MEP Ciolos: Romania should send European Commissioner proposal by the beginning of next week

Special AGERPRES correspondent, Florin Stefan, reports: Romania should send its European Commissioner proposal by the beginning of next week, at the latest, in order for the European Parliament to be able to stick to its timetable and vote for the new European Commission at its session in November, Dacian Ciolos stated on Tuesday in Strasbourg. "Considering that there are still three commissioners that still need to be heard - on behalf of Hungary, Romania and France, and also considering that Romania and France still need to designate their commissioner, and I hope that these will happen in the following days - it's clear that the future Commission won't be able to start its activity before December 1," the leader of the Renew Europe group in the EP told the Romanian journalists. Asked what he thought was the deadline for the submission of this candidacy, Ciolos said in his opinion it should happen early next week. "I believe that early next week we need to come up with this nomination, in order for us to be able to stick to that timetable that we proposed in the EP and to vote for the new Commission at the November session," said Ciolos. "The parties must agree on a candidate for commissioner suitable to represent Romania and able to be true European Commissioner. And I mean not of the kind that only represents his/hers party interests or the interests of a group from one party or another, but a strong personality who will be able to work, while being a Romanian, to the best interest of the European Union. And I believe that we have enough options, among the politicians, either specialists or people with experience or renown at European level," he added. At least for the moment, Dacian Ciolos, who last met Ursula von der Leyen on Monday, at the EP Conference of Presidents, said that the President-elect of the new European Commission has no intention to change Romania's portfolio. "As far as I know Mrs von der Leyen has no intention, for now, to operate structural changes to the portfolio, for she could trigger new problems, while she would also rather prefer to propose the new structure of commissioners to the EP as soon as possible," said the PLUS MEP. At the same time, Ciolos said, given the political circumstances in Romania right now, it's no longer possible for Romania to have another candidate to be supported only by the PSD (Social Democratic Party). "Considering the political situation in Romania at this point I don't see how Romania could propose another candidate to be supported only by the PSD. For they would risk bringing the problems that we have in Romania to the European Parliament," he said. Right now, Romania's proposal of the European Commissioner is PSD MEP Dan Nica. And although he hasn't been officially rejected by Ursula von der Leyen yet, she did told the spokespersons of the European Commission that the nomination of several persons by the authorities in Bucharest would speed up the process of selection of a candidate to represent Romania. AGERPRES (RO - editor: Sorin Popescu; EN - editor: Cristina Zaharia)