The Fee awarded the extremely paid function to European lawmaker Markus Pieper, who belongs to the identical German conservative social gathering as von der Leyen, even supposing two different shortlisted candidates for the submit, each ladies, had reportedly acquired greater scores on checks through the choice course of.
“All three shortlisted candidates had been interviewed and regarded usually certified for the submit. As you might be nicely conscious, gender and geographical stability are basic coverage issues, however don’t exchange benefit as the first criterion,” Hahn stated in a letter dated April 8. He defended the appointment of Pieper from von der Leyen’s personal German Christian Democrats saying it adopted guidelines and “established apply.”
Pieper was picked as prime candidate “based mostly on his huge expertise and monitor document within the area of SMEs” and the choice occurred “inside the ordinary margin of discretion for such senior appointments,” Hahn wrote.
However in response to the Fee’s chief’s makes an attempt to get previous the controversy, the 4 commissioners main the inner insurrection — European Fee Vice President Josep Borrell and Commissioners Nicolas Schmit, Paolo Gentiloni and Thierry Breton — stated Hahn’s letter didn’t reply their earlier issues about transparency and impartiality.
“It’s important that the reply absolutely covers all the problems raised by the members of the European Parliament,” the 4 commissioners wrote within the letter, calling once more for an alternate on the subject “very quickly.” Commissioners meet for a weekly School assembly on Wednesday.
Fee scrambles
Eric Mamer, the European Fee’s chief spokesperson, instructed press on Tuesday that “the President could be very joyful for the School to debate this tomorrow to debate the procedures for nominating high-level officers.”