Personnel change in Brussels: 57-year-old Slovakian Maros Sefcovic will become Vice President of the EU Commission and will be responsible for climate policy in the future. Predecessor Frans Timmermans is running in the elections in the Netherlands as the red-green top candidate.
As the successor to the previous EU Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans, the Slovak Maros Sefcovic will be responsible for the climate protection policy of the European Commission. Shortly before the decision, the Dutchman Timmermans had, as expected, been elected the top candidate of the red-green alliance for the parliamentary elections in the Netherlands and had submitted his resignation.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen decided on the change of office of Commissioner Sefcovic, who was previously primarily responsible for political coordination. According to the AP news agency, the 57-year-old will only assume the post temporarily.
successor for Dutch commission seat still unknown
Thanks to Timmermans’ excellent work, von der Leyen said that the goal of becoming the first climate-neutral continent had come much closer. In future, the 57-year-old Sefcovic, as Executive Vice President, will be responsible for advancing the “Green Deal” with the same priority. The focus will be on turning the project for a climate-neutral Europe by 2050 into a European growth strategy.
“The implementation of the European ‘Green Deal’ requires an even more intensive dialogue with industry, important interest groups such as forest owners and farmers as well as citizens,” said von der Leyen. According to the authority responsible for legislative proposals, it is still unclear who will fill the vacant Dutch seat in the 27-strong EU Commission. Von der Leyen wrote to the current Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Rutte, asking him to propose a new candidate.
91.8 percent for Timmermans as top candidate
Former EU Commission Vice-President Timmermans plans to lead a centre-left alliance in the Dutch elections. He got 91.8 percent of the votes from party members of the Social Democrats and Greens. The 62-year-old was the only candidate and wants to succeed Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. This is not a candidate, but would like to leave politics. Rutte is the longest-serving Prime Minister of the Netherlands.
Timmermans – previously Dutch foreign minister – has worked in Brussels for almost ten years. The Dutch are due to elect a new parliament on November 22nd. The Labor Party and the Green Party GroenLinks appear in an alliance for the first time. The previous centre-right coalition in The Hague collapsed in early July over a dispute over asylum policy.