Who's who in the European Parliament committees?

MAGAZINE
02
24
Who’s who
in the European
Parliament
committees?

WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
The stakes
remain high
inside the EU’s
‘engine room’
BY ELENA SÁNCHEZ NICOLÁS
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With a more fragmented and polarised
European Parliament now
rolling into its 10th term, we aim to revisit
the roles that the committees play in
Europe’s governance, as we first did back
in 2019.
Anyone familiar with the Brussels Bubble
understands that the political weight of
the parliament’s committees is often underestimated.
But these political bodies are a key piece
of the legislative change puzzle, and their
chairs, often the target of lobbyists, largely
stay out of the limelight though, on rare
occasions, receive serious and merited
attention.
This is why we reached out to all committee
chairs and asked them about their
priorities for the next five years, as well as
their main concerns — because it is expected
to be a complex legislative term,
with clashes both within and between the
committees across nearly all areas.
When you put all their responses together,
this provides a complete overview of the
critical topics that will dominate the political
landscape in 2024-2029. Will the EU
continue to walk the talk established over
the previous five years?
As their political priorities and work programmes
start to bite, the answer to this
question also hinges on whether the European
Parliament will play a stronger role
in policy-making.
For some committee chairs, the next five
years will be all about the implementation
of existing rules, others advocate for revision
and adjustments, and some want to
push for even more ambitious rules.
While the priorities of the EU seem to have
shifted in the name of competitiveness, it
becomes clear when reading through the
words of the committee chairs that the EU
still faces unprecedented challenges.
Be it Russia’s war in Ukraine or the explosion
of tensions in the Middle East, a
potential trade war with China, inflation,
the fight against climate change, the democratic
backsliding of certain member
states, the externalisation of migration,
or the rise of artificial intelligence, Europe
needs to rise to the task.
Internal issues such as ageing populations,
migration, defence, and taxation still raise
many problems, while Europe is still trying
to find the right answers to how to increase
productivity, expand fiscal space,
and reduce dependencies on countries
such as China or the US.
The stakes remain very high, and only
time and political will will reveal whether
Europe is truly up to the task.
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3

TABLE OF CONTENTS
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
6
10
12
32
34
36
The new balance of power inside
the EU parliament’s ‘engine
room’
AFET - Staying friends with the
US amid Russian aggression
DROI - Still shaking off
Qatargate
SANT - Health subcommittee
goes geopolitical
ITRE - beating back foreign
competition
IMCO - Green MEP re-elected
but faces daunting challenges
14
16
18
38
40
42
SEDE - Security & defence -
A different world
DEVE - Keeping the EU looking
outward
INTA - Re-shaping the
EU’s trading role amid new
geopolitics
TRAN - Keeping the EU’s green
agenda on track
REGI -Support for EU’s poorest
regions can boost solidarity
AGRI - Battleground for revision
of agriculture policies in wake of
farmers’ protests
In this issue
44
46
48
PECH - Beyond EU fish wars,
finding an eco-financial balance
CULT - An often ‘overlooked’
role
JURI - A committee with a
toothless bite
20
22
24
50
52
54
BUDG - More spending
demands, more pressure on
budgets
CONT - The committee
protecting taxpayers’ money
and a ‘vigilant defender’ of the
rule of law
ECON - Funding Europe’s
industrial and technological
resurgence?
LIBE - Migration will dominate,
as EU states implement new
asylum rules
AFCO - Seeking more oversight
on EU Commission lawmaking
FEMM - Advancing women’s
rights and enforcing EU law to
expand gender balance
26
28
30
56
56
FISC - Tackling corporate tax
evasion and avoidance
EMPL has its job cut out
ENVI - Fighting to defend
Europe’s Green Deal
PETI - Our agenda is set by you
Glossary of political group
acronyms and party numbers
in the European Parliament
5

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
The new balance
of power inside the
EU parliament’s
‘engine room’
A total of 720 MEPs represent the more than 440 million citizens
in the EU — but it is really within the 20 committees and four
subcommittees where the first steps of the political and legislative
work of the European Parliament truly take place.
By ELENA SÁNCHEZ NICOLÁS
Some of the most important work of the European Parliament is done in its 20 committees and four subcommittees
Inside parliament, the various committees’
political power becomes visible
only at key moments — such as when
they turn down commissioner designates,
or when major legislation faces potential
defeat. A good example was when the environment
committee nearly rejected the
controversial EU nature restoration law
last year, keeping the Brussels Bubble on
edge.
Committees typically meet once or twice
a month in Brussels, holding debates and
discussions that serve not only to shape
the EU’s legislative agenda, but also as an
oversight mechanism when, for example,
it comes to controlling the proper use of
the EU budget.
Their day-to-day work mainly consists of
binding “co-decision” on EU laws in areas
such as the single market, migration,
economic governance, trade, tech regulation
and climate change. But their daily
tasks also involve non-binding “consultations”
on EU decisions such as foreign
affairs, taxation or competition law.
While there are currently 24 standing
committees and subcommittees, the EU
parliament can set up special committees
on specific issues at any time for a
mandate of one year. (During the 2019-
2024 term, for example, several special
committees were created, such as those
covering foreign interference, the Covid
pandemic, AI, and the use of surveillance
systems.)
Each committee contains between 25
members (development, the smallest)
and 90 (environment and industry, the
largest). And their composition always
reflects their political weight.
Based on the traditional D’Hondt method,
a mathematical formula which determines
bargaining power based on group
size, political groups among themselves
divide committee chairs for a mandate of
two-and-a-half-years.
Notably, the majority of chair positions
are held by men, with women occupying
around 30 percent of these roles heading
committees and subcommittees.
All political groups have “coordinators”
in each committee who manage their
group’s position on various files. Along
Each committee contains
between 25 members and
90. And their composition
always reflects their
political weight.
7

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
The majority of chair positions are
held by men, with women occupying
around 30 percent of these roles heading
committees and subcommittees.
with the chair and vice-chairs, they organise
the committee’s work.
But committees normally work by electing
a “rapporteur” who is the MEP leading
the work on a specific file. These rapporteurs
are chosen via another complex
method in which political groups bid for
a report on a concrete subject, as in an
auction.
The committees review legislative texts
proposed by the European Commission,
which also have to be approved by EU
member states. They hold public hearings,
invite experts, and suggest changes.
They can also carry out fact-checking missions
if necessary. The rapporteur usually
prepares a draft report, which can still be
modified, before the full committee votes
on a compromise — which is presented
to the plenary for final approval.
But committees also get involved in the
nitty-gritty of the EU’s law-making machine,
participating in the so-called trilogues,
where EU diplomats and MEPs
negotiate to find common ground on legislation.
The constitutional affairs committee has
the highest number of veteran re-elected
MEPs, but those committees dealing
with trade, development and foreign affairs
also have some of the most senior
members, according to an analysis by EU
Matrix.
Committees focused on budgetary, macroeconomic,
and internal market affairs
have significant representation from
German parties. German MEPs also have
a stronger presence than French MEPs in
the defence subcommittee.
French lawmakers dominate the international
trade and civil liberties committees,
while Spanish MEPs are the largest
in the fisheries committee.
Polish MEPs have a strong presence in
the budgetary committee (key for Poland
as a major net beneficiary of the EU
budget, and budget-related portfolio for
its commissioner nominee Piotr Serafin.)
Meanwhile, Italians dominate the committees
on industrial policy and agriculture,
while Romanians are well-represented
in both the budgetary and
regional development committees,
alongside French and Germans.
While all committees play key roles in the
legislative process, the most important
committees typically address economic,
budgetary, and foreign policy issues, significantly
influencing EU legislation and
policies and thrashing out big ideas such as
geopolitics and trade agreements.
In contrast, others, such as the culture or
petitions committees, wield less influence,
focusing on smaller issuesuch as the Catalan
language model in schools or citizen’s
petitions over cannabis legalisation or animal
welfare regulations.
But they all contribute to the overall functioning
of the European Parliament — a
collective effort that contributes to a more
democratic European Union and promotes
the interests of EU citizens. H
About
Elena Sánchez Nicolás
Elena is the managing editor of EUobserver.
She joined the site in
2019 and specialises in institutional
affairs, climate change and tech policy.
Committees in the European Parliament by size
Environment, Public Health and Food Safety
Industry, Research and Energy
Foreign Affairs
Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs
Economic and Monetary Affairs
Employment and Social Affairs
Internal Market and Consumer Protection
Agriculture and Rural Development
Transport and Tourism
International Trade
Regional Development
Budgets
Women's Rights and Gender Equality
Petitions
Budgetary Control
Culture and Education
Constitutional Affairs
Human Rights (Subcommittee)
Security and Defence (Subcommittee)
Tax Matters (Subcommittee)
Public Health (Subcommittee)
Fisheries
Development
Legal Affairs
27
25
25
30
30
30
30
30
30
30
90
90
79
75
60
60
52
49
46
43
41
40
40
35
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
9

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
AFET - Staying friends
with the US amid
Russian aggression
With two major wars in the region, Ukraine/Russia and Israel/Gaza/
Lebanon/Iran, the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee
has its work cut out — but can it make a difference?
Foreign affairscommittee chairman David McAllister - Source - European Commission
By ANDREW RETTMAN
Working with the US to curb Russia’s
war in Ukraine and an enlargement
“renaissance” will dominate
the foreign affairs committee (AFET) —
amid tension on whether Europe should
become a “hard power”.
“The United States continues to be our
most important strategic partner,” said
committee chair David McAllister.
“In times of geopolitical tensions, the European
Union must continuously work to
underline our commitment to multilateralism
and promote a rules-based international
order,” the German conservative
MEP added.
Working with the US to curb Russia’s war
in Ukraine and an enlargement “renaissance”
will dominate the foreign affairs
committee (AFET) — amid tension on
whether Europe should become a “hard
power”.
“The United States continues to be our
most important strategic partner,” said
committee chair David McAllister.
“In times of geopolitical tensions, the European
Union must continuously work to
underline our commitment to multilate
alism and promote a rules-based international
order,” the German conservative
MEP added.
“This applies in particular to issues such
as strategic dependencies on non-democratic
regimes, economic coercion, political
interference, and disinformation,” he
said.
The AFET committee has no legal power
to make EU foreign policy, such as
imposing sanctions, which is a prerogative
of member states meeting in the EU
Council.
But it’s still one of the European Parliament’s
most powerful, prestigious,
and highly-lobbied committees, with 79
members.
Its non-binding resolutions echo in European
capitals and overseas, creating
political pressure for EU action, for instance,
on human-rights abuses.
Its hearings with foreign VIPs, overseas
trips, and its role in organising MEPs’
election-observation missions multiply
its informal role in EU diplomacy.
It also helps to sign off the EU’s annual
€386m foreign and security policy budget
and the European Commission’s international
agreements.
Its 53-year-old chairman, who was born
in Berlin, already held the post for the
2019-2024 term, during which Russia fully
invaded Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow
became increasingly aggressive toward
the EU and Nato.
Spiralling new warfare in the Middle
East, which erupted in 2023, also threatened
European security, but McAllister
was more seized by the Ukraine war.
“With regard to Russia’s ongoing war of
aggression, the EU should mobilise international
support for the peace formula
presented by Ukraine,” he said.
McAllister pledged to “work closely” with
the new EU foreign policy chief, Kaja
Kallas, an Estonian politician, who is also
focused on Russia.
His stress on US importance came amid
uncertainty on the future of transatlantic
relations, if the Putin-friendly and
EU-hostile Donald Trump won elections
in November.
But despite the overheating global climate,
McAllister still predicted that EU
plans to forge a joint military force independent
of the US would be one of the
most divisive topics on AFET’s agenda.
“The EU has to be more than a ‘soft power’.
We must be able to defend our values
with hard power. A genuine military and
defence union that is interoperable with
Nato and that can act independently is
the way forward,” he said.
Even though the EU was living in dangerous
times, McAllister saw opportunities
to press for ever closer ties with former
Russia-aligned neighbours.
The EU opened accession talks with Moldova
and Ukraine in June, he noted. It
also opened talks with Bosnia in March,
in the Western Balkans queue.
“EU enlargement is experiencing a renaissance.
A new chapter of enlargement
policy has begun in the shadow of Russia’s
war of aggression against Ukraine,”
he said.
But the German MEP warned that EU
states ought to do away with national
vetoes on foreign action in favour of
qualified majority voting, if they were to
become a harder force in the geopolitical
arena.
“The European Parliament and the foreign
affairs committee in particular, have
long underlined their commitment to
qualified majority voting in more policy
areas. We should strive to achieve meaningful
progress on this issue,” he concluded.
H
THE AFET COORDINATORS
Michael Gahler
EPP, Germany)
Nacho Sánchez Amor
S&D, Spain
Sebastiaan Stöteler
PfE, the Netherlands
Adam Bielan
ECR, Poland
Hilde Vautmans
Renew, Belgium
Hannah Newman
Greens, Germany
Marc Botenga
The Left, Belgium
Stanislav Stoyanov
ESN, Bulgaria
11

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
DROI - Still shaking
off Qatargate
Balancing human rights with migration and trade is never easy —
and the human rights committee has had its own internal problems.
By NIKOLAJ NIELSEN
Mounir Satouri, a Moroccan-born
MEP from France, chairs the European
Parliament’s sub-committee on
human rights.
The 49-year-old is a member of the
Greens and has been affiliated with the
committee as a substitute since mid-
2019.
Satouri did not reply to questions on his
committee of 29 MEPs, its challenges and
what he hopes it will achieve over the
next five years.
But over the summer, a statement from
the European Parliament provided some
insight.
“Our mission is to support international
justice and human rights defenders
around the world,” he said.
“We will be determined in monitoring
respect for human rights in the EU’s external
policies, from migration to trade.”
Last year, Satouri condemned
the EU agreement with Tunisia.
He again spoke out in March and
accused the EU of bankrolling
dictators across the region.
Among their first initiatives under Satouri’s
watch was to speak out in defence
of Afghan women, whose fate has only
worsened since the shock Taliban takeover
in August 2021.
But the prospect of monitoring human
rights, in a Europe that is turning a blind
eye to abuses, is also a daunting task.
Some of the biggest tragedies, including
the drowning deaths of an estimated 650
people in a shipwreck off the coast of
Pylos, Greece in June 2023, remain unaccounted
for.
The EU has also been signing cash-formigrant
deals with democratically-dubious
states, such as Tunisia, Egypt and
Mauritania, in a wider bid to stop people
from taking boats towards Europe.
Last year, Satouri condemned the EU
agreement with Tunisia. He again spoke
out in March and accused the EU of
bankrolling dictators across the region.
The condemnation came after the European
Commission pumped some €150m
into Tunisia, sidelining the European
Parliament in the process.
Part of those deals involve trade and he
has since pressed the EU to suspend its
association agreement with Israel, given
the atrocities playing out in the Gaza
Strip and the attacks on Lebanon.
But trade is also a factor with Satouri’s
native Morocco, which has used migration
to squeeze concessions from Spain
and the EU at the expense of fundamental
rights.
The north African country remains steadfast
in claiming the Western Sahara as its
own, since its illegal annexation in 1975.
The issue has seen the European Court
of Justice either toss out the deals or impose
limitations.
But France has since sided with Morocco
to retain control over the Western Sahara
after similar shifts from Spain and
the US, amid widespread lobbying from
Rabat.
Whatever the issue, Satouri’s committee
remains mired in the shadow of the
Qatargate lobbying scandal of 2022.
The committee was at the centre of the
affair. Its former chair, Belgian socialist
Maria Arena, resigned from the post despite
proclaiming her innocence.
The European Parliament has since attempted
to shake off the scandal in the
hopes of regaining lost credibility. H
THE DROI COORDINATORS
Isabel Wiseler-Lima
EPP, Luxembourg
Francisco Assis
S&D, Portugal
Matthieu Valet
PfE, France
Arkadiusz Mularczyk
ECR, Poland
Bernard Guetta
Renew, France
Catarina Vieira
Greens, Netherlands
Isabel Serra Sánchez
Left, France
Mounir Satouri,
chairman of the
human rights
committee
Source - European
Commission
13

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
SEDE -
Security & defence
- A different world
With Russian cyberattacks and election interference, and the
never-ending saga of a mooted EU army, the security and defence
committee has a full in-tray.
By ANDREW RETTMAN
he EU needs to create a joint defensive
military force to adapt to an ev-
T
er-more dangerous neighbourhood, with
new wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle
East.
“When you compare the geopolitical
situation today to the one after the last
European election – we live in a different
world,” said the chair of the security and
defence sub-committee, Marie-Agnes
Strack-Zimmermann.
“The situation today requires more competences
in the security and defence
committee, so that we can work towards
a European Defence Union, which should
“I am confident that we will
make our continent safer and
advance Europe’s defence
capabilities in the coming years.”
be our long-term goal,” the 63-year-old
German liberal MEP said.
“I hope that in five years, we will not only
work together in this great European Union
to make the lives of its 450 million
inhabitants better and easier, but we will
also protect them together — as a strong
European pillar within Nato,” she added.
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann.
Russia fully invaded Ukraine in 2022 and
fresh wars in Gaza and Lebanon in 2023
and 2024 have changed the security landscape
to the south.
Russia has also launched cyberattacks,
sabotage attacks, and election-interference
operations against EU countries.
Security and defence committee chairwoman Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann - Source - European Commission
And the 29-member SEDE subcommittee
will help oversee EU counter-hybrid
warfare actions, military assistance to
Ukraine, and investment in Europe’s military-industrial
compound.
Meanwhile, France, Germany, and Italy
have been pushing for years to create a
joint European rapid-reaction force, as
a first step toward a joint EU army, but
Poland and Baltic states are wary of doing
anything to replace the US-led Nato
alliance.
“This is not something that can be done
easily, because defence policy is a core
competence of the member states,”
Strack-Zimmermann said.
“I am confident that we will make our
continent safer and advance Europe’s
defence capabilities in the coming years
despite our different geographical situations
and views of the conflicts in the
world,” she added.
And the fact the EU now had a dedicated
commissioner for defence boded well for
future action, the MEP said.
“I am assuming that the European Union
will continue to focus much more on
security and defence — increase their efforts
even, given that for the first time we
will have a commissioner responsible for
security and defence,” she said. H
THE SEDE COORDINATORS
Nicolás Pascual de la Parte
EPP, Spain
Sven Mikser
S&D, Estonia
Pierre-Romain Thionnet
PfE, France
Reinis Pozņaks
ECR, Latvia
Nathalie Loiseau
Renew, France
Mārtiņš Staķis
Greens, Latvia
Marc Botenga
The Left, Belgium
Hans Neuhoff
ESN, Germany
15

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
DEVE -
Keeping the
EU looking
outward
‘Donor fatigue’ is a major issue, with the conflicts in
Sudan and Yemen overshadowed by Ukraine and Gaza,
but there is also pressure to shift money from the
budget to migration, and doubts over the motives of
the key Global Gateway project.
By BENJAMIN FOX
The EU’s commitment to developing
countries, and development policy
in general, has been seriously questioned
in recent years. Falling aid spending and
Europe’s preoccupation with migration
control are the most obvious pieces of evidence.
Keeping the EU looking outward is the
task facing Barry Andrews, the new
chair of the parliament’s development
committee.
“Instead of retreating, we must advance
by expanding the EU’s humanitarian
presence worldwide and continuing to
support those in greatest need. In doing
so, the EU must remain outward-looking,
despite the growing desire by some to
turn inward,” Andrews told EUobserver.
“Success will be shining a light on some
of the forgotten crises happening in the
world right now such as Sudan,” he says,
as well as ensuring that, in five years’
time, “the EU remains collectively the
biggest donor for international aid in the
world.”
The UN’s aid wings, and other humanitarian
organisations, have warned of increasing
‘donor fatigue’ in recent years,
with humanitarian crises in Sudan and
Yemen among those that have struggled
to obtain international attention and sufficient
aid.
The battle over EU funds in the bloc’s
next seven-year budget framework,
which starts in 2028, will also preoccupy
minds.
A leaked budget proposal from the commission
included plans to shift up to
€2.6bn within its main development
funding pot to tackling what it calls the
“extraordinary geopolitical tension”
from increased migration.
Andrews, an Irish liberal MEP, says that
one of his focuses will be “advocating for
increased humanitarian funding and improving
coordination between development
aid and humanitarian efforts, particularly
to enhance resilience in fragile
states.”
Elsewhere, the EU Commission is keen
to press ahead with its Global Gateway
initiative, an infrastructure investment
programme that is an attempt to outflank
China’s Belt and Road.
Launched in 2021, the commission wants
to maintain a budget line for Global
Gateway in the next seven-year budget
on which negotiations are likely to start
in early 2025.
The scheme, which the commission says
will drive up to €300bn in investment
across Africa and Asia, is focused on promoting
green industrialisation, such as
green hydrogen projects, which the EU
hopes could lead to increased supply to
Europe. That has led some critics to suggest
that the programme is more about
promoting the EU’s agenda than it is a
development tool. Others point out that
the funding generated by Global Gateway
relies heavily on the private sector putting
up the cash.
Andrews says that “stronger oversight is
needed to ensure that EU infrastructure
“Success will be shining a light
on some of the forgotten crises
happening in the world right
now such as Sudan.”
projects under Global Gateway align with
the dual objectives of sustainable development
and poverty reduction, rather than
merely advancing EU economic interests.”
In the meantime, the EU’s trade deal
with the Southern African Development
Community is due for review, though the
passing of the Samoa Agreement last year
left the EU’s trade terms with the African,
Caribbean and Pacific community unchanged
and is unlikely to be revisited in
the new mandate.
Even so, MEPs must “advocate for fair
and sustainable trade agreements that
Barry Andrews
benefit developing countries, focusing
on promoting sustainable value chains
and upholding human rights and environmental
standards within trade policies,”
argues Andrews.
Pressure on national aid budgets, as
member states across the EU seek to
rein in spending to reduce deficits from
the Covid pandemic, will also have to be
countered at EU level, says Andrews.
“We are living in a time of increasing inequality
and global uncertainty, and this
has fuelled political divisiveness in some
member states. This division is evident in
Barry Andrews,
chairman of
the European
Parliament’s
development
committee
Source - European
Parliament
calls to reduce development aid or close
borders.”
“One of the most contentious issues on
DEVE’s agenda will be countering this
rhetoric.” H
THE DEVE COORDINATORS
Lukas Mandl
EPP, Austria
Udo Bullman
S&D, Germany
György Hölvényi
PfE, Hungary
Małgorzata Gosiewska
ECR, Poland
Charles Goerens
Renew, Luxembourg
Isabella Lovin
Greens, Sweden
Issa Serra Sanchez
Left, Spain
Marc Jongen
ESN, Italy
17

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
INTA - Re-shaping the
EU’s trading role amid
new geopolitics
One of the European Parliament’s most experienced MEPs will be
handling the political hot potato of a potential trade war with China.
By BENJAMIN FOX
Bernd Lange, chairman of the international trade committee - Source - European Parliament
Now into his seventh term as an MEP,
few EU lawmakers have the experience
of German social democrat Bernd
Lange. Lange, who has just started his
third consecutive mandate as chair of the
international trade committee, is the ideal
point-man for parliament at a time of major
turbulence facing the EU’s trade policy.
In particular, the EU’s trade dispute with
China is preoccupying policy-minds
across Europe.
After the EU imposed tariffs on Chinese
electric vehicles, accusing Beijing of illegally
subsidising its industry, Beijing has
hit back by opening trade probes into imports
of EU dairy, pork and cognac.
“We of course also need to further develop
our own course in the competition
between China and the US,” says Lange,
a reference not just to the EVs row but to
the broader geopolitical battle for access
to the critical minerals, such as cobalt,
“Fair
partnerships,
especially with
our partners
in the Global
South will
be key.”
Bernd Lange
lithium and other metals, that the major
economies need to drive their green industrial
transitions.
In the last mandate, EU lawmakers approved
the bloc’s Critical Raw Materials
Act, and the commission has since brokered
deals offering investment in exchange
for access with the likes of DR
Congo, Zambia, Namibia and Rwanda.
Lange expects the arguments between
open markets and protectionism to be
among the most divisive in parliament
over the coming years.
“Another main challenge will be to make
sure that we work on all three pillars of
the economic security strategy and not
only on the ‘protect’ pillar,” says Lange,
adding that if tariff and other protective
measures are needed “we have to do this
on the basis of facts and not politics and
we should always keep the potential reaction
of our trading partners in mind.”
Any measures “should also be in line with
WTO rules of course” — though he also
notes that “it will be a challenge sticking
to the multilateral rules when so many
other trading partners are disregarding it.”
Access to raw materials is also reshaping
relations between wealthy blocs such as
the EU and the Global South, particularly
African states, many of whom believe
that their trade agreements with the EU
are fundamentally unequal.
One of the demands from a growing
number of African states – especially in
the wake of the agreement of the African
Continental Free Trade Area – is for trade
deals with the EU to be revised to allow
them to promote national and regional
industrialisation. At present, the bulk of
the continent’s exports to the EU are raw
materials.
Lange says that one of his main priorities
is to “conclude fair and broad partnerships
with the Global South so that the
EU remains a relevant partner for them.”
“Fair partnerships, especially with our
partners in the Global South will be
key,” he adds, urging EU policymakers
to “think of a comprehensive strategy to
have closer links with many trading partners
around the world, especially also developing
countries, as everyone is trying
to find its way in the new context we are
in.”
Global Gateway — an infrastructure investment
programme that the EU Commission
says is worth up to €300bn to
developing countries — should be “one
integral aspect of this comprehensive
strategy,” says Lange.
He also wants his committee to be more
involved in the design and implementation
of the EU’s raw material partnerships.
“I hope that we will be able to conclude
and ratify some additional trade agreements,
Lange tells EUobserver, though he
concedes that “we need to be aware that
such agreements might not be enough or
not feasible in the short run.” H
THE INTA COORDINATORS
Jörgen Warborn
EPP, Sweden
Brando Benifei
S&D, Italy
Thierry Mariani
PfE, France
Daniele Polato
ECR, Italy
Marie-Pierre Vedrenne
Renew, France
Majdouline Sbai
Greens, France
Lynn Boylan
Left, Ireland
Markus Buchheit
ESN, Germany
19

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
BUDG - More
spending demands,
more pressure
on budgets
Johan van Overtveldt is chairman of
the European Parliament’s Budgets
committee
Source - European Commission
Belgian fiscal hawk and former journalist Johan van Overtveldt is in
charge of checking the EU purse strings. Despite coming from the
European Conservatives & Reformists group, he calls himself a ‘bridgebuilder
and compromise-seeker’.
By BENJAMIN FOX
After four years as Belgian finance
minister, Johan van Overtveldt, a
member of the conservative New Flemish
Alliance, was elected to the European Parliament
in 2019 and was promptly elected
as chairman of the influential Budgets
committee.
A former journalist who got into politics
in 2013, van Overtveldt was one of few
MEPs to get a second term as committee
chair, securing a hefty 32 to 7 majority. In
the inter-institutional battles between
EU governments and the parliament,
MEPs have historically been the ones
demanding more EU spending and critiquing
the parsimony of national treasuries.
As lawmakers haggle over the bloc’s
budget for 2025, MEPs led by Romanian
Victor Negrescu of the S&D have criticised
national capitals for trying to cut
€1.52bn from the EU Commission’s draft
budget.
However, while van Overtveldt has been
a supporter of greater EU spending on
research and innovation, he has a reputation
as a fiscal hawk.
In a statement after his election was confirmed,
the Belgian ECR chairman said
that the EU should “continue to evolve
towards a future-proof budget that stimulates
investment, supports the purchasing
power of citizens and the competitiveness
of our companies, and focuses on real and
current needs, such as the support for
Ukraine and strengthening military capacities
in the European Union.”
He added that it also remains a task to
“safeguard the quality of expenditures”.
Van Overtveldt describes himself as a
“bridge-builder, compromise-seeker”,
skills that will be tested when he leads
parliament’s negotiations on the next
multi-annual financial framework, which
carves out the EU’s €1.2 trillion central
budget for the period 2028-2034. The
commission is expected to put forward a
text in the second half of 2025 which will
kick-start the process.
The commission is also likely, with parliament’s
approval, to provide more
funding for Ukraine. The budgets chair
says that EU funding for Ukraine. Though
MEPs approved a €50bn aid package for
Ukraine at the start of 2024, the budgets
chair says that far more EU support will
be needed.
“Ukraine needs sustainable
funding. At the same time, we
should consider very strict
controls on how these funds
are spent”.
Johan van Overtveldt
He argues that the €200bn of frozen
Russian assets could be used by the EU
as collateral to make €150bn available to
Kyiv in a revolving credit line.
“Ukraine needs sustainable funding. At
the same time, we should consider very
strict controls on how these funds are
spent”.
Also on the committee’s agenda will be
the follow up to Mario Draghi report’s
recommendations on EU competitiveness,
which painted a gloomy picture of
the EU falling behind the United States
and China. The former ECB chief’s blueprint
is likely to shape the second term
von der Leyen commission industrial
policy and have major budgetary implications,
particularly the question of how to
finance the massive annual increase in investment
of between €750bn and €800bn
per year — and the potential use of jointly-issued
EU debt to finance it.
The Belgian MEP, whose reputation as a
fiscal hawk as the ECR group’s spokesman
on the economics committee also
extends to the EU’s finances, contends
that fresh money can be found by cutting
back some budget headings and by
increasing member states’ direct contributions
to the EU budget.
He is also a sceptic about joint EU debt.
“We cannot of course ignore the Draghi
report, which imposes an impressive
competitiveness agenda and speaks of
annual investment needs of €700bn to
€800bn, and this for the further roll-out
of the EU objectives that have already
been agreed,” said van Overtveldt.
“Anyone who knows the budgetary situation
of the member states a little and
knows how European compromises are
reached knows that such an effort cannot
be made immediately,” he added. H
THE BUDG COORDINATORS
Karlo Ressler
EPP, Croatia
Jean Marc Germain
S&D, France
Ondřej Kovařík
PfE, Czech Republic
Lucia Yar
Renew, Slovenia
Rasmus Andresen
Greens, Germany
Bogdan Rzońca
ECR, Poland
João Oliveira
Left, Portugal
Alexander Jungbluth
ESN, Germany
21

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
CONT - The
committee protecting
taxpayers’ money and
a ‘vigilant defender’ of
the rule of law
Niclas Herbst,
chairman of the
budget control
committee
Source - European
Commission
Protecting taxpayers’ money, enforcing the rule of law, increasing transparency,
simplifying rules scrutinising recovery funds, and fighting corruption are key
priorities for the chair of the budget
control committee.
By ELENA SÁNCHEZ NICOLÁS
“It cannot be accepted that the commission
is not able to provide information
on the real beneficiaries, who ultimately
benefit from EU funds,” he said.
The Recovery and Resilience Facility
(RRF) — the largest component of the
main pandemic recovery instrument to
raise up to €800bn until 2026 (the Next
As committee chair, he expected to face
“more decisive, than divisive, elements”
in the committee work. But Herbst admitted
that one of the key points in the agenda
which could trigger conflict among the
political groups could be the future design
of performance-based instruments,
such as the RRF which is based on milestones
and targets for investments and
approach to budget, discharge and legislation.
“This reform enables us to focus on the
biggest spending areas and to efficiently
use our own resources to fulfil our mandate
to protect the EU’s financial interests,”
he said. H
As discussions on the next EU budget
begin to take shape, and lessons are
learned from the implementation of the
Covid-19 recovery funds and the use of
the conditionality mechanism, the budget
control committee (CONT) will continue
playing a key role in ensuring accountability,
transparency, and the responsible
use of EU funds, while upholding the rule
of law and combating corruption across
member states.
Centre-right German MEP Niclas Herbst
of the European People’s Party, who
chairs the committee, is fully aware of the
immense challenges ahead. This includes
their typical annual discharge exercise, a
thorough assessment of EU budget implementation
by the European Commission,
and oversight of the EU’s anti-fraud
landscape.
“The fight against fraud is always a top
priority,” Herbst said, referring to the
work the committee does together with
the European Public Prosecutor’s Office
(EPPO), the EU’s anti-fraud agency OLAF
and the European Court of Auditors.
Arguing that the power of the CONT
committee (which brought down the
Santer Commission in 1999) shouldn’t be
underestimated, the 51-year-old MEP also
said that the committee will continue to
exercise the enforcement of the rule of
law together with the budget committee.
“Our joint monitoring work enables the
European Parliament to exert its scrutiny
role, and to act as a vigilant defender
of the rule of law when breaches of this
principle risk affecting the EU budget,”
he said.
The first point in the committee’s agenda,
he said, is the protection of the financial
interests of the EU. “It’s about taxpayers’
money,” he told EUobserver.
“Improving the efficiency and effectiveness
of EU spending must help build public
trust in the European project,” he added,
arguing that his committee will work
to improve transparency and control on
the final recipients of EU funds.
The first point in the
committee’s agenda is the
protection of the financial
interests of the EU.
Generation EU) — includes information
on the 100 biggest recipients of RRF
funds in the different member states. In
the Ukraine Facility and the Western Balkans
Facility, this explicitly includes contractors
and sub-contractors. However,
according to Herbst, “much more needs
to be done to improve transparency.”
reforms. “[These programmes] should be
better designed and controlled than was
the case under the time pressure, and
suffering, of the pandemic,” he said.
For the next legislative term, the German
conservative also said that the CONT
committee work would focus on the
implementation of the European Parliament
2024 reform, with a more effective
THE CONT COORDINATORS
Tomáš Zdechovský
EPP, Czech Republic
Carla Tavares
S&D, Portugal
Tamás Deutsch
PfE, Hungary
Joachim Stanisław Brudziński
ECR, Poland
Olivier Chastel
Renew, Belgium
Daniel Freund
Greens, Germany
Jonas Sjöstedt
The Left, Sweden
Alexander Jungbluth
ESN, Germany
23

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
ECON - Funding
Europe’s industrial
and technological
resurgence?
As the EU begins its new five-year mandate, the European Parliament’s
Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) will be tasked
with closing the investment gap that has left Europe at a competitive and
technological disadvantage compared to China and the United States.
BY WESTER VAN GAAL
With the publication of Mario
Draghi’s long-awaited report,
Europe’s competitive and technological
disadvantage compared to the geopolitical
giants has become impossible to ignore.
And the key issue in coming years will be
the return to industrial policy, and finding
the investments needed to fuel it.
“The Draghi report has set the tone for
this new mandate,” confirmed Aurore
Lalucq, the French S&D chair of the
ECON committee. “It clearly shows that
if nothing is done, the European Union is
at risk of facing an ‘agonising decline’.”
This means that the “next five years will
be essentially focused on economic issues,”
she said, because “years of underinvestment”
have left Europe “weak.”
This weakness was compounded by the
Covid-19 pandemic and the invasion of
Ukraine by Russia.
“Therefore, one central issue of this mandate
will be to find ways to finance those
much-needed investments,” she said. A
key initiative requiring funding will be
the Clean Industrial Deal, set to be presented
this autumn. It embodies how climate
policy is evolving to focus more on
economic growth and industrial strategy,
building on the regulatory groundwork
laid by the Green Deal.
But Lalucq emphasises - “This term will
also be a moment for consolidation and
implementation and I will pay due attention
to avoid dismantling what we have
achieved during last term.”
One of these achievements has been climate
regulations. “We need to pay real
attention to the temptation of deregulation,”
she warned. “I am afraid people
reading the Draghi report will only pick
and choose what they see fit to their personal
interest.
“Already, we can hear a number of stakeholders
calling for more flexible, prudential
rules in the banking and financial
sector,” she said, referring to corporate
sustainability reporting rules for non-financial
companies.
The implementation of the rules is meant
to be phased in from 2026 onwards, but
some national politicians, including
Germany’s justice minister Marco Buschmann,
want to reopen negotiations to
lower the reporting burden. And the EU
“Deregulation is not a miracle
solution to foster economic
activity. Targeted investment is.”
Commission has also announced plans
to cut back reporting requirements by 25
percent.
“According to them, the EU is over-transposing
rules, [which is] causing competitiveness
issues for European companies,”
she said. “But the EU is actually at risk
of not being compliant with the international
framework for banks according to
the EU top regulators.”
“Deregulation is not a miracle solution
to foster economic activity. Targeted
investment is,” Lalucq explained. “I
have said it over and over again - the real
risk posed to competitiveness is that of a
Aurore Lalucq
new financial crisis. This is why we must
do all in our power to prevent it from
happening.”
In her role as committee chair, Lalucq is
calling for a “real confrontation of ideas”.
If the EU is to become an economic and
political leader again, it must first “find
the investment needed to finance these
ambitions.”
Lalucq concludes - “The Draghi report
has shed a bright light on what could
happen to us if nothing is done. Now we
need to work towards finding concrete
and viable solutions to prove this prophecy
wrong.” H
Aurore Lalucq,
chair of the ECON
committee
Source - European
Commission
THE ECON COORDINATORS
Markus Ferber
EPP, Germany
Jonás Fernández
S&D, Spain
Enikő Győri
PfE, Hungary
Johan Van Overtveldt
ECR, Belgium
Stéphanie Yon-Courtin
Renew, France
Kira Marie Peter-Hansen
Greens/EFA, Denmark
Jussi Saramo
The Left, Finland
Rada Laykova
ESN, Bulgaria
25

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
“Bureaucracy sometimes costs
companies more than the taxes
themselves. Decluttering is
essential.”
Pasquale Tridico
Pasquale Tridico, chair of the European Parliament’s FISC committee - Source - European Commission
FISC - Tackling
corporate tax evasion
and avoidance
As the EU embarks on its new mandate, tax reform is
poised to be a central focus for the subcommittee on
tax matters (FISC). The recent Apple case has only
underscored the need for tax reform.
By WESTER VAN GAAL
In September, the EU won a legal battle
against Apple, requiring the company
to pay €13.1bn in back taxes to Ireland after
a decade-long dispute.
“The Apple case highlighted the urgent
need for an EU tax reform that addresses
the impunity of major web and financial
giants,” Pasquale Tridico, chair of the
FISC committee told EUobserver.
Tridico pointed to three primary challenges
ahead - harmonising taxes across
member states with a common capital
tax, fighting tax evasion with a comprehensive
list of tax havens, and reducing
the bureaucratic burden for businesses.
Annually, EU countries lose an estimated
€35bn to €70bn in corporate taxes
and €60 billion in value-added tax (VAT)
revenue. Taxation falls under the responsibility
of member states, meaning
the European Parliament can only issue
non-binding opinions on tax matters.
But because missed tax income has increasingly
become a public problem, the
subcommittee on tax matters (FISC) was
established in 2020, and has become an
important forum where EU tax reform is
shaped.
Tridico acknowledged that tax reform is
hard and would face tough opposition,
particularly within the council of member
states, as any changes to tax legislation
require all member states to agree.
“Many member states oppose tax reforms
that focus on equity and fiscal justice,”
he said, noting that this resistance
undermines citizens’ trust in the system.
“[But] we must shift the tax burden from
labour income to the rents generated by
new technology, artificial intelligence,
and the web and finance giants.”
Tax reform can also help secure revenue
for green and digital investments in Europe.
One of the most contentious proposals
on the horizon is a minimum tax for the
super-rich, put forward by economist
Gabriel Zucman at the recent G20 summit
in Brazil. The proceeds from this tax
could be used to fund climate change initiatives
and address global inequality.
“I believe this proposal is reasonable and
timely, as it also aims to protect the middle
class from the impacts of AI on the
labour market,” said Tridico.
A common corporate tax across the EU
is central to preventing tax evasion and
avoidance. And Tridico sees it as a way to
simplify Europe’s tax code.
“Bureaucracy sometimes costs companies
more than the taxes themselves. Decluttering
is essential,” he said.
While much of the attention will be on
closing tax loopholes, Tridico stressed
that tax systems have to be prepared for
technological disruption, shifting labour
markets, and the need for more sustainable
investment.
“We’ll hold hearings with economists
and experts, engage in discussions with
member states, and do everything we can
to foster dialogue and advance the EU’s
commitment to tax justice.” H
THE FISC COORDINATORS
Fernando Navarrete Rojas
EPP, Spain
Bruno Gonçalves
S&D, Portugal
Ondřej Kovařík
PfE, Czech Republic
Roberts Zīle
ECR, Latvia
Ľudovít Ódor
Renew, Slovakia
Rasmus Andresen
Greens/EFA, Denmark
Jussi Saramo
The Left, Finland
René Aust
ESN, Germany
27

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
EMPL has its
job cut out
From competitiveness to AI, to workplace deaths, the
EMPL committee has a lot of ground to cover.
By ALEJANDRO TAUBER
When it comes to labour and employment,
the EU is facing rough
seas ahead.
Demographic changes are shrinking the
workforce, skilled labourers are getting
scarcer, education quality is declining,
workplace safety is under pressure, anti-immigrant
forces aimed at discouraging
low-wage workers arriving are on the
rise, underinvestment in adult learning
leaves potential untapped, and productivity
is tumbling.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg uncovered
in Mario Draghi’s recent EU
competitiveness report when it comes to
work and workers – AI, anyone?
Nobody can say that the challenges facing
the new chair of the European Parliament’s
committee on employment and
social affairs (EMPL) are trivial or few.
Nobody can say that the
challenges facing the new chair
of the European Parliament’s
committee on employment and
social affairs (EMPL) are trivial
or few.
“The European Union should work towards
developing a coordinated strategy
for employment and in particular for
the promotion of good wages and decent
working conditions,” Li Andersson, of
The Left, told EUobserver.
The Finnish chair was previously a minister
of education in Helsinki, presiding
over an education system that is frequently
seen as exemplary. In the June
2024 European Parliament elections,
Andersson received more votes (247,604)
than any other candidate has ever received
in a European election in Finland.
EMPL thus seems cut out for the 37-yearold.
“The EU should address labour and skills
shortages and promote quality and inclusive
education and training, with a
particular focus on improving basic and
cross-cutting skills, especially among dis-
advantaged students,” she said, underlining
the fact that ‘the skills gap’ comprised
a whole chapter of Draghi’s report.
Apart from that, Andersson stressed that
the most important achievement of the
committee should be to pass “concrete
legislative initiatives that people and
workers around Europe truly notice in
their everyday lives.”
Among these, she highlighted the need
for “quality employment, including legislative
initiatives,” telework, the right
to disconnect, and how to deal with artificial
intelligence in the workplace. “We
also need a revision of the directives on
public procurement to ensure they promote
collective bargaining,” she added.
Work-related deaths and their reduction
is also on the agenda, as is “creating
climate change resilient safety nets,
integrating climate change adaptation
into social protection programmes and a
framework for demand-driven direct employment
initiatives.”
In a small dig at Ursula von der Leyen’s
new EU commissioner portfolios,
Andersson said that “now, when policy
areas connected to the European Social
Pillar and the EMPL agenda have been
scattered around in the commissioner
portfolios, we need to also ensure that
the committee is able to make legislative
work that has also policy impact.”
And when it comes to Draghi’s suggestions,
she said that “you can’t focus on a
narrow definition of competitiveness,” as
“European elections in many countries
made clear that people want the EU to do
more on the social agenda.” H
Li Andersson, the
chairwoman of the European
Parliament’s committee
on employment and social
affairs
Source - European Commission
THE EMPL COORDINATORS
Dennis Radtke
EPP, Germany
Estelle Ceulemans
S&D, Belgium
Nikola Bartůšek
PfE, Czech Republic
Chiara Gemma
ECR, Italy
Jana Toom
Renew, Estonia
Maria Ohisalo
Greens/EFA, Finland
Leila Chaibi
GUE/NGL, France
Petar Volgin
ESN, Belgium
29

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
ENVI - Fighting to
defend Europe’s
Green Deal
With Europe’s emission reduction targets and shift to renewables solidly
transposed into law, the European Parliament's committee on environment,
public health and food safety (ENVI) is now tasked with making good on those
legally-binding commitments.
By WESTER VAN GAAL
Antonio Decaro, chair of the European Parliament’s ENVI committee - Source - European Parliament
With the EU already falling behind
on its 2030 climate targets, the
goal of achieving climate neutrality by
2050 seems increasingly difficult.
While most of the EU’s Green Deal has
been approved and seems unlikely to
be overturned, certain parts, including
agricultural policy and the 2035 ban on
combustion engines, are under pressure
as some member states have started the
political fight to overturn or weaken key
laws.
“Climate
change requires
enormous
sacrifices.”
Antonio Decaro
"The most crucial task at hand is the implementation
of the Green Deal," said
Antonio Decaro, chair of the ENVI
committee, referring to the EU’s overarching
climate legislation. “We are determined
to navigate this path, [but] unfortunately,
some states are attempting to
delay deadlines."
“In these first weeks of work, we are
already seeing requests from member
states to postpone [the 2035 ban on combustion
engines],” he warned, plus pressure
for exemptions from the EU’s nature
restoration law.
Climate change “requires enormous sacrifices,”
he said. “But as I said on the first
day I took office, echoing the words of
writer Ernest Hemingway, ‘the world is a
fine place and worth fighting for’.”
Securing majorities for green laws may be
more challenging in the next mandate, as
the recent elections have shifted the European
Parliament to the right, with both
the Greens and the liberal Renew group
losing ground.
The big winner, the European People’s
Party, has already signalled its willingness
to reconsider some hard-fought green
policies, including the ban on combus-
tion engines. And the EU’s biggest political
family also campaigned successfully
to delay the EU’s anti-deforestation law,
describing it as a "bureaucratic monster"
that should be postponed, even though it
came into force in June 2023.
This sets the stage for big political fights
in the coming years. When it comes to
Green Deal policies, the focus during
this next mandate has shifted away from
environmental and financial regulation,
towards industrial policy and boosting
Europe’s competitiveness vis-a-vis global
giants such as China and the United
States.
Von der Leyen has already announced her
plan for a Clean Industrial Deal aimed at
increasing investment in infrastructure,
particularly energy-intensive sectors.
While industry isn’t a core objective of
the ENVI committee, the financial and
social repercussions of such policies will
likely become contentious and some parliamentary
groups, including the Greens
and S&D, have called for an EU-wide investment
and social plans
“We need a safeguard plan for workers
and small businesses — a social protection
plan that boosts joint investments,
particularly in the sectors most impacted
by the transition,” said Decaro. "The
livelihoods of millions of workers are at
stake."
“I know that the climate goal is ambitious,
but Europe itself is born on an ambitious
bet. Today is the time to return
to being a leader in the fight to save our
planet,” he also said. H
THE ENVI COORDINATORS
Peter Liese
EPP, Germany
Tiemo Wölken
S&D, Germany
Silvia Sardone
PfE, Italy
Alexandr Vondra
ECR, Czech Republic
Pascal Canfin
Renew, France
Marie Toussaint
Greens/EFA, France
Malin Björk
The Left, Sweden
Helmut Scholz
ESN, Germany
31

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
SANT - Health
subcommittee
goes geopolitical
Big things are brewing in the health committee — not least a bid
for European ‘pharmaceutical sovereignty’ — but also also cancer,
diabetes, heart disease, and a probe into the effects of social media’s
addictive algorithms on young people’s mental health.
The use of AI
algorithms in the
health sector may
require separate
sectoral regulation a
‘lex specialis’ to the
framework Artificial
Intelligence Act.
By ANDREW RETTMAN
Adam Jaruba is chairman of the
European Parliament’s public
health subcommittee
Source - European Commission
THE SANT COORDINATORS
The subcommittee on public health
(SANT) will seek to enshrine EU
“pharmaceutical sovereignty” in law, while
helping Europeans tackle heart disease
and mental health in a digital era.
The Covid pandemic and fraying Western
relations with China and Russia had
shown the EU needed to produce more of
its own vital medicines and ingredients.
And SANT’s first job will be to push
through legislation establishing a Critical
Medicines List and to start work on
a Critical Medicine Act, in what subcommittee
chair Adam Jaruba called “the largest
reform of the EU medicines market in
over 20 years”.
“International challenges along with our
excessive exposure and dependencies of
supply chains, force us to take urgent action
to de-risk and increase our pharmaceutical
sovereignty,” he said in a speech.
But geopolitics aside, Sant aims to help
roll out new EU plans to combat cardiovascular
disease, diabetes, and neurodegenerative
disease, on the model of a
recent ‘Beat Cancer Plan’.
Jaruba, a 49-year-old Polish conservative
MEP from Busko-Zdró, a small spa town
in southern Poland, also called for a Mental
Health Action Plan, saying this should
“focus on the situation of young people
in the digital era, the impact of content
and the disruption of neurotransmitters
by addictive algorithms that monetise attention”.
But he also hoped SANT would help to
better regulate the use of AI in medicine,
improve health workers’ rights, and access
to medical care for rural regions.
“The use of AI algorithms in the health
sector may require separate sectoral regulation,
a ‘lex specialis’ [overriding special
law] to the framework Artificial Intelligence
Act,” he said.
The 30-strong subcommittee has traditionally
seen differences in approach between
leftwing and rightwing MEPs.
The left side has placed more emphasis
on preventive medicine, including proactive
action on the environment, while
the right focused on promoting scientific
research and investment in remedial
medicine.
Opinion was also split among those
who wanted to upgrade SANT to a fully-fledged
committee, which would do
more legislative work, and those who
wanted it to remain a more research-focused
part of the European Parliament’s
committee on the environment, public
health and food safety (ENVI).
But either way, Jaruba said the Covid
pandemic had boosted public support for
greater EU involvement in health affairs.
He also said health issues tended to be less
politically divisive than other dossiers.
“We will do everything to sustain and
strengthen this impulse [public support
for EU action], and to build on it,” Jaruba
said. H
Tomislav Sokol
EPP, Croatia
Vytenis Andriukaitis
S&D, Lithuania
Silvia Sardone
PfE, Italy
Ruggero Razza
ECR, Italy
Vlad Voiculescu
Renew, Romania
Ignazio Marino
Greens, Italy
Jonas Sjöstedt
Left, Sweden
Anja Arndt
ESN, Germany
33

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
ITRE is set to become one of the most
influential committees in parliament
during the next mandate, and Polish MEP
Borys Budka has been nominated as chair.
The most important file this autumn will
be the Clean Industrial Deal, which despite
all the tough talk on beating back
foreign competition is still somewhat
unfamiliar ground for most EU policymakers.
For one, industrial policy had long been
seen as outdated in EU circles, with most
policymakers preferring markets and private
investors to do the heavy lifting.
“Our full focus will be on
supporting and creating the
right conditions for companies
to reach our common goals.”
Pasquale Tridico
Borys Budka is chairman of the European Parliament’s Industry, Research and Energy committee - Source - European Commission
ITRE - beating back
foreign competition
With China and the United States both outcompeting
Europe’s Industry, energy prices still at a uncompetitively
high level, and Russia increasing its war budget by another
25 percent, the Industry, Research and Energy committee
faces the unenviable tackling all of the most existential
challenges the EU faces today.
By WESTER VAN GAAL
But pressured by foreign competition
and war on Europe’s eastern border the
thinking on this has shifted dramatically
in the past two or three years.
So much so that EU Commission president
Ursula von der Leyen in her State
of the Union speech to the parliament in
September promised to present a Clean
Industrial Deal in the first 100 days of her
mandate.
“Our full focus will be on supporting and
creating the right conditions for companies
to reach our common goals,” she
said.
Though her exact plans are unclear, Budka’s
experience as minister of justice
and state assets, combined with his professorship
in energy transformation at
the University of Katowice, presumably
makes him well-equipped to future-proof
Europe’s clean industries.
Von der Leyen has also announced she
will propose a European Competitiveness
Fund as part of the bloc’s next long-term
budget to invest in strategic technologies
like artificial intelligence, clean industry
and biotech – all important priorities
for ITRE.
But previous iterations of joint borrowing
have all failed due to opposition from
member states, and the scope of Europe’s
industry plans will in large part depend
on money, a fight that will be determined
outside of the parliament, by member
states.
ITRE members will play a key role in
shaping Horizon Europe, the EU’s main
research and innovation programme.
Although innovation is supposed to be
a priority in the next mandate, €400m
in funding cuts are expected next year,
totaling €2.1bn over the remaining 2025–
2027 period.
Although it’s uncertain whether parliament
will have enough time to propose
amendments, Christian Ehler, Germany’s
co-rapporteur for Horizon Europe
and a member of the ITRE Committee,
has already expressed his intention to
block next year’s cuts. The legal deadline
for reaching an agreement on the annual
budget is 18 November.
Meanwhile, the commission is also preparing
its proposal to replace Horizon
Europe, which will run from 2028 to
2034. Once published next year, ITRE will
begin negotiations on this new framework
as well. H
THE ITRE COORDINATORS
Christian Ehler
EPP, Germany
Dan Nica
S&D, Romania
Paolo Borchia
PfE, Italy
Daniel Obajtek
ECR, Poland
Christophe Grudler
Renew, France
Michael Bloss
Greens, Germany
Dario Tamburrano
Left, Italy
Sarah Knafo
ESN, France
35

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
IMCO - Green MEP
re-elected but faces
daunting challenges
By NIKOLAJ NIELSEN
Anna Cavazzini
is chairwoman
of the European
Parliament’s Internal
Market and Consumer
protection committee
Source - European
Commission
Anna Cavazzini is back on the job.
For the past four years, the German
Green has been the chairwoman of the
European Parliament’s Internal Market
and Consumer Protection committee
(IMCO).
Over the summer, she was re-elected for
the post and now supervises a committee
with 51 MEPs as full members, most of
them from rival political factions.
Some are openly hostile towards policies
championed by Cavazzini, most especially
from eight IMCO members sitting with
the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations
and the Patriots for Europe groups.
“Traditionally, there is a lot of consensus
in the internal market committee to fuel
our motor of European integration —
even more in challenging times for our
economy,” said Cavazzini.
“Therefore, we often find broad majorities
in IMCO which I hope we will continue
to do given the tasks ahead of us,” she
said, when asked to describe some of the
likely divisive points on the committee’s
agenda.
That agenda is likely to be a daunting
task. Political views aside, Cavazzini’s
committee is taking deep dives into policies
that mould the digital and green
transition with an aim to enhance consumer
protection, she said.
In the last legislative term, that included
the right-to-repair, as well as the EU’s
Digital Services Act (DSA) designed to
address illegal online content.
“We will take a political look at their
implementation and enforcement,” said
Cavazzini of both the DSA and the rightto-repair.
The European Parliament adopted the
right-to-repair rules in April, in an effort
to extend a product’s lifecycle.
The hope is to curtail the premature disposal
of consumer goods that produce
around 261m tonnes of CO2-equivalent
emissions, consume 30m tonnes of resources,
and generate 35m tonnes of
waste in the EU each year.
As for the DSA, the digital rule book has
already set targets. Last year, the European
Commission launched a court
case against X, the social media platform
owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk.
The far-right has since nominated Musk
for the European Parliament’s Sakharov
Prize for Freedom of Thought.
But IMCO will not only be about the politics
of implementation and enforcement,
said Cavazzini.
“A lot of groups have been pushing for
new public procurement rules and it is
exciting that the commission already announced
a revision in order to align procurement
more to the EU’s goals,” she
said.
IMCO will also explore the ideas presented
in reports drafted by Italy’s former
prime minister Enrico Letta and former
European Central Bank president Mario
Draghi.
Letta published a report back in April
outlining ideas on reshaping the single
market, while Draghi in September presented
a blueprint for improving Europe’s
competitiveness.
“We will take a political look
at their implementation and
enforcement.”
Cavazzini’s hope is to see the internal
market foster the green and digital transition
over the next five years, as part of a
wider effort to fight the climate crisis and
to shape digitisation.
“We need to address the ever faster-growing
share of e-commerce that
causes problems for the climate, for consumer
protection and product safety as
well as for the level playing field of our
EU companies with those of third countries,”
she said.
Anna Cavazzini
This includes ongoing negotiations of
the customs reform, she said, noting the
need to deal with the huge amount of
foreign shipping that often lands on the
consumers’ doorsteps.
“I hope that in the next five years, we will
fill the existing regulatory gaps between
the customs reform and the implementation
of the DSA to assure that consumer
protection keeps up with growing e-commerce,”
she concluded. H
THE IMCO COORDINATORS
Andreas Schwab
EPP, German
Laura Ballarín Cereza
S&D, Spain
Klára Dostálová
PfE, Czech Republic
Piotr Müller
ECR, Poland
Svenja Hahn
Renew, Germany
Kim van Sparrentak
Greens, Netherlands
Hanna Gedin
Left, Sweden
Arno Bausemer
ESN, Germany
37

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
Elisssvet Vozemberg-Vrionidi is the chairwoman of the European Parliament’s transport and tourism committee - Source - European Commission
TRAN - Keeping the
EU’s green agenda
on track
With a raft of green transport measures already adopted, this new term for the
transport committee promises scrutiny on implementation and efficiency —
and a renewed focus on eco-tourism.
By BENJAMIN FOX
“We hope for better
implementation of the legislative
work that has already been
agreed upon.”
At the heart of the EU’s green industrial
agenda is transport and the
next five years will see EU lawmakers under
pressure to turn the ambitious targets
set out for the industry into reality.
Elisssvet Vozemberg-Vrionidi, a Greek
conservative lawmaker who was elected
in July to lead the European Parliament’s
transport and tourism committee, said
that the next five years are “crucial” with
the EU “facing many challenges in both
the transport and tourism sector”.
Vozemberg-Vrionidi told EUobserver
that the transport policy agenda will
likely be dominated by three strands -
“increasing the sector’s competitiveness
by further expanding EU-wide transport
connectivity, ensuring the sustainability
of transportation in order to achieve our
crucial climate targets, and continuing
ensuring and enhancing passenger rights
and safety.”
A raft of laws aimed at greening and decarbonising
transport were adopted in
the last mandate, aiming to reduce the
environmental footprint of the transport
sector, while supporting the development
of clean technologies and energy sources.
The Fit-for-55 package, which was finally
adopted in October 2023, established
new targets to cut emissions in the transport
sector by 55 percent by 2030 and
introduced incentives for the uptake of
low-carbon and renewable fuels (and related
infrastructure).
Elisssvet Vozemberg-Vrionidi
The EU Commission has focused its
transport policies on the electrification
of vehicles and zero-emissions solutions
for rail, while prioritising the uptake of
renewable and low-carbon fuels for aviation
and maritime.
Elsewhere, lawmakers adopted new rules
on alternative fuels, and the extension
of the EU Emissions Trading System to
road, air, and waterborne transport.
But if the last legislature was about getting
the Fit for 55 laws onto the statute
book, many expect the von der Leyen
executive’s second term to be about the
delivery and implementation of the new
regime.
Vozemberg-Vrionidi appears to concur.
“I hope that our most important achievement
is efficiency in the legislative process,”
the Greek MEP told EUobserver.
“We hope for better implementation of
the legislative work that has already been
agreed upon, and will work towards ensuring
that there will be sufficient funds
for transport and tourism in the upcoming
multi-annual financial framework
(the EU’s next long-term budget),” she
added.
Tourism policy is often overlooked at
EU level, but the file is likely to get more
prominence in the second term von der
Leyen commission, which includes a new
Sustainable Transport and Tourism portfolio,
recognising tourism as a vital sector
for the EU in her mission statement.
Apostolos Tzitzikostas, a fellow Greek
conservative, has been designated to take
on the portfolio, though his mission letter
from von der Leyen is dominated by
transport commitments.
Among the most notable items in the new
commissioner’s in-tray will be drawing
up an EU industrial plan for the automotive
sector, a blueprint for a new highspeed
rail network connecting Europe’s
cities and, crucially, rapidly expanding
the bloc’s charging infrastructure for
electric vehicles.
“As for tourism, I expect that the most
important item on the agenda will concern
eco-tourism,” says Vozemberg-
Vrionidi.
“We will be working together towards
finding the right balance between promoting
tourism, an industry of essential
nature to the EU economy, and protecting
our diverse cultural heritage, unique
natural environment and local communities,”
she concluded. H
THE TRAN COORDINATORS
Jens Gieseke
PP, Germany
Johan Danielsson
S&D, Sweden
Roman Haider
PfE, Austria
Jan-Christoph Oetjen
Renew
Kai Tegethoff
Greens, Germany
Roberts Zīle
ECR, Latvia
Merja Kyllönen
The Left, Finland
Siegbert Frank Droese
ESN, Germany
39

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
REGI -
Support
for EU’s
poorest
regions
can boost
solidarity
Making sure EU billions keep flowing to
Europe’s poorest areas will occupy the
European Parliament’s committee on regional
development (REGI) for the next
five years.
“The two biggest files our committee
is going to deal with are the new
multi-annual financial framework and
the legislative package for cohesion
policy beyond 2027,” said REGI chairman
Adrian-Dragoş Benea.
The EU must keep on “bringing consistent
and efficient support to the poorest
regions and people and fostering social
and economic convergence,” the Romanian
centre-left MEP said.
His 41-member committee is in charge
of overseeing some €60bn a year in EU
spending, amounting to about one-third
of the bloc’s budget.
Since the last big wave of EU enlargement
in 2004, its “cohesion” policy has
seen some transfer of wealth from Europe’s
northern and western treasuries
to deprived parts of central and eastern
Europe.
Adrian-Dragoş
Benea, chairman
of the European
Parliament’s regional
development
committee
Source - European
Commission
The poorest regions remained far away in the
EU’s eastern and southern fringe, including
Greece, southern Italy and Spain,
Keeping Europe’s left-behind regions
from being forgotten will be the key task
of Adrian-Dragoş Benea, drawing on his
experience of coming from a small town
in Romania, one of the EU’s poorest
members, near the border with Moldova,
an EU-accession state and the poorest in
Europe.
By ANDREW RETTMAN
But Luxembourg, for instance, still remained
by far the richest region in terms
of GDP per capita, at 257 percent of the
EU average, 20 years later.
The poorest regions remained far away
in the EU’s eastern and southern fringe,
including Greece and southern Italy and
Spain, according to EU statistics.
“Although cohesion policy brought many
positive changes over the whole EU territory,
several disparities remain and many
challenges need to be tackled,” said Benea.
He listed the green and digital transitions,
housing, climate change, migration, competitiveness,
demographic challenges,
and economic stagnation, and future
enlargement among important areas on
Regi’s 2024-2029 agenda.
The 48-year-old socialist used to be a
local politician in Bacău, a town near
Romania’s border with Moldova, which
is Europe’s poorest country and which
started EU accession talks in June.
And he promised to “lead a fierce battle”
if need be, to secure an “ambitious [EU]
budget post 2027,” and to protect “the
DNA of cohesion policy”.
The policy’s purpose was “to bring some
relief to the population”, via “structural”
and “long-term” investments, he said.
It ought to “enable true economic, social,
and territorial convergence,” he added,
but the “complexity of implementation
on the ground” sometimes caused setbacks.
Meanwhile, EU cohesion funding has
been hit by political controversy, after the
European Commission withheld funds
from far-right governments in Hungary
and Poland due to their abuse of the rule
of law in recent years.
But despite the sometimes difficult political
climate in Europe, Benea said REGI
could help bring people together.
“More than ever, Europe needs to remind
citizens of its reliable and solid presence
in their daily lives,” Benea said.
“Across the entire Europe, the cohesion
and regional development policy proves
continuously what Europe means and
what it stands for closer integration and
true solidarity,” he said. H
THE REGI COORDINATORS
Andrey Novakov
EPP, Bulgaria
Marcos Ros Sempere
S&D, Spain
Afroditi Latinopoulou
PfE, Greece
Denis Nesci
ECR, Italy
Ľubica Karvašová
Renew, Slovakia
Vladimir Prebilič
Greens, Slovenia
Valentina Palmisano
The Left, Italy
Irmhild Bossdorf
ESN, Germany
41

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
AGRI -
Battleground
for revision
of agriculture
policies in wake of
farmers’ protests
With growing calls for changes to EU farming policies, the multibillion-euro
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will become one of
the main issues the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee
will address over the next five years.
By ELENA SÁNCHEZ NICOLÁS
In the wake of this year’s farmers’ protests,
both in Brussels and across Europe,
agriculture has rocketed high up the
political agenda — prompting concern
over how the 27-nation bloc’s future legislative
plans will cope with the EU’s commitment
to tackling the contribution of
agriculture and diet to climate change.
“As we’ve seen in recent months with
the presence of tractors in Brussels,
Strasbourg, and also in my home city of
Prague, all is not well in the agricultural
sector, and we need to address this,” the
chair of the European Parliament’s agriculture
committee Veronika Vrecionová
told EUobserver.
Following the farmers’ protests, the revision
of certain provisions of the Common
Agricultural Policy (CAP), adopted at the
end of the 2019-2024 legislative term,
prompted outrage from environmental
organisations and even an investigation
by the EU Ombudsman.
But the Czech MEP, a member of the
rightwing European Conservatives and
Reformists (ECR), said that EU agricultural
policies need to be “carefully reviewed
and, if necessary, redesigned or
revised” to make sure farmers can make
a living from farming.
Namely, Vrecionová said that the multi-billion-euro
farming spending programme
will likely be one of the main
focuses of her committee workload over
the next five years. The aim? “A CAP free
from unnecessary bureaucracy and fit for
purpose,” she said.
“I believe that all the political groups
that care about the agricultural sector
and food security will be supportive and
constructive in the process of its revision,”
the 59-year-old MEP said, expecting
some pushback among the different
political parties.
These clashes, she explained, will primarily
centre around the dilemma between
the push for greater economic self-sufficiency
in the agricultural sector, and its
ongoing reliance on subsidies.
But committee discussions are also likely
to touch on elements such as EU enlargement
and the financing of environmental
and social protections. “This is particularly
necessary to ensure that, in future,
other countries such as Ukraine, can join
the European Union and that both the
EU and the acceding countries can benefit
from the common market,” she said.
In addition, Vrecionová also expected
that the EU will be able to finalise negotiations
over the regulation of new genomic
techniques (NGT) — a controversial
file put forward by the commission last
year that has still not found common
ground among EU member states.
Vrecionová, who was one of the lead negotiators
on this file during the previous
Veronika Vrecionová, chairwoman of the European Parliament’s agriculture committee
Source - European Parliament
legislative term, has argued that plant
breeding is the most important economic
and environmental investment in
agriculture.
“The more tools put to use in
plant breeding, the better we
will be able to address societal
challenges.”
Veronika Vrecionová
“The more tools put to use in plant breeding,
the better we will be able to address
societal challenges such as the need to
reduce the amount of inputs for agricultural
production, while at the same time
tackling the growing challenge posed by
pests. All this is necessary to ensure stable
and higher yields,” she said.
Meanwhile, environmental and anti-lobbyist
campaigners have slammed the
European Commission proposal as an
attempt to deregulate GMO techniques,
putting consumers’ rights and the rights
of the non-GM sector at risk.
NGTs are crops made by new techniques
like CRISPR-Cas. But political pressure
to change current rules for GMOs has
been mounting since 2018 — when the
European Court of Justice ruled that new
techniques like CRISPR-Cas still fall under
the current framework dealing with
genetic-engineering products. H
THE AGRI COORDINATORS
Herbert Dorfmann
EPP, Italy
Dario Nardella
S&D, Italy
Raffaele Stancanelli
PfE, Italy
Carlo Fidanza
ECR, Italy
Elsi Katainen
Renew Europe, Finland
Thomas Waitz
Greens, Germany
Luke Ming Flanagan
The Left, Ireland
Ivan David
ESN, Czech Republic
43

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
PECH - Beyond
EU fish wars,
finding an
eco-financial
balance
Carmen Crespo Díaz, chairwoman of
the European Parliament’s fisheries
committee
Source - European Commission
The EU has supported sustainability in fisheries, facing
challenges like climate change and market uncertainties
from Brexit, Covid, and the Ukraine war. But the fisheries
committee chairwoman argues that the recent focus on
environmental protection has come at the expense of
business support and societal well-being.
By ELENA SÁNCHEZ NICOLÁS
The European fishing industry has
come under enormous pressure in
recent years, facing unprecedented challenges,
mainly related to climate change
and biodiversity-loss – but also industrial
and high-impact fishing practices that are
putting additional pressure on already
fragile ecosystems.
On top of that, Brexit, the Covid pandemic,
and, most recently, Russia’s war
in Ukraine have also created market uncertainty,
shortages of raw materials and
a sharp rise in fuel and fish-feed prices,
negatively affecting fisheries and aquaculture
communities.
As the EU continues to be one of the
world’s largest markets for fish and aquaculture
products, reforming the Common
Fisheries Policy (CFP) and the fight
against illegal, unreported and unregulated
(IUU) fishing will be key priorities for
the new EU parliament’s fisheries committee.
“The primary sector, including agriculture
and fisheries, demand our help to solve the
problems caused by excessive demands
without time, without resources, and
with a scenario of war conflicts and rising
costs,” the chair of the fisheries committee,
Spanish centre-right MEP Carmen
Crespo Díaz said at the September plenary
parliament session in Strasbourg.
Each year, the European Commission
and EU member states negotiate total allowable
fish catches, a critical part of the
EU’s role in the EU seafood industry — a
sector that supports 3.6 million jobs and
generates nearly €624bn in turnover.
However, campaigners complain that
many of these quotas remain above the
sustainable limits recommended by scientific
experts, increasing the risk of
over-exploiting fish stocks in EU sea waters
and fueling long-standing tensions
between the fishing industry and environmental
advocates.
Talks of EU fishing quotas trigger strong
emotions among policymakers from
coastal regions with important fishing
communities, such as Spain, Portugal,
France, Italy, Greece, Ireland and Baltic
Sea countries.
Arguing that her committee would defend
the Mediterranean and Atlantic
fishing sector, Crespo Diaz has defended
the need for so-called ‘mirror clauses’ in
third-countries agreements, ensuring a
level playing field for European fishermen.
The new MEP, who comes from a port
town in southern Almeria and did not respond
to repeated requests for comments
from EUobserver, recently called on the
commission to recognise the effort made
by the Mediterranean fishing fleet to improve
the levels of sustainability for the
distribution of fishing days and quotas.
She also urged more socio-economic impact
assessments when considering further
cuts on certain quotas.
Various technical reports from the UN
Food and Agriculture Organization already
point to a recovery of certain
stocks and species in the Mediterranean,
she argued. “This is why we must advocate
in this committee for considering
the reports indicating stock recovery in
the Mediterranean to reduce the drastic
demands placed [on the region],” Crespo
Díaz told MEPs in her committee.
“We are aware that it is important to ensure
the fisheries resources and the good
state of the marine ecosystem, but the
truth is that in recent years, it has been
causing an imbalance by giving too much
priority to the environmental issue to the
detriment of the necessary maintenance
of companies and ensuring the welfare of
society,” she concluded.
EU member states have committed to
restoring 20 percent of their lands and
waters by 2030, including restoring 30
percent of habitats in poor condition by
2030. H
THE PECH COORDINATORS
Gabriel Mato
EPP, Spain
André Rodrigues
S&D, Portugal
Ton Diepeveen
PfE, the Netherlands
Stephen Nikola Bartulica
ECR, Croatia
Emma Wiesner
Renew, Sweden
Isabella Lövin
Greens, Sweden
Emma Fourreau
The Left, France
Siegbert Droese
ESN, Germany
45

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
Nela Riehl, chairwoman of the European Parliament’s culture and education committee - Source - European Commission
CULT - An often
‘overlooked’ role
As a teacher herself – teaching a high school class until the week
before she was elected to the European Parliament – culture and
education chairwoman and Volt MEP Nela Riehl emphasises equal
access to education as the pillar to protect freedoms.
By ALEJANDRO TAUBER
“The area of ​education
in particular offers the
opportunity to strengthen
the resilience of the
population.”
A
“ t a time when freedom of science,
the media and the arts can no longer
be taken for granted, it will be up to our
committee to stand up for this,” the
39-year-old neophyte MEP Nela Riehl tells
EUobserver.
Riehl ran as second candidate on Volt’s
pan-European list (they sit in the European
Parliament with the Greens/EFA),
despite not being active in politics until
the year before the 9 June European Parliament
elections. She was also the only
black candidate on any German ballot
list – and she is the only black committee
chair.
The committee on culture and education
(CULT) is mainly responsible for cultural
aspects of the EU, education, youth,
sports and leisure and media policy.
Under the previous mandate, it doubled
the budget of the international student
exchange programme Erasmus+ and was
pivotal in developing the European Media
Freedom Act, which protects news
publishers’ legal status in society.
“The area of ​education in particular offers
the opportunity to strengthen the
resilience of the population,” Riehl said.
Nela Riehl
The young MEP has her work cut out
for her – the latest PISA survey educational
performance showed a dramatic
drop among students in the 22 EU member
states included, with the “decline in
mathematics performance .. three times
greater than any previous consecutive
change.”
And 24 member states are experiencing a
persistent shortage of teachers, an issue
the directorate-general for internal policies
recently recommended to CULT to
“develop a comprehensive plan to tackle
the issue.”
It also suggested focusing on increasing
the democratic participation of young
people, including the most vulnerable
groups, including “through increased use
of digital platforms.”
Improving youth housing availability and
affordability is raised as another potential
policy area, with a quarter of young
Europeans living in overcrowded housing,
or with their parents.
When it comes to culture and media, the
directorate-general also provided recommendations
– and concerns – for the upcoming
legislative term for CULT.
The overview and future perspectives
report for the cultural and media sectors
requested by CULT and published in July
2024 states that the EU’s strategic agenda
for 2024-2029 “largely overlooks the
role” that the cultural and creative sectors
can play in “realising its priorities.”
It points to several “weights of the
past”, or obstacles, that stand in the way
of “cross-sectoral collaborations and
arts-driven transformation processes”,
including the lack of long-term funding,
precarious economic conditions of people
in the creative sector and technological
developments that affect the way they
do and disseminate their work.
The report therefore recommends that
CULT takes a role in creating a more
comprehensive and holistic approach to
support the creative and cultural sectors
– mainly by helping to coordinate actions
between different EU institutions and
with other committees.
Riehl seems to grasp the importance,
stating that “culture, education, media
and sport are areas that directly affect
citizens. I hope that in five years they will
say that there has been progress here.” H
THE CULT COORDINATORS
Zoltan Tarr
EPP, Hungary
Hannes Heide
S&D, Austria
Catherine Griset
PfE, France
Lara Magoni
ECR, Italy
Laurence Farreng
Renew, France
Diana Riba
Greens/EFA, Spain
Nikos Pappas
Left, Greece
Zsuzsanna Borvendég
ESN, Hungary
47

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
JURI - A committee
with a toothless bite
The legal affairs committee not only looks at everything from intellectual property
rights and company law, to parliamentary immunities, better law-making and
institutional scrutiny, it examines judicial independence and rule of law — and
scrutinises the next EU commissioners.
By NIKOLAJ NIELSEN
Ilhan Kyuchyuk,
chair of the European
Parliament’s legal
affairs committee
Source - European
Commission
At the beginning of each new mandate,
the European Parliament’s
legal affairs committee is tasked to scrutinise
possible conflicts of interests of the
26 European Commissioner-designates.
For Ilhan Kyuchyuk, the Bulgarian Renew
MEP chairing the committee, known
as JURI, the probe represents a top priority
in the weeks to come.
“We will work devotedly on it,” said the
39-year-old, who studied law and political
science.
But there are limitations. The committee
has no investigative powers. It will only
review declarations submitted by the
candidates themselves, in an ‘honour’
system. And any possible conflicts must
also fall within their respective commissioner
portfolios.
Once submitted, the committee will attempt
to make its assessment within 48
hours. Should it suspect any wrongdoing,
the committee can ask the commissioner-designate
follow-up questions behind
closed doors.
Kyuchyuk has been an MEP for over a
decade, working on foreign affairs. He
also had a keen interest in Turkey.
Yet his experience with the JURI committee
is also limited. It is currently composed
of around 25 members. He was a
JURI substitute committee member for
around four years up until 2024. He became
a full member in July 2024 for three
days, before being designated its chair.
The tasks ahead are serious. The committee
will look into everything from
intellectual property rights and company
law to parliamentary immunities, better
law-making and institutional scrutiny.
It will also have a role in matters related
to judicial independence and the protection
of the rule of law in member states,
especially in view of administrative law.
“The committee’s task is to guarantee
that EU legislation not only addresses
contemporary challenges but also remains
aligned with the values and legal
framework that underpin the Union,” he
said.
Kyuchyuk said the committee will face
several challenges over the next five
years.
Among them are new rules on European
cross-border associations, which he says
aim to improve the legal framework for
civil society.
“The proposal on AI liability is one of our
priorities too, as it aims to complement
the framework regulating artificial intelligence
in an innovation-friendly manner,”
he said.
And issues surrounding copyright will
also be tackled, he said.
The committee will look into
everything from intellectual
property rights and company
law to parliamentary immunities,
better law-making and
institutional scrutiny.
The direction of the committee is also
being steered, in part, by European Commission
president Ursula von der Leyen’s
political guidelines.
The guidelines include ideas of a socalled
28th regime, which aims to allow
companies to benefit from a simpler, harmonised
set of rules. It means the European
Commission plans to propose a new
EU-wide legal status to help innovative
companies grow.
“That would have a strong effect on European
competitiveness. We would also
be adamant on keeping up, from a regulatory
point of view, with the evolution of
AI and digitalisation,” said Kyuchyuk.
As for possible biggest achievements for
the committee over the next five years?
Kyuchyuk cites setting aside political
differences in order to secure rule of law
and better law-making.
“My hope as chair of the legal affairs committee
would be that as professionals with
legal background, together with the col-
THE JURI COORDINATORS
Axel Voss
EPP, Germany
René Repasi
S&D, Germany
Pascale Piera
PfE, France
Tobiasz Bocheński
ECR, Poland
Dainius Žalimas
Renew, Lithuania
Sergey Lagodinsky
Greens, Germany
Mario Furore
Left, Italy
Marcin Sypniewski
ESN, Poland
49

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
Javier Zarzalejos is chairman of the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee - Source - European Commission
A Spanish MEP is once again chairing the
European Parliament’s powerful civil liberties
committee (LIBE).
But whereas its predecessor hailed from
the Spanish Socialists & Democrats
camp, its new chair is firmly rooted in the
leading centre-right European People’s
Party.
Before taking the LIBE helm, Javier
Zarzalejos presided over the Spanish
think-tank FAES, a non-profit liberal-conservative
organisation.
Now as LIBE chair, the 64-year-old is
overseeing the issues that swung the European
Parliament’s political make-up
further to the right.
internal asylum and migration rules. For
Zarzalejos and his committee, its twoyear
implementation deadline and wider
scrutiny will be crucial.
“A clear priority will be ensuring that our
migration and asylum in Europe works as
it should,” he said of the committee.
The new rules promise to bridge the ever-elusive
balancing act between responsibility
and solidarity among member
states.
Alongside the rule of law, Zarzalejos also
labels asylum and migration as among
the most likely contentious issues his
committee will be tackling over the next
few years.
Migration and asylum aside, LIBE will
also be delving into organised crime, an
enhanced EU security framework, and a
bigger EU police agency, Europol. Criminal
use of AI and end-to-end encrypted
communication also continues to pose a
problem for law enforcement.
“There is a need to find appropriate solutions
which counterbalance the security
concerns and needs of law enforcement
on the one hand, with the fundamental
rights and privacy concerns on the other,”
said Zarzalejos.
As for what he aspires to become the
committee’s single biggest achievement
over the next five years? Zarzalejos remained
elusive.
LIBE - Migration
will dominate, as EU
states implement new
asylum rules
The civil liberties committee’s ability to cross-examine senior government officials
and launch inquiries into politically sensitive topics have helped propel its status.
But it also now has the ex-head of Frontex, turned far-right MEP, among its
members.
By NIKOLAJ NIELSEN
Asylum and migration are probably the
most politically toxic issues under the
committee’s remit. The Schengen passport-free
area, a bigger and more powerful
EU police agency, criminal abuse of
Artificial Intelligence, and data retention,
will also figure on its agenda.
The committee’s ability to cross-examine
senior government officials and launch
inquiries into politically sensitive topics
has helped propel its status.
The ever-present debate over asylum
and migration will remain a key point for
the committee, following stunning farright
election results in Austria, France,
Germany and the Netherlands.
It has also turned Fabrice Leggeri, the
disgraced former executive director of
the EU’s border agency, Frontex, into a
French far-right MEP. Leggeri is now a
member of LIBE — the very same committee
that relentlessly grilled him during
his time heading up Frontex.
Earlier this year, the EU finally managed
to secure a legislative deal on reforming
Tricky questions on how to increase the
return rates of failed asylum seekers will
also be important. “Finding workable
solutions in this field, which are fully in
line with fundamental rights, will be a
challenge for the committee,” he said.
Closely intertwined is the safeguarding of
the Schengen area, a passport-free zone
composed of 26 European countries.
“It is no secret that the Schengen space
has faced significant threats in the past
years due to migratory pressure, or criminal
and terrorist attacks in Europe,” he
said.
“We have recently agreed a revision to
the Schengen rulebook (the Schengen
Borders Code) and we must focus on its
effective implementation,” he added.
But he also says legal migration is needed
to support Europe’s economy given the
demographics of an increasingly ageing
population — a position staunchly rejected
by Leggeri and his political camp.
“I do hope for a Union that is able to deliver
on the issues that are relevant for
citizens,” he said. H
THE LIBE COORDINATORS
Lena Düpont
EPP, Germany
Birgit Sippel
S&D, Germany
Fabrice Leggeri
PfE, France
Assita Kanko
ECR, Belgium
Fabienne Keller
Renew, France
Tineke Strik
Greens, the Netherlands
Saskia Bricmon
Greens, Belgium
Estrella Galán Pérez
Left, Spain
Slovak Sovereign Milan Uhrik
ESN, Slovakia
51

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
AFCO - Seeking
more oversight on
EU Commission
lawmaking
As well as pushing for more powers for lawmakers to initiate changes
to existing laws, the committee will look at the thorny issue of how
many MEPs each member state gets.
“The lack of sufficient
parliamentary
involvement and the
reduced transparency
of this procedure
highlights the need
for greater democratic
accountability.”
Sven Simon
By ANDREW RETTMAN
Sven Simon, chairman of the European Parliament’s
constitutional affairs committee
Source - European Commission
MEPs need to formalise a new modus
vivendi with the European Commission
to ensure the European Parliament
plays its full legal role in shaping EU
policy and to reform the way MEPs’ seats
are allocated to member states, according
to the new chair of the constitutional affairs
committee (AFCO).
The German European People’s Party
MEP Sven Simon said the main point
on his agenda for the next five years was
“reform of the framework agreement on
inter-institutional relations between parliament
... the current one dates back to
2010”.
“Developments since then make a revision
necessary. This includes strengthening
parliament’s right of inquiry, enhancing
parliament’s right of initiative, and
scrutinising the commission’s use of Article
122 TFEU as a legal basis,” he added.
Under the EU treaty, the commission has
the sole right to propose new legislation,
which parliament amends before it is
adopted.
Simon didn’t question this, but said MEPs
needed more power to initiate changes to
or revocations of existing laws.
“At present, parliament is limited to writing
letters to the commission and hoping
for a recast procedure in the coming
years. A swift and targeted revision of
specific articles is not feasible under the
current provisions,” he said.
He also pledged to advocate for greater
powers for parliament’s special committees
of enquiry under Article 226 of the
EU treaty.
And to push for more scrutiny of how the
commission has used Article 122 to make
laws bypassing MEPs in emergency situations
— such as during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The lack of sufficient parliamentary involvement
and the reduced transparency
of this procedure highlights the need for
greater democratic accountability,” Simon
said.
AFCO would also target reform of the
rules governing political parties and foundations
in Europe, even if a deeper overhaul
of the EU whole EU treaty “seems
unlikely in the foreseeable future”.
One of the most hotly-debated and badly-needed
changes related to how many
seats each EU country should get in the
European Parliament, he added.
“While the treaties establish the principle
of degressive proportionality - allocating
relatively more seats to smaller countries
compared to larger ones - there is currently
no clear mathematical formula for
this distribution process,” Simon said.
“Given that some countries will gain
additional seats due to changing demographics
while others may lose some,
redefining the apportionment process is
likely to spark significant debate,” he predicted.
The incoherence of the present rules
could become an even greater problem
as the EU prepares to take in new members
from the Western Balkans, as well as
Moldova and Ukraine, in the medium to
long term.
But closer to home, some nationalist political
parties in Hungary and Poland have
shown in the past five years that the issues
of rule of law in general and the primacy
of EU law over national legislation
need more attention.
“The various political groups have competing
visions for the future of the European
Union”, Simon said.
“The true beauty of democracy lies in the
competition of diverse ideas”, he added.
And Simon planned to hold “a conference
on the rule of law and supremacy of
EU law,” to see how to tackle the diverging
views.
“In Europe, we face challenges that are
interpreted differently by various legal
schools across the continent. I believe it
is necessary to increase transnational debate
about it,” he said. H
THE AFCO COORDINATORS
Loránt Vincze
EPP, Romania
Juan Fernando López Aguilar
S&D, Spain
Marieke Ehlers
PfE, the Netherlands
Patry Jaki
ECR, Poland
Sandro Gozi
Renew, France
Reinier van Lanschot
Greens, Netherlands
Nikolas Farantouris
The Left, Greece
Stanisław Tyszka
ESN, Poland
53

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
As gender equality continues to face a
growing backlash, particularly from
far-right groups which now have a far
greater number of MEPs in the 2024-2029
parliament, the EU must continue to tackle
the democratic deficit when it comes to
women’s rights, the chair committee on
women’s rights and gender equality Lina
Gálvez Muñoz (S&D, Spain) told EUobserver.
“The far-right places anti-feminism,
anti-gender politics, and opposition to
LGTBQ+ rights at the core of its agenda,
[and] they now hold a larger presence
and influence in the European Parliament.
[But] failing to prioritise gender
equality is a mistake we simply cannot
afford,” the social democrat said.
Gálvez Muñoz added that more work
needs to be done when it comes to sexual
and reproductive health rights in the EU
— which is still “a deeply sensitive topic”
in many countries. “As with gender equality,
these rights are heavily attacked by
the far-right,” she said, referring to abortion
rights and the opportunity for women
to choose their preferred methods of
family planning and contraception.
“More equal societies will bring stronger
democracies,” she also said, arguing
that gender mainstreaming must be integrated
into all policies, programmes,
and funding mechanisms to achieve true
gender equality. “We are still far from this
goal”.
In 2020, the European Institute for Gender
Equality (EIGE) projected that it
would take over 60 years to achieve full
gender equality across the EU — highlighting
the slow pace of progress, despite
decades of legal advances and policy initiatives
aimed at closing the gender gap.
The EU pay transparency directive, which
aims to ensure equal pay for equal work,
is to be implemented by EU member
states in mid-2026. But with the ongoing
green and digital transitions reshaping
the labour market, Gálvez Muñoz argues
FEMM -
Advancing
women’s
rights and
enforcing
EU law to
expand
gender
balance
Despite progress in embedding women’s
rights into law, much work remains for
the EU Parliament’s women’s rights
committee. Top priorities include
enforcing existing rules and ensuring nonconsensual
sex is recognised as rape across
the EU.
By ELENA SÁNCHEZ NICOLÁS
that ensuring women aren’t left behind is
also now a top concern.
“Evaluating these transitions and implementing
targeted measures will be essential
to closing the gender gap and ensuring
that all available talent is on board,”
she said.
In addition, Gálvez Muñoz argued that
this next legislative term will focus it
will be crucial to ensure the proper enforcement
of EU laws on combating violence
against women, where there are
still pending tasks - guaranteeing that
non-consensual sex is recognised as
rape across the EU and making sure gender-based
violence is classified as an offence
across all EU member states.
The plan to classify all non-consensual
sex as rape across the EU became tremendously
controversial last year when
member states rejected the proposal,
claiming that the European Commission
had overstepped its mandate. This decision
not only reflected deep divisions
among EU countries (since some, such as
Belgium or Spain, already have national
laws in place covering this issue) but also
raised serious questions about the commitment
of certain countries to effectively
address sexual violence.
Meanwhile, advancing gender budgeting,
gender-sensitive policy, and gender
equality in terms of political representation
will also be some of the priorities for
Gálvez Muñoz’s committee.
“We need more disaggregated and gender-sensitive
data to enable effective
gender mainstreaming across all policy
areas,” the 55-year-old Spanish politician
said, adding this requires strengthening
EIGE and establishing a gender-equality
taskforce in all EU institutions’ departments.
In late summer, the likely composition
of the new commission raised eyebrows,
since there was initially a male-dominated
list of commissioner-designates. This
prompted EU Commission president
Ursula von der Leyen, the first woman to
hold the post, to push several countries
to change their nominations.
“While the new commission has achieved
near parity, the previous von der Leyen
Commission had more women in key
positions. Although efforts have been
Lina Gálvez Muñoz is
chairwoman of the
European Parliament
committee on
women’s rights and
gender equality
Source - European
Commission
made to compensate for this by appointing
women to powerful roles, the trend
reflects a broader democratic deficit
that we must not tolerate,” said Gálvez
Muñoz — while pointing out that the
current 2024-29 parliament itself has a
slightly lower proportion of women than
the previous one. H
THE FEMM COORDINATORS
Eleonora Meleti
EPP, Greece
Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus
S&D, Poland
Margarita de la Pisa Carrión
PfE, Spain
Laurence Trochu
ECR, France
Abir Al-Sahlani
Renew, Sweden
Melissa Camara
Greens, France
Irene Montero
Left, Spain
Christine Anderson
ESN, Germany
55

EUOBSERVER
WHO’S WHO IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEES?
PETI - Our agenda
is set
by you
“The committee received a large number
of petitions related to health security,
vaccinations, certificates, the refugee situation,
and high energy prices.”
Bogdan Rzońca
In its own words, the petitions committee functions as a sort of
“ongoing reality check” on the way EU legislation, and the Brussels’
institutions, are responding to citizens’ concerns.
By ALEJANDRO TAUBER
As the agenda is set by EU citizens it’s
difficult to predict what the main
priorities of the European Parliament’s
petitions committee (PETI) will be, said
its new chairman, Poland’s Bogdan Rzońca
(ECR).
“In 2019, no one expected that the term
starting then would be primarily marked
by the Covid pandemic and Russia’s aggression
against Ukraine. The committee
received a large number of petitions
related to health security, vaccinations,
certificates, the refugee situation, and
high energy prices. Therefore, we must
always be prepared for events beyond our
control.”
He gives the example of PETI’s work in
the area of people with disabilities and
the adoption of a European Disability
Card. “By the end of the last term, we
successfully finalised work on a directive
on this topic, with input from our committee
being taken into account.”
The PETI committee can initiate plenary
discussions in the European Parliament,
send fact-finding missions to areas of
concern, send questions to the European
Commission – even asking for legal
action against member states – and liaise
with the European Ombudsman, whose
election falls under the committee’s responsibility.
Alluding to gains by the far- and radical
right in both the parliament elections
earlier this year and various European
national and regional elections, Rzonca
said that image is important because “the
EU institutions are not always perceived
positively by its residents.”
The latest Eurobarometer survey shows
that nearly six out of ten EU citizens are
satisfied with the way democracy works
in the EU and that more or less the same
percentage is optimistic about the future
of the EU. H
Bogdan Rzońca,
chairman of
the European
Parliament’s petitions
committee
Source - Wikimedia
During its last mandate, PETI oversaw almost
7,000 petitions – which can be started
by any EU citizen without a mandatory
minimum of signatures – and “played
a major role in addressing citizens’ concerns
over the impact of national emergency
measures on citizens’ fundamental
rights and freedoms” during the Covid
pandemic, according to its activity report
on the previous mandate.
“The PETI committee is the first point
of contact, where citizens can raise their
concerns and issues regarding what they
believe is not working properly. This gives
the committee on petitions the ability to
have a significant impact on law-making,”
Rzońca said.
Rzonca believes that, similar to previous
terms, topics related to rule of law
and environmental issues “will stir a lot
of emotions”, and that his role with the
committee will be to “temper these emotions,
works towards compromises and
ensure efficient processing of petitions,”
to minimise the delay between a petition
and its response.
Hailing from the Law and Order (PiS)
party in Poland, the 63-year-old Rzonca
stresses that “direct contact and the opportunity
to take part in the work of the
European Parliament influences the image
of the entire institution among citizens.”
THE PETI COORDINATORS
Alma Ezcurra Almansa
EPP, Spain
Sandra Gómez López
S&D, Spain
Kosma Złotowski
ECR, Poland
Michał Kobosko
Renew, Poland
Gordan Bosanac
Greens/EFA, Croatia
57

EUOBSERVER
Glossary of political group
acronyms and party numbers
in the European Parliament
2024-29
There are
720 MEPs
in total
EPP
European People’s Party
188 seats
S&D
Socialists & Democrats
136 seats
Renew
Renew Europe
77 seats
Green/EFA
The Greens/European Free
Alliance
53 seats
The Left
Previously known as the
GUE/NGL*
46 seats
ECR
European Conservatives and
Reformists
78 seats
PfE
Patriots for Europe
84 seats
ESN
Europe of Sovereign
Nations
25 seats
NI
Non-attached
32 seats
* European United Left/Nordic Green Left)

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