The political balance in Brussels is changing, and we are moving towards a centre-right majority in Europe. Paolo Borchia, head of delegation of Matteo Salvini’s League to the European Parliament, is convinced of this, after the conclusion of the commissioners’ hearings which saw the Italian Raffaele Fitto being confirmed vice president against the opinion of socialists, liberals and greens.
And after the popular party’s blitz on the regulation on deforestation, which demonstrated that the EPP is willing to ally itself with Viktor Orban’s Patriots for Europe group on some legislative measures, of which the League is also part, and the rest of the radical right. “The electorate has given us very specific indications. We need a center-right majority in this Parliament and with the votes on Venezuela and deforestation it is clear that we are going in this direction”, argued Borchia.
Criticisms of the Commission
In general regarding the new executive “we have many doubts about the interpreters and the method with which they were chosen”, stated the representative of the Northern League. “The impression is that this Commission is supported by a very fragile majority, and that instead of having evaluated each individual commissioner on the basis of their own skills, a package agreement was made which makes absolutely no sense”, declared Borchia speaking with the journalists at the European Parliament, announcing the League’s vote against the confidence vote which will take place next week.
From the benches of deputies of Salvini’s party, doubts and perplexities are being raised about the roles and skills of future commissioners and certainly at the top of the list of accused is the name of the Spanish candidate Teresa Ribera Rodríguez, future executive vice-president of the Commission for the ecological transition . “One of the issues that is closest to our hearts and which raises the most doubts is how the energy transition will be managed. During the election campaign, a discontinuity with the Green Deal was clearly requested. We now find ourselves with a commissioner who, from what emerged from the hearings, in my opinion he appears even worse than Timmermans”, said the Northern League MEP referring to the old vice-president of the executive, Frans Timmermans, considered the father of the Green Deal.
“We believe there would have been the numbers to make different choices also to send some messages. Five years ago the candidate proposed by Macron was not considered up to the role and was replaced. I would have expected the possibility of doing the same thing with Ribera,” he added.
