Transcript of Video

• President Von der Leyen Announces Members of New EU Commission

  This time a big emphasis is on EU competitiveness with two big countries, France and Spain, taking over industrial strategy and, competitive transition.

  Von der Leyen also tried to address the fears of the future of the European New Green Deal by creating several or potentially overlapping positions that deal with, environment and climate.

  At the beginning, it seemed like von der Leyen was going to have difficulties delivering on her promise of a gender-balanced commission. With some last minute negotiations, mostly with smaller member states, most prominently Slovenia, she in the end was able to deliver on 11 female candidates out of 27, which is a much better result than was initially expected.

  There is some controversy around nominating the Italian candidate, Raffaele Fitto as one of the executive vice presidents. He is a member of the far right Brothers of Italy. This has raised concerns about potential cooperation by von der Leyen with the far right.

  One of the most surprising things was the last minute of withdrawal of candidacy for the French candidate, Thierry Breton., who was already commissioner in the previous commission and was expected to have this position also in this term.

  This was announced yesterday and quickly replaced by a new candidate, Stéphane Séjourné , who's currently the French foreign minister.

  There are also three highly expected new commission positions.

  One of them, of course, is, position of the Defense and Space Commissioner, which has gone to Lithuania. This can be interpreted as a clear sign from von der Leyen but also in general by the European Union of, doubling down on its defense capabilities and continued support for Ukraine.

  Another thing to note is the creation of a commissioner exclusively for enlargement, which shows that this topic will continue being on top of EU agenda. The position will be held most probably by a candidate from Slovenia, which also shows that there is potential for new momentum in the western Balkans as Slovenia was one of the vital voices to bring candidacy status for Bosnia and Herzegovina.