Vice presidency to Fitto divides center-left (and Ursula majority)

Brussels – The hearings of the six executive vice presidents of the new European Commission all took place on Tuesday (Nov. 12). However, the decision by the political groups to approve or reject the candidates will not be taken until tomorrow, if not next week. Everyone’s eyes are on the Italian candidate, Raffaele Fitto, from the same party as Premier Giorgia Meloni, who was designated for the important Cohesion and Reforms delegations. The center-left groups are divided over his appointment not so much because of his expertise but because of the assignment of such a significant role to a member of the Conservatives of the ECR, who are not part of the “Ursula 2.0 majority.”

Decision on vice presidents postponed

Fitto’s was the first of today’s hearings, at the same time as the High Representative-designate Kaja Kallas, while in the afternoon, it was the turn of Stéphane Séjourné and Roxana Mînzatu, and finally, Teresa Ribera and Henna Virkkunen. Although Fitto’s performance received a largely positive reception in the relevant parliamentary committee (for Regional Development), the coordinators of the political groups in the hemicycle decided to postpone the evaluation of all six vice-chairs to a later date. Some speak of tomorrow (Nov. 13), while others expect the decision to slip to next week.

It was an internal political decision within the majority, MEPs say, which can be explained by a willingness to vote on candidates with a package logic: the decision is on all six vice-presidents together (and perhaps also on the Hungarian commissioner-designate, Olivér Várhelyi, who was “put off” by the coordinators of the Environment and Agriculture committees last week). If one falls, they all fall, an insurance policy of mutual destruction between the Populars (EPP), Socialists (S&D), and Liberals (Renew), which should serve to get all the candidates through without a jolt, as was the case last week, with Jessika Roswall and Hadja Lahbib.

Fitto on the brink?

This time, however, the jolts could come precisely over Fitto’s name: many MEPs from the progressive groups are still unconvinced by von der Leyen’s decision to entrust an executive vice-presidency to a member of a party (the ECR) that voted against the Popular German woman’s second term at the head of the Commission in Strasbourg in July. The majority at the time, comprising Populars, Socialists, and Liberals, with the outside support of the Greens (G/EFA), represented a centrist and pro-European consensus. Exponents of political forces to the left of the EPP complain that the College’s center of gravity has now shifted too far to the right (aided by the turnaround of Meloni’s party towards von der Leyen, which came after the offer of the executive vice-presidency to Fitto).

There are distinctions in the progressive camp. The vaguest position is of the social democrats, in particular the PD delegation: for Dario Nardella, S&D coordinator on the Agriculture Committee, there is not an issue about Fitto per se but about the political expediency of granting him an executive vice-presidency. “The judgment we give of the von der Leyen Commission is a mixed one,” he told reporters, as “there is now a very strong shift to conservative positions” and “there is a problem with the effectiveness of this Commission’s actions because of the fragmentation of portfolios,” for example on environment-related dossiers.

More importantly, the former mayor of Florence was keen to point out that the parliamentary hearings of the commissioners-designate are a separate process from the final vote on the College as a whole, which will take place in the plenary in Strasbourg. “We will use two different yardsticks on these two aspects,” he assured, stressing that “this is no small thing, especially from a political point of view.” He almost threatened his EPP colleagues that if von der Leyen does not “answer” to the “questions” raised by the Socialists, the Commission’s approval could be in jeopardy. What the PD and the S&D will now discuss, therefore, is the risk that the majority that supported von der Leyen’s re-election “will not find a match in the political composition of her Commission or even in the organization of the delegations.” Nardella admitted that Fitto’s performance “was not without positive aspects.” However, he threw the ball into the stands, claiming that “we will mature the final decision within the framework of the discussion with the whole family” of the S&D.

The barricades of the Left and Greens

The only ones who expressed widespread disappointment were the environmentalist MEPs and those from The Left. According to Green co-leader Bas Eickhout, “Fitto has demonstrated time and again, through his far-right political affiliation, that he does not uphold” the core values of respect for democracy and the rule of law “and that he does not have the interest of the EU and its citizens at heart,” which “makes him unsuitable to represent the Commission in such an important role as that of executive vice president.”

His counterpart Terry Reintke joined him by saying: “The EPP risks much bad blood for a long time if it insists on pushing through Fitto’s nomination against the will of the other forces” in the majority. Even Ignazio Marino, elected in Italy with AVS, said he was “not at all satisfied not only with Fitto’s hearing but with the form the whole Commission is taking,” namely its lopsidedness to the right.

From the radical left, Valentina Palmisano of the 5 Star Movement declared herself “dissatisfied” with Fitto’s performance at the hearing, stating that for her group, he could already be rejected, saving European citizens “this waste of time,” meaning the delay of the final decision on the vice presidents to accommodate the “political games” of centrist forces (an “invisible game not played in the spotlight but in the most secret rooms”).

The center-right locks in Fitto

On the opposite side of the political spectrum, center-right forces expressed their support for the candidate of Meloni’s party. The head of the FdI delegation, Carlo Fidanza, defended the “very clear and innovative vision of cohesion policies” expressed by Fitto, adding that the ECR group is working to secure the Italian commissioner-designate “a broader majority than just the right-wing forces,” seeking to show itself as a responsible pro-EU force.

However, “it seems that the issue now is not Fitto” but the Socialist candidate Ribera, who was involved in the controversy over flooding in the Valencia region, he stressed. Fidanza also reiterated how the Conservatives had voted in favor of almost all the commissioner candidates, proving to be “decisive” in reaching the two-thirds threshold required for approval among the coordinators. Now, “the majority groups are looking for a broader agreement to bring the whole package home by digesting each other’s ill feelings and stomach aches,” he quipped.

An indecent spectacle also according to League delegation leader Paolo Borchia, who bluntly defined the possible delay of the final decision on the package of vice presidents to next week as a “blow to the credibility of the European Parliament.” As for Fitto, he expressed confidence that he would defend Italy’s interests and ruled out the possibility that he could be “the problem” in the Patriots’ support for the second von der Leyen College.