Commissioner hearings should be tougher, report concludes

There should be fewer questions with an immediate follow-up to probe candidate commissioners’ views, says MEP.

MEPs should take a more inquisitorial approach to hearings for those nominated to be European commissioners, according to a report on the Parliament’s examination of the candidates last autumn.

A report on the hearings, drafted by Richard Corbett, a UK Labour MEP, says committee members should have asked fewer questions and allowed more time to go deeper into substance. The leaders of Parliament’s political groups decided to allocate time for 45 questions in the three-hour hearings, to give as many MEPs as possible the chance to quiz the candidates.

Cross-examination
The objective of the hearing, according to Corbett, should not be to give speaking time to as many MEPs as possible, but to have a real cross-examination. “This would enhance the effectiveness and inquisitorial nature of the hearings,” Corbett says in his report discussed in the Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee. MEPs had one minute to ask a question and candidates then had two minutes to reply. Rather than the next MEP using the next question to dig deeper into a candidate’s views, they often changed topic, which allowed candidates to make superficial answers.

The European Parliament held hearings for each of the candidates for commissioner in September and October last year as part of the process for deciding whether to approve the entire Commission.

As a result of objections from MEPs, one nominee, Alenka Bratušek from Slovenia, was rejected and replaced by another candidate, Violeta Bulc. Bratušek performed terribly in her hearing, showing very limited understanding of the energy union portfolio that she had been assigned.

Corbett says that, despite room for improvement, the process of hearings for prospective members of the Commission is “a good thing”, as it provides an opportunity to discover the priorities of candidates and to assess their qualifications. He says that the hearings are “not an opportunity to try and change the political composition of the Commission”. Candidates will fall only if there is a wide consensus that they are not up to the job, he says.

Corbett says that the hearings process leads to changes which are less spectacular than dismissing a candidate, but which are important in other ways. These included changes to portfolios, giving the example of Juncker’s decision to assign responsibility for sustainability to Frans Timmermans, the first vice-president.

This was done at the insistence of centre-left and Green MEPs who were concerned that environmental protection was not a priority for Juncker. Corbett’s report is expected to be approved in the committee in April or May and then in plenary in May or June.

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