On last Wednesday 10th September 2014, the new President of the European Commission, the Luxembourger Jean-Claude Juncker, has announced who his team would be composed of. In the following weeks, the European Parliament has to give its consent to this entire College of Commissioners, including the President. This is preceded by hearings of the Commissioners-designate in the relevant parliamentary commissions.. The new Commission should normally enter into force in November 2014.
The new College of Commissioner has 7 Vice-Presidents, (that is to say six in addition to the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Policy and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini), who will not be head of a Directorate General (DG), but will lead a project team and coordinate the work of several Commissioners.
Euromontana is used to follow the work of several DGs of relevant interest for mountain areas: DG Agri and DG Regio will be held by Phil Hogan and Corina Cretu and their structures won’t change.
On the contrary, the structure of other DGs will be strongly modified:
– A new DG “Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries”: the blue strategy being tightly linked to the green strategy. The new Commissioner should be Karmenu Vella.
– A new DG “Climate Action and Energy”: Environment and Climate action are not directly linked anymore. Let’s hope that Climate change action won’t only focus on energetic aspects, but will keep strong links with environmental policy. The new Commissioner should be Miguel Arias Cañete.
– A new DG “Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs”: the previous DG Enterprise and Industry (with its tourism units) is now linked to the previous DG Internal Market. With a DG focusing on so mainly things, there is a risk for tourism activities of being lost in the agenda of the new Commissioner Elžbieta Bieńkowska.
Read the press release here
See the organisation of the Juncker Commission
Discover the faces of the new College of Commissioners
12 September 2014
