Juncker considering options ahead of Bulc meeting

The president-elect is consulting nominees today about possibilities for a reshuffle, ahead of a meeting with Slovenia’s new nominee.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the president-elect of the European Commission, will tonight meet Violeta Bulc, Slovenia’s replacement nominee for European commissioner.

Bulc, who is minister for development and regional policy and is a deputy prime minister, was put forward for the Commission job on Friday by her party leader and prime minister Miro Cerar after Alenka Bratušek had withdrawn her candidacy.

Bulc has been in Brussels since yesterday morning. According to Commission sources Juncker is planning to speak to the other nominees about possibilities for a portfolio reshuffle, before meeting Bulc to assign her a portfolio.

Bulc is not expected to be given Bratušek’s position of vice-president for energy union. She is a political newcomer and has been in her ministerial position for only a few weeks. She was given her first political position by Cerar when he formed his new government last month, so it is most unlikely that Juncker will make her a vice-president.

Juncker is also talking to group leaders in the European Parliament before his meeting with Bulc. There is some resistance to Bulc’s nomination among MEPs because of her lack of experience. There are also concerns that her nomination process will end up being just as controversial as Bratušek’s. A vote in Cerar’s cabinet yielded a vote of seven to six against Bulc. But three ministers were not present, and Cerar used special rules of procedure to count these three abstentions as positive votes. This was the same mechanism used by Bratušek in July to push through her own nomination, a move that Cerar criticised at the time.

An association called “Taxpayers will not give up” and the leader of the opposition Christian Socialist party have filed a complaint with the anti-corruption commission, the same commission that found that Bratušek had acted unethically in her nomination process.

MEPs in the two main groups of the Parliament, the centre-left S&D and centre-right EPP, are already irked about Bulc’s nomination because Cerar rebuffed their request that he nominate Slovenian centre-left MEP Tanja Fajon. Fearing another rejection, Juncker wants guarantees from the two groups that Bulc can be confirmed before he officially accepts her nomination. A spokesperson for Juncker yesterday did not rule out the possibility that Juncker could reject Bulc after their meeting today.

However, both the Parliament and the Commission are nervous about delaying the start of the new college of commissioners. A final confirmation vote on the new Commission is scheduled for next Wednesday (22 October) in Strasbourg. Juncker is expected to announce his reshuffle tomorrow (15 October), and the Parliament’s group leaders are meeting on Thursday in the Conference of Presidents configuration to decide when to hold new hearings. MEPs will need to question both Bulc and any other nominee who has had their portfolio changed in the reshuffle. Before the hearings can be held, member states would have to give their approval in writing to a revised proposal from Juncker for the college of commissioners.

The hope is that the hearings could be scheduled for next Monday or Tuesday in Strasbourg and a vote could be held next Thursday (23 October). However that would leave Bulc and the other nominee(s) only a few days to prepare. It now appears more likely that the final vote will have to be delayed until the mini-plenary session in Brussels on 12-13 November. This would delay the start date of the new Commission, which was supposed to be 1 November, by at least two weeks.

According to Commission sources, Bulc is campaigning to keep the energy union vice-presidency for Slovenia. But this remains unlikely. One of Juncker’s options is to give Bulc the transport portfolio, and to assign the energy vice-presidency to Maroš Šefčovič, Slovakia’s nominee, to whom Juncker had assigned the transport dossier in the next Commission. However MEPs on the transport committee are opposed to this idea.

Another option would be to move Günther Oettinger, the current commissioner for energy, to the vice-presidency for energy union. Juncker had assigned him the digital agenda portfolio in the next Commission but at his hearing last week Oettinger did not show much enthusiasm for the dossier. On the other hand, to give the German nominee a vice-presidency (all the others have gone to small member states) would upset the delicate balance that Juncker had sought in his initial line-up.

Another possibility is to give Bulc the portfolio for education, youth, culture and citizenship. MEPs have already voiced unease about this dossier being given to Tibor Navracsics, the Hungarian nominee. Responsibility for citizenship is particularly contentious given the recent tensions between Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the Commission over human rights. But MEPs would not want to reward Orban’s nominee, so Juncker would still have to finesse the vice-presidency.

A third option would be to switch Kristalina Georgieva, who has been nominated for vice-president for budget, to take the energy union vice-presidency. But Juncker would then still need to find a convincing candidate for a vice-presidency.