Posts Tagged Maros Sefcovic

Such drama! And we are not even half way through yet. As it stands, two would-be commissioners are looking wobbly after their hearings in the European Parliament – the Lithuanian Algirdas Semeta and Bulgaria’s Rumiana Jeleva. Names in ascending order of wobbliness.

Semeta, penciled in for the tax and anti-fraud dossier, has been lambasted by the socialists for “lack of detail” and for being a “disappointment.” His performance, agree some EPP-ers (sotto and not-so-sotto voce), was underwhelming. But they are sticking by their man, even though he gets a less-than-glowing headline in his European People’s Party press release.

While Janusz Lewandowski “excels” in his budget hearing and Viviane Reding is a “good choice” for the justice dossier, Semeta is merely labelled as “promis[ing] to continue the fight against fraud.”

As for Jeleva, confusion reigns. Not least during her hearing yesterday, where much of the three hours galloped by in a circus atmosphere, presided over by the oh-alright-just-one-more-question former magistrate Eva Joly.

Questions were flung rather than asked, protocol broken, accusations levied and denied, papers distributed, objections made, outrage expressed. In the end no one was any the wiser about anything, it seemed.

Of course, it might have helped if the lady in question had distributed the relevant, and, according to her, exonerating company documentation ahead of the meeting. Putting it out during the meeting, in Bulgarian, and inviting MEPs to come back to her home town to see more documents wasn’t the most efficient course of action.

But how MEPs do love a good outrage! Preferably not against their own kind though. Amid the chaos, centre-right deputies stuck rigidly to their questions on policy substance. A school-marmish lecture from Irish deputy Gay Mitchell restored a bit of order and financial disclosure was relegated to being the elephant in the room for the rest of the proceedings.

What next? The commission, plainly wishing that the parliament could sort the matter out itself, now has the ball back in its court. It has to see whether its code of conduct has been breached.

And Jeleva’s treatment at the hands of the greens and socialists is not to be taken lying down. Who will pay? Maros Sefcovic – a Slovak socialist, up for the institutional portfolio and due for his hearing next week. An alleged past comment suggesting that Roma exploit the Slovak welfare system is to be the hill from which EPP-ers hurl their abuse, according to Hungary’s Jozsef Szajer, who helpfully called an informal meeting on Wednesday to tell journalists: “The EPP is the only group who has a Roma representative among us – and she is here with me.” Ho hum. A pawn in an unsavoury game?