BRUSSELS, September 2 () –
Belgium will propose the current Foreign Minister, Hadja Lahbib, to join the new college of commissioners in Ursula von der Leyen’s second term at the head of the European Commission, RTL reported.
Belgium, the last EU member state to appoint its representative to the next European executive, thus completes the group of candidates for the Commission with Lahbib.
The nomination was pending negotiations for the formation of a federal government, in which it was decided that the French-speaking liberal party, MR, would decide the next Belgian representative in the European Executive.
With Lahbib, Belgium has made it somewhat easier for Von der Leyen to design a gender-balanced team, after only Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Finland and Croatia have nominated women. This group is joined by Belgium and Romania, which on Monday confirmed the appointment of MEP Roxana Minzatu after the nomination of another MEP, Victor Negrescu, was taken for granted a few weeks ago.
Bulgaria has put forward two options, while Germany has Von der Leyen herself as a candidate, and Estonia will have former Prime Minister Kaja Kallas as its future High Representative for Foreign Policy.
With these numbers already pending the European Parliament’s examination, which plays a role in defining the cabinet, although candidates are often rejected due to conflicts of interest or lack of preparation to take on a specific portfolio, the college of commissioners could end up having ten women, compared to, probably, 17 men.
Von der Leyen is in charge of designing the European Commission and the distribution of portfolios, so Brussels understands that she could try to compensate for the lack of cooperation of the Member States in achieving gender balance and opt for generating a qualitative balance by appointing women to important portfolios.
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