EP prepares to question Juncker's Commission team

After its summer recess the new European Parliament (EP) convenes in Strasbourg Monday for a new plenary session.

Although the first plenary following May's European elections was held in July, it could be said that the real work starts now.

This week's tasks include debates on the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and how the European Union (EU) can respond to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

But many members (MEPs) will also be thinking further ahead. Last week, the president-elect of the European Commission (EC) Jean-Claude Juncker unveiled his college of commissioners, the executive team responsible for proposing legislation and implementing European Union (EU) policy.

These commissioners-designate have to appear before EP committees between September 29 and October 7. If a candidate cannot convince the committees that he or she is suitable for the job then additional hearings will need to be held.

Leaders of the various political groups will meet on October 9 to evaluate the hearings and then MEP will vote on whether or not to approve the full Commission probably on October 22. This would allow the new EC to start work properly on November 1. Juncker himself was approved as EC President in a vote on July 15.

Already leaders of the political groups have started their posturing ahead of the committee examinations.

Of the commissioners proposed by Juncker, 14 are affiliated to his own centre-right European People's Party (EPP), eight to the centre-left Socialists & Democrats (S&D), five to the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) and one to the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).

The EPP is therefore unlikely to pose objections to Juncker's chosen team. EPP group leader, German MEP Manfred Weber, unsurprisingly welcomed the nominations, saying the EC president had created an executive that is "clearly oriented towards reforms, jobs and growth".

"The new commissioners are experienced politicians, not bureaucrats. The EC will focus on what is most important and reduce bureaucracy and red tape. This is what our voters expect from us," he commented.

Syed Kamall, who heads the ECR group, also welcomed "the fact that the priorities for the EC are broadly aimed at economic reform".

The ECR could be forgiven for feeling aggrieved at having secured just one commissioner-designate given that the party has replaced ALDE as the third largest in the EP, with 70 seats.

However, that job is the newly-created post of Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, with Britain's Lord Hill as nominee. He would have a crucial role steering financial market regulation and banking union, and that fact that this would be under British leadership has already pleased British Prime Minister David Cameron.

The response from Gianni Pittella, chairman of the Socialists & Democrats (S&D) group, was predictably more cautious. Pittella said the new commission was generally balanced and welcomed the "innovative structure" proposed by Juncker, a reference to the plan to have seven vice-presidents who will lead different project teams to coordinate the work of several commissioners.

However, he voiced concerns over two of the candidates: Lord Hill, and Hungary's Tibor Navracsics, who would run Education and Culture.

The S&D believes that financial services should be more tightly regulated. Pittella said of Hill's nomination: "Financial services is too important and sensitive a job to be given to a conservative with a liberal, free-market approach. The financial sector urgently needs better regulation and we will not accept any backward step on this issue. We promise to be very tough with Lord Hill."

The main objection to Navracsics seems to be based solely on his role as a minister in the government of Viktor Orban, which the S&D accuses of restricting civil liberties in Hungary, and encouraging a homophobic and anti-Roma atmosphere.

But while the S&D will voice public concerns over this or that candidate, this can mainly be seen as playing to the crowd. When it comes to voting on whether or not to accept the full commission team, party discipline is likely to take over.

Having been instrumental in securing greater power for the EP over European policy making, the last thing the S&D wants is to be seen as making the system unworkable by rejecting a college of commissioners put forward by the "democratically-elected" EC president.