Faced with opposition from the member states, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was unable to block the replacement of the Romanian and Estonian Commissioners, who were elected as MEPs and already took their MEP seats. The government of Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dăncilă has asked to replace Corina Crețu, who served as Commissioner for Regional Policy, with Ioan-Mircea Paşcu, a politician from the ruling social democrat party, who has served as MEP and as defence minister.
Similarly, Estonia has requested the replacement of Commission Vice President Andrus Ansip, who also took his MEP seat, with Kadri Simson from the Centre party of Prime Minister Jüri Ratas.
Juncker took the position that outgoing Commissioners who have been elected and accept to become MEPs should not be replaced for the remaining four months of their mandate as this would entail significant costs.
Moreover, he put forward a legislative proposal to block the replacement of the two Commissioners.
Today European Commission spokesperson Mina Andreeva said the Commission regretted the Council’s rejection of the proposal not to replace the Commissioners.
This, she said, entailed budgetary consequences. She mentioned the sum of one million euros in terms of pension schemes, cabinet and other costs that might have been saved.
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