Confirmation hearings for nominees to a new and chastened European Commission continued yesterday after a German ecologist and nominee took a strong stand against EU aid to Belgium to clean up its dioxin mess, saying that would portray the EU as a rescue team for dereliction and sloppy management.
Michaele Schreyer, 47, is the nominee for the budget portfolio on the new commission and a member of Germany's Greens. Although virtually untested in national or European politics, she has acquired the label "Iron Lady" for her vocal and forceful stands.
"Giving EU money to Belgium for an affair that involves matters of a criminal character and insufficient control would send the wrong signal that the EU is ready to cover any sort of loss."
Belgium's meat and meat products industry has been in disarray since cancer-causing dioxin entered the food chain via contaminated animal feed shipments, and Brussels is seeking an EU bailout.
Schreyer was testifying late Tuesday in confirmation hearings for the commission that is to replace the one forced to resign in disgrace last March at the height of a corruption scandal.
The first hearing on yesterday's agenda was that of Italy's Mario Monti, one of four holdovers from the previous commission, formally in charge of internal market and taxation, now up for the competition portfolio.
Monti, 55, is a career academic, having served until 1994 as president of Bocconi University and as a member of the European Commission since 1995.
On Tuesday, Erkki Liikanen of Finland, commissioner-designate for enterprise and another of the holdovers, declared himself in favor of public subsidies for information technology -- sectors of "the future" -- rather than traditional beneficiaries such as steel-making and shipyards.
Being one of the holdovers exposed the 49-year-old politician and diplomat to insinuations of fiscal mismanagement that helped bring down his predecessors. In his defense he enumerated disciplinary procedures he had instigated on the commission, some leading to dismissals.
He made a fervent plea in favor of small business "because all that is new begins small," and "the future of employment depends on them."
Poul Nielson, a Danish Social-Democrat and commissioner-designate for development and humanitarian aid, told the committee hearing that cooperation must be "based on a long-term commitment by the richer countries." He pledged stronger EU participation to "eradicate poverty."
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