EU Parliament's political groups hold key hearings this week, before the decision due to be taken by the Committee of Groups' Presidents, on Thursday, September 10, on whether there will be, or not, a vote for the new EU Commission's President, next week in Strasbourg's Plenary.
So far, there is only one officially known candidate : Barroso, the out-going EU Commission's chairman, "designated" to continue its work by the current Swedish EU presidency's choice to follow a "silent adoption" procedure, where a decision is considered adopted automatically and without debate, unless one or more EU Member Governments take the initiative to assume the responsibility to officially express in public their opposal.
MEPs' main concern is, according to their declarations, since July's plenary in Strasbourg, to freely debate in depth and decide on the substance of the political Program for the new period 2009-2014, due to be presented by any candidate (s).
Meanwhile, Germany holds key Elections on September 27, whose outcome will have an exceptionally important impact on main European strategies, (while German MPs will complete voting on Lisbon Treaty's ratification on September 18, as Chancellor Merkel anounced after a meeting with French President Sarkozy), and Ireland holds a new Referendum for the ratification of Lisbon Treaty, early October, whose outcome will obviously give a substantially differend role to the new EU Commission's President, since all main EU Institutions will face profound changes, (with the creation of an EU President, Foreign Ministry, etc).
These two reasons have incited various people to think that it would be more logical and practical to wait until the outcome of these 3 important developments becomes crystal-clear and well known... Since no Government dared express its opposal to an early vote, it all depends now on MEPs.
Among many other rumours, according to "EuroActiv", "Spokespersons for the political groups declined to comment on Barroso's proposed agenda, saying that they are still on vacation. Despite the fact that this week has been set aside for political group meetings, the major groups have cancelled these and MEPs are prolonging their summer break", (
http://www.euractiv.com/en/future-eu/barroso-unveil-summer-homework-week/article-184825). While "NEurope" starts to see some new names as eventual candidates, in what should normally be a democratic, pluralist debate, (
http://neurope.eu/brussels-post/?p=1), even if the real competitors may be known later on;.
