Incoming European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso revamped his EU executive for parliamentary approval and proposed Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini as candidate for justice commissioner.
Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende, who is chairing the EU summit, welcomed the changes and said they would go a long way toward soothing the objections which brought the 25-nation EU to the brink of an institutional crisis last week.
"Mr. Barroso has a good and balanced team," Balkenende said on Thursday.
Barroso said he would present his new team to European Parliament leaders yesterday, barely a week after the legislature forced him to back down and jettison embattled Italian candidate Rocco Buttiglione.
After hearings for the new candidates, Barroso is expected to put his team to a parliamentary vote during the session of Nov. 15.
"Now I am ready to go to parliament," Barroso told reporters. "I have made the necessary and sufficient changes ... I have worked hard over recent days to build bridges and find a balanced solution."
Balkenende said Barroso should be confirmed as soon as possible.
"Lets hope that Mr. Barroso can get quickly to work with his new team," he told reporters.
Barroso completed his reworked lineup, which also includes the shuffling of two other candidates, after Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi proposed, during an EU leaders summit, his foreign minister as Italy's new representative on the EU executive.
Frattini, who will also be a vice president on the new executive, replaces Buttiglione. The conservative Roman Catholic said during his confirmation hearings last month that homosexuality was "a sin" and later criticized single mothers.
Buttiglione's remarks and initial refusal to quit his nomination enraged EU lawmakers, and a majority of parties, including Socialists, Greens and Liberals, threatened to veto the new team.
Martin Schulz, the leader of the Socialist group in the European Parliament who led opposition to Barroso's team, welcomed the changes and told German daily Aachner Nachrichten, it was "a basis for good cooperation."
In other changes to his nominated lineup, Barroso said he would shuffle former Hungarian foreign minister, Laszlo Kovacs from energy to taxation and customs. He also accepted the new candidate from Latvia, former ambassador to the EU Andris Piebalgs, as a replacement for Ingrida Udre. And he said he would continue to back Dutchwoman Neelie Kroes, the candidate for the post of EU antitrust commissioner, who had come under criticism for her potential conflict of interest with major businesses.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS