By Judith Ugwumadu | 22 October 2014
MEPs have approved the new European Commission team to be led by Jean-Claude Juncker in a vote today.
The executive team of 27 commissioners now needs to be appointed by European Union heads of states or government before it can begin work on November 1 for five years.
A motion to approve the new commission was passed by 423 votes to 209, with 67 abstentions.
Speaking to MEPs after the vote, incoming commission president Juncker said a number of changes to portfolios would be made as requested by committees after the hearings of commissioners-designate.
Juncker said he had decided to give the pharmaceuticals back to the health commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis, jointly with Elżbieta Bienkowska, who is responsible for the internal market and industry. Citizenship policy will go to migration and home affairs commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos and sport to education and culture commissioner Tibor Navracsics.
Commenting on the vote, UK Conservative MEP Syed Kamall said he was disappointed Juncker had not supported the European Parliament’s request to have a budgetary control commissioner.
He also said the appointment of the former French finance minister Pierre Moscovici, who served in François Hollande’s Socialist government until earlier this year, to the brief for economic and financial affairs, taxation and customs, would not ‘confont the challenges of the future’.
