Skip to footer

EU head von der Leyen announces team, new focus

Ursula von der Leyen of Germany, the first female head of the European Commission, promises "a greener, fairer, and rule-based Europe."

|
Virginia Mayo/AP
Incoming European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks during a media conference at EU headquarters in Brussels, Sept. 10, 2019. Ms. von der Leyen unveiled her team of candidates for the EU commission.
  • By Philip Blenkinsop Reuters

| Brussels

The incoming head of the EU executive named her 27-strong team on Tuesday, promising it would focus on addressing changes in climate, technology, and demography that are generating anxiety in communities across the 28-member bloc.

German Ursula von der Leyen's "college" of commissioners will take office on Nov. 1, assuming they secure approval from the European Parliament – not a given after it only narrowly backed her in July.

Announcing the key roles in her line-up, she said Denmark's Margrethe Vestager would remain in charge of competition policy.

She also put Irishman Phil Hogan in charge of trade, a crucial position that will require him to settle the European Union's trade relations with post-Brexit Britain and with the United States.

Ms. von der Leyen will become the first woman to head the European Commission after promising a platform of a greener, fairer, and rule-based Europe.

Her proposed team offers rough gender balance, a plus point for EU lawmakers, with 13 women and 14 men.

"This team will shape the European Way: we will take bold action against climate change, build our partnership with the United States, define our relations with a more self-assertive China and be a reliable neighbor, for example to Africa," she said in a statement.

"This team will have to stand up for our values and world-class standards. ... My Commission will be a geopolitical Commission committed to sustainable policies. And I want the European Union to be the guardian of multilateralism. Because we know that we are stronger by doing together what we cannot do alone."

Holding the influential competition portfolio for the past five years, Vestager has fought monopolies and imposed hefty fines on tech giants Apple and Alphabet unit Google .

Competition is seen as a top job, with Germany and France pressing for the bloc to soften its anti-monopoly rules to help European industrial champions compete with rivals from China and the United States.

Hogan, currently in charge of agriculture in the outgoing Commission, will face a battle to resolve trade tensions with U.S. President Donald Trump's administration and will be in charge of establishing future economic relations with Britain after Brexit.

The economic portfolio goes to former Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni at a time when the continent is struggling with weak growth, a possible recession in Germany, and battles with Italy over budgetary restraint.

The outgoing commission has long tussled with Italy over fiscal rules in past years. The appointment of an Italian leftist to monitor Rome's compliance with EU budget rules could be seen as a lenient move.

However, Mr. Gentiloni will have to agree budget decisions with former Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, who has a reputation as a tough enforcer of fiscal discipline and will be in charge overall of the Commission's economic affairs.

This story was reported by Reuters.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to EU head von der Leyen announces team, new focus
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2019/0910/EU-head-von-der-Leyen-announces-team-new-focus
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe