In the Risk of positions of power in the European Commission, Giorgia Meloni’s Italy was left empty-handed. Our country obtained the vice-presidency with Raffaele Fitto, but our country was left with crumbs in the other key roles at Palazzo Berlaymont.
When a new executive takes office, the teams of officials who will help the commissioners in their work, their cabinets, are also chosen. Member country governments have spent months negotiating to place their representatives in key roles, with the hope that they will help them shape future directives and regulations that are produced.
Winners and losers
And in this race there are winners and losers: the winners are certainly (as often happens) France and Germany, the losers are Italy and Spain, despite the fact that they are two of the largest countries in the EU. The Italians “are paying the price for the choice of Giorgia Meloni”, and for her insistence on Fitto as vice-president, while “the Spaniards are paying for the difficulties of Teresa Ribera”, the vice-president who the EPP wanted to bring down during her parliamentary hearing, has said a European diplomat to Politico, an influential newspaper in the Brussels “bubble”.
While diplomats from other countries were busy negotiating the key positions of EU executive officials, Italians and Spaniards were too busy fighting for confidence in the two vice-presidents, the diplomat argued. And so German and French officials still dominate the top positions. Four commissioners, including President Ursula von der Leyen, have Germans as heads of cabinet (the others are the Slovak Maroš Šefčovič, the Latvian Valdis Dombrovskis and the Bulgarian Ekaterina Zaharieva) and five have a German deputy.
There is only one French head of cabinet (that of French commissioner Stéphane Séjourné), but seven commissioners have a French citizen as deputy head of cabinet. Italy gets only one head of cabinet: Vincenzo Matano for Fitto (an almost obvious choice) and two deputies, Pierpaolo Settembri for the Greek commissioner for Transport and Tourism, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, and Francesca Arena for the Cypriot Costas Kadis, responsible for Fisheries. Certainly not two prestigious roles, despite tourism and fishing being two interesting sectors for our country.
Ppe catch all
As David Carretta’s European Mattinale reconstructs, among the Germans who will have key roles there will first of all be the much feared Bjoern Seibert who will continue to lead President von der Leyen’s cabinet.
Then Michael Hager who will lead Dombrovskis’ team, Bernd Bievert will lead Sefcovic’s team and Anreas Schwarz will lead Ekatarina Zakharieva’s team. Estelle Goeger and Max Uebe will be deputy heads of cabinet to Vice-Presidents Stéphane Séjourné and Rozana Minzatu. Astrid Dentler, Jan Ceyssens and Joachim Herrmann will occupy the posts of deputies in the cabinets of Marta Kos, Jessika Roswall and Michael McGrath. Some of them, like Hager, are close to the European People’s Party, which from the point of view of political families is the big winner. Christophe Hansen’s chief of staff, the Dutch Esther De Lange, is vice president of the party and Magnus Brunner’s chief of staff, the Austrian Alexander Winterstein, was von der Leyen’s spokesperson during the campaign as Spitzenkandidat of the popular.
Representing France will be Bertrand L’Huillier, head of cabinet of Vice President Stéphane Séjourné, and above all two deputies in key positions, Alexandre Adam with von der Leyen and Laure Chapuis-Kombos with High Representative Kaja Kallas. Three other deputies are French: Natasha Bertaud with Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner, Roland Sourd with Jozef Sikela (responsible for International Partnerships) and Anne Fort with Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius. To get even with Germany, France must resort to dual nationalities. Three other deputy chiefs of staff also have French passports: German Estelle Göger, Austrian Florentine Hopmeier and Bulgarian Sophie Alexandrova.
