These days, the European Deputies will be induced to audition the candidates who were presented by the Member States for being part of the future European Commission. For Alter Summit, the team proposed by Jean-Claude Juncker is corrupted by the conflicts of interests and diametrically opposed to the European people interests.
This future Commission’s profile brings few hope of the capacity to answer to the huge challenges of today’s Europe: economic crisis, mass unemployment, ecological crisis, humanitarian tragedy at the borders, etc. The profiling solutions will only deepen the huge imbalances that undermine the European project for several years.
Moreover, the Alter Summit is making a point of calling attention on the particularly dismaying cases of some Jean-Claude Juncker presented team members.
As Miguel Arias Cañete, the Spanish candidate, who would be in charge of the fight against global warming, is notoriously close to the petroleum and fracking industry. Furthermore, he has been in the news because of his sexist declarations, talking about male intellectual superiority. The conflict of interest and the contradiction with the fundamental European values seem obvious to us.
It is the same with the British candidate, Jonathan Hill, in charge of the financial markets and their regulation, even though his relation with the banking interests of the London City are widely known. What kind of regulation in service of the common right can we expect from the bankers themselves? Ask the question is to answer it.
What could we say about the French candidate Pierre Moscovici, Commissioner in charge of tax system and fierce opponent to the tax on financial transactions (even though it is supported by a large part of the public opinion) and avowed defender of the banks’ interests inside the French Government?
We will not say anything about the Hungarian candidate, Tibor Navracsics, in charge of Education, Culture, Youth, and Multilingualism and who is a fervent defender of Extreme Right theories and policies, co-writer of a Hungarian constitution in obvious contradiction with the democratic values that are supposed to found the European project.
What is more, this new Commission only includes 9 women out of 28 Commissioners and only one third of these were candidates at the European elections, showing thereby the undemocratic nature of this institution.
Alter Summit is a European network, focused on the promotion of an ecological, democratic, social and pacifist Europe, and against all form of sexism and racism. But the general composition of the Commission, as it is proposed, fundamentally recedes from this vision.
Brussels, 30 September 2014
www.altersummit.eu