocated based on population numbers, and some countries that have seen demographic changes have been left underrepresented. France is one of these (five) along with Denmark (which gets one extra), Estonia (one), Ireland (two), Spain (five), Croatia (one) Italy (three), the Netherlands (three) Austria, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Finland and Sweden (which all get one apiece).