Roemeense en Bulgaarse kandidaat-commissarissen komen goed door eerste gesprekken (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The Romanian candidate for EU commissioner emerged unscathed from a three-hour long hearing before MEPs on Monday (27 November), but the limits of his multilingualism portfolio were clearly exposed.

Leonard Orban gave careful answers throughout the hearing often repeating that he could not force member states to take action on multilingualism, underlining the fact that education and intercultural issues - important areas for his portfolio - are essentially member state issues.

Quizzed several times by MEPs on what specific legislative actions he would take as commissioner and what he could do for regional languages that have no official status as EU languages but are spoken by millions of people, he said these were areas that had to be left to national governments to decide.

Among the concrete steps he outlined were promoting the learning of Russian, Turkish, Chinese and Arabic across the union; having a high-level seminar on multi-lingualism next year and organising a language competition between schools across the EU.

MEPs from the two biggest political groups - the centre-right EPP and the socialists - gave Mr Orban the green light but socialist MEPs urged him to get a "clearer job description" from commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso.

Mr Orban defended his portfolio, which has been ridiculed in some quarters for being too light, noting that he will be in charge of around 3,400 EU officials and responsible for about 1 percent of the EU budget - spent on interpretation and translation costs.

"Europe's linguistic and cultural diversity is a source of richness which also needs to be nurtured and promoted," said the commissioner-hopeful.

Meglena Kuneva

Meanwhile, few MEPs questioned the importance of the portfolio of Bulgarian commissioner-designate Meglena Kuneva - consumer protection - although some deputies noted the policy is also a key part of other commissioners' competences such as those of the internal market and media.

"This policy is complementary to every other single one," Ms Kuneva said during her hearing by MEPs from the internal market, environment and legal committees, vowing to make consumer protection "much more visible" for citizens.

The liberal politician appeared to generally curry favour with MEPs with her apparent determination to make a go of her portfolio and with frequent references to the "specific relation of trust" she wanted to build with MEPs.

But Ms Kuneva, who as Europe minister guided Bulgaria into the EU, also raised some question marks among MEPs by being hesitant about outlining specific plans, and using popular metaphors and sayings instead.

Senior socialist MEP Evelyne Gebhardt said "I miss your personal accent," but the candidate commissioner responded she would "rather wait" for the results of a consultative commission green paper on consumer protection before being more precise.

Socialist MEPs in particular were concerned by Ms Kuneva's statement that "where possible, we should apply a philosophy of maximum harmonisation" of consumer protection standards - sparking worries that member states would not be allowed to apply stricter standards than the EU maximum.

But the commissioner also impressed MEPs by one part of her CV stating that she wrote a screenplay for a film about homicide, leading one UK to quip "why did you choose politics not show business?"

She explained that the film was part of a campaign against the death penalty during communism, earning herself some praise from MEPs.

The final seal of approval by parliament is expected to be given during next month's plenary session in Strasbourg, paving the way for the two politicians to join their 25 commissioner colleagues in January.