The European Parliament has announced that it is postponing the vote on the approval of the two vice-president candidates of the new Commission: Estonia’s Kaya Kalas for the post of EU High Representative and Italy’s Raffaele Fito, who is slated to take over the Cohesion policy portfolio.

The coordinators of the Home Affairs Committee and the Committee of the Regions decided to postpone the evaluation of Kaya Kalas and Rafaele Fitorespectively, the representative of the European Parliament, Delphine Kolar, states in a statement to “X”, without specifying a specific date.

Today the hearings of the rest are taking place in the European Parliament four vice-presidential candidates: the French Stéphane Cezournet (Prosperity and Industrial Strategy), the Spanish Teresa Ribeira (Clean, Fair and Competitive Transition), the Finnish Hena Virkunen (Technology, Security and Democracy) and the Romanian Rohana Minzatu (People, Skills and Readiness).

As for the Italian vice-presidential candidate, Raffaele Fito, who is destined to take over the strategic portfolio of the EU’s Cohesion policy, during his hearing this morning he faced fire from a number of MEPs from the center-left (Socialists, Liberals, Greens and Left ), because the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Laien appointed him as vice president, even though he belongs to Giorgia Meloni’s far-right “Brothers of Italy” party.

As the “Greens” comment in their announcement, R. Fito pointed to a “lack of commitment to the Green Deal”. “We expect every Commissioner to uphold EU values, including the protection of democracy and fundamental rights. The R. Fito has demonstrated time and time again, through his far-right political beliefs, that he does not support these values“, emphasize the Greens.

In his opening speech, Raffaele Fito insisted: “I am not here to represent a political party or a Member State, but to confirm my commitment to Europe». At the end of his hearing, he reminded MEPs that years ago he was himself an MEP and coordinator of his group in the European Parliament’s Committee of the Regions and voted for Spanish Commissioner Elisa Ferreira. “Above party interests, we must put the general interest“, said the Italian vice-presidential candidate.