Malta’s prime minister has nominated the country’s social policy minister for the next Commission, meaning there will be a new Fisheries Commissioner after Joe Borg.
As a concession to Ireland before that country’s referendums on the Lisbon Treaty, each member nation was allowed one member in the Commission. Joe Borg, once the foreign minister who led Malta’s joining the European Union in 2004, was nominated Commissioner for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs after that accession.
Borg was on the Maltese prime minister Lawrence Gonzi’s shortlist for re-nomination, according to the European Voice, but Gonzi’s final pick was John Dalli, presently minister of social policy and earlier holder of the foreign affairs portfolio.
Twenty-six of 27 member states have now nominated candidates for the next Commission, with only the Netherlands remaining to do so. The new Fisheries Commissioner will have a new partner at the Council meetings, as well, since Denmark announced that its next member of the Commission will be Connie Hedegaard, replacing the current Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel.
Hedegaard, her country’s minister for the climate and energy, and the minister in charge of next months climate meeting in Copenhagen, is widely expected become the Union’s first Commissioner for climate change.
Commission President José Manuel Barroso will announce his nominations, portfolio by portfolio, the first week in December. After hearings with the individual nominees early next year, the European Parliament is scheduled to vote on the next Commission on January 20, its members finally taking office on February 1.
Holland later re-nominated the present Commissioner for competition policy Neelie Kroes for the next Commission.