Charlot Zahra
The European Parliament (EP) has approved the Barroso II European Commission by 488 votes in favour, 137 against and 72 abstentions in Strasbourg yesterday afternoon shortly after 2pm.
Effectively, the new Commission was approved by the three political groups that compose its members – the centre-right European People’s Party, the Liberal ALDE group and most of the centre-left Socialist and Democratic group.
The Greens, the European United Left group and the Conservatives voted against, together with some of the Socialist MEPs, notably those from France.
In fact, separate motions tabled by the Greens, the United Left and the Conservatives respectively rejecting the new Commission were defeated by the EP.
The approval of the Commission means that Maltese-Commissioner designate John Dalli, who had been assigned the Health and Consumer Affairs portfolio, will be taking his oath of office at the European Court of Justice tomorrow.
Effectively, Dalli has waited till the approval of the EP vote to tender his resignation as Social Policy Minister, triggering a casual election for the Seventh Electoral District, from where the Qormi-born MP was elected.
For the Commission to take office, Barroso needed only a simple majority of those MEPs who voted at the plenary session in Strasbourg.
Already both the centre-right European People’s Party and the Liberal (ALDE) group had pledged their support for the new Commission line-up. The two groups together accounted for 349 potential votes in the 736- The 14 French members of the 184-strong Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group had previously announced that they would vote to reject the new Commission because they considered it as “too weak and unambitious”.
The rest of the S&D group was expected to back the new Commission, party officials said, but a final decision on a party stance was not taken until Monday.
Algara Stenzel, spokeswoman for Germany’s 23 Socialist MEPs had said that, while they were “not happy with all” designated Commissioners, they were likely to back the Commission if Barroso agreed to stick to the new Parliament-Commission co-operation agreement reached last week.
Helmut Weixler, a spokesman for the Greens/European Free Alliance group, said its MEPs would vote to reject Barroso’s team because they feel the quality and the structure of the new Commission was “not good enough”.
MEPs from the European United Left group were also expected to vote against, because they found Barroso “too neo-liberal”, group spokesman Gianfranco Battistini was quoted as saying.
The MEPs voted on the entire line-up and could not reject individual candidates for Commissioner.
But they have already secured the withdrawal of Rumiana Jeleva, Bulgaria’s initial nominee for European commissioner, who withdrew her candidacy last month after criticism both of an undeclared business interest and of her performance during a parliamentary hearing.
The Bulgarian government nominated instead Kristalina Georgieva, who has worked at the World Bank since 1993. Her nomination was not expected to meet opposition following a positive hearing at the EP on 7 February.
Barroso secured 382 votes of 718 votes cast in September last year, when the Parliament backed his appointment for a second term as Commission President.
Barroso has led the Commission since 2004 but for the past three months, he had operated a lame-duck administration, caused by delays to the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, which finally came into force on 1 December 2009.
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