Bulgaria’s new candidate for a post in the European Commission will most probably appear before the European Parliament on 3 February.

Jerzy Buzek, the assembly’s president, told reporters that giving Kristalina Georgieva a hearing on 3 February – his preferred date – would allow the Parliament to vote on the full Commission on 9 February.

The entire Parliament had been expected to vote on the full Commission line-up on 26 January, but that plan was thrown into disarray this morning when Rumiana Jeleva withdrew her candidacy after the majority of political groups refused to recommend her to be a commissioner. The groups said that she had demonstrated inadequate knowledge of her brief when she appeared before the Parliament on 12 January.

In her resignation letter to Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, Jeleva said that she was resigning “with bitterness” at the partiality demonstrated by members of the European Parliament.

Buzek said that, based on initial conversations with Commission President José Manual Barroso, he expected Georgieva to have a portfolio similar to the one assigned to Jeleva.

He said that Barroso would meet the new candidate in Brussels on Wednesday (20 January) and decide after the meeting whether to keep the portfolio.

Barroso had given Jeleva responsibility for international co-operation, humanitarian aid and crisis response.

Fact File

The replacement process

José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, wants to meet Kristalina Georgieva – Bulgaria’s new commissioner-designate – “as soon as possible”, he said in a statement today. That meeting, however, will only be a first step in the process of replacing Rumiana Jeleva, who resigned this morning.

Georgieva will first need to find out whether she can resign from her current post as a vice-president of the World Bank with immediate effect. Once she has Barroso’s backing, she will need some time to prepare for her hearing with the European Parliament, which would be scheduled by the committee assigned responsibility by the Parliament, most probably the development committee. Once the committee has reached its verdict on her performance, the Parliament will meet in plenary to take a vote on the entire Commission.

“It is up to the Parliament to set its agenda,” a Commission spokesperson said today. He said that he was unable to confirm any dates. He also declined to say whether Georgieva would be a candidate for Jeleva’s portfolio, of international co-operation, humanitarian aid and crisis response, or whether Barroso might use the opportunity for a reshuffle.

Georgieva, who is currently a vice-president of the World Bank, has spent most of her career dealing with environmental and development issues.

Buzek said that Jeleva’s resignation was only causing “small changes” in the Parliament’s procedure for approving the new Commission. “Our democratic procedure is working,” he insisted.

The timeline set out by Buzek corresponds with a statement by Joseph Daul, leader of the centre-right European People’s Party MEPs in the Parliament, who said this morning that the Parliament’s vote would probably be delayed until 8-11 February.

Daul said that a new candidate nominated by the Bulgarian government would have to have time to prepare for a hearing, commenting that the current line-up of commissioners had had six weeks to prepare.

‘Pathetic political war’

Daul said that all the allegations made against Jeleva had been proved to be false. He said she had been victim of “pathetic little political war”. Daul said he was “sad and disappointed” that the way Jeleva had been treated led her to resign.

He noted that she had decided to withdraw entirely from political life, a reference to Jeleva’s simultaneous decision to stand down as Bulgaria’s foreign minister.

But Daul said that the EPP did not want to force out other candidates from the Commission line-up as an act of revenge. “I don’t need corpses and blood to survive,” he said.

Nevertheless, the EPP is still asking Slovakia’s nominee candidate, Maroš Šefčovič, to explain a comment he made back in 2005, saying that Roma were “exploiting the Slovak welfare system”. József Szájer, a Hungarian MEP who is the EPP’s co-ordinator for the hearings, said it was “not acceptable” for a vice-president of the Commission to say “such sensitive things”, adding that Šefčovič would be responsible for recruiting thousands of officials to the EU institutions.

Šefčovič told MEPs in his hearing on Monday evening that he did not remember making the five-word remark ascribed to him. He stressed that he opposed discrimination on any grounds and had worked to improve conditions for the Roma community. He said that he had the support of leading Roma groups for his efforts.

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