Brussels newspaper European Voice has mentioned Karmenu Vella as one of the nominees to the European Commission who may be vulnerable when hearings before the European Commission start next week.
Mr Vella's hearing will be on Monday.
"Vella will face two concerns during his hearing: discontent over the portfolio he has been given and discomfort over his political history in Malta," the newspaper says.
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s decision to merge environment and fisheries has not gone over well and Mr Vella will face demands from MEPs on both the environment and fisheries committees to guarantee that he will not give their policy area short shrift, it adds.
MEPs on the environment committee are concerned about the mandate letter sent by Mr Juncker to Mr Vella, which they see as prioritising an agenda of deregulation.
Mr Juncker’s request that Mr Vella “carry out an in-depth evaluation of the birds and habitats directives and assess the potential for merging them into a more modern piece of legislation” is particularly sensitive because Malta has been in repeated and continued violation of these laws because of bird hunting.
The newspaper points out that a group of the EU’s biggest environmental campaign groups wrote to Mr Juncker last week and warned: “The environment portfolio has been given to a commissioner whose government is under intense international criticism for failing to implement EU bird conservation legislation, which the commissioner will now be in a position to amend.”
Mr Vella may also face questions about his time as part of the Labour government of Dom Mintoff in the 1980s – a time of political turmoil in Malta when there were allegations against the government over political thuggery, tax evasion and corruption.
"In part, these allegations are the product of Malta’s brand of intensely tribal politics, but faith in Malta has been damaged by the loss from the last college of commissioners of John Dalli, the Maltese commissioner forced to resign during the last term over allegations of corruption," the newspaper points out.
On the other hand, it will count to Vella’s advantage that the Labour government belongs to the S&D group. Neither the S&D nor the EPP are expected to pursue an aggressive line of questioning. But colourful anecdotes from Mr Vella’s time in Maltese politics could be red meat for Eurosceptic MEPs, who could use the opportunity to attempt a resurrection of Dalligate.
The European Conservatives and Reformists group would also have nothing to lose by going after a centre-left MEP. This would likely not translate to a majority voting against Vella’s nomination, and the numbers are still in his favour. But if questions over his political past cause Vella’s hearing to go off the rails, he may find support from the EPP and S&D groups is brittle, European voice said.
It points out that the two largest groups in the Parliament, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) and the centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D), have joined together in a ‘grand coalition‘ that, with the additional participation of the liberal ALDE group, gives them a majority in the Parliament. The centre-left and centre-right are unlikely to vote against a nominee from the other side, for fear of upsetting the delicate balance.
The other commissioners-designate seen to be vulnerable are Alenka Bratušek of Slovenia, soon to have nominated herself before her government was replaced; Briton Jonathan Hill; Spain's Miguel Arias Cañete because of sexist remarks on TV; and Tibor Navracsics, nominated by the Hungarian governemnt, which is unpopular in the EU.
http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/five-commission-nominees-who-look-vulnerable-ahead-of-hearings/