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Hearings of the Commissioner-Designates begin at the European Parliament

As part of the process of the election of the new Commission the European Parliament today started its hearings of the Commissioner-designates.
Each hearing lasts three hours. The Commissioner-designate will make a 15-minute introductory statement, followed by questions from MEPs. There will be 25 questions followed by a three-minute answer from the Commissioner-designate and a possible follow-up question from the MEP. The parliamentary committee responsible for the hearing will depend on the portfolio of the Commissioner-designate, in some cases more than one committee will be involved. The first hearing to be held concerns Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič, who will be in charge of interinstitutional relations and “foresight”.

After the hearings the coordinators of the committees concerned send a letter of recommendation to the Conference of Committee Chairs concerning the suitability of the candidate. On 15 October, the Conference of Committee Chairs will assess the outcome of all hearings and forward its conclusions to the Conference of Presidents which will conduct the final evaluation. After the conclusion of the hearings the full Commission and its programme will be put to a majority vote in a plenary session of the European Parliament on 23 October. If confirmed, the new Commission will start work on 1 November 2019.