European Commission | Ursula von der Leyen may announce the Commission’s portfolio division

of the EU Commission chairman Ursula von der Leyen will announce on Tuesday its outline of the new commission’s portfolio division – unless the announcement is postponed again.

Von der Leyen has distributed power from the top of the EU Commission in recent weeks with such a heavy hand that the pulse around the matter has accelerated in Brussels, Strasbourg and a few capitals of the EU countries. For the same reason, the announcement of the portfolio division was already postponed from last week to Tuesday of this week.

On Monday, the atmosphere heated up to the point where France’s current EU commissioner Thierry Breton announced that he would resign from his position as Internal Market Commissioner.

Breton has been a visible, powerful and somewhat headstrong commissioner who has been expected to receive a heavy portfolio in von der Leyen’s new commission as well. However, Breton’s dreams were cut short when France announced that it would replace the country’s foreign minister as its candidate for commissioner Stephane Sejourne.

Breton published a messaging service on X his resignation letter to von der Leyen. In it, he watched von der Leyen play him out of the composition of the new commission behind his back.

“A few days ago, right at the end of the negotiations on the composition of the future College of Commissioners, you asked France to withdraw my name – for personal reasons”, which you have never discussed directly with me – and as a political exchange you offered France an allegedly more influential portfolio in the future College.

The final content of the French and other countries’ portfolios can be announced at the plenary session of the Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday, if the planned schedule for the announcement is successful this time.

Breton the difference does not affect Tuesday’s announcement, because it is about von der Leyen’s planned portfolio division in the new commission. Instead, the bigger problem can be found in Slovenia, where von der Leyen’s wishes have fueled a political dispute between the government and the opposition.

Like France, Slovenia also ended up changing its commissioner candidate earlier. There are reasons for the Slovenian dispute after this exposed among others The Slovenia Times.

The dispute is fueled by the fact that von der Leyn has been under pressure to try to correct the gender distribution of his new commission. In Slovenia, the opposition has demanded the publication of correspondence and other material related to the exchange of commissioners, in order to reveal the content of the alleged political exchange.

In Slovenia, the candidate for commissioner has to go through the hearing of the parliament’s committee dealing with EU affairs. The committee is headed by the country’s opposition conservative party SDS Frank Breznik.

The committee’s position does not prevent the Slovenian government from proposing a commissioner, but the government cannot officially nominate him for the position before the hearing. That’s why Brussels and Strasbourg have had to think, because von der Leyen can announce the division of portfolios he plans.

Brussels In the EU bubble, asking about the portfolio dreams of different countries has been an everyday topic at coffee tables for months. If a small country is looking for a portfolio related to the economy, internal market, energy or competitiveness, for example, the questioner may have had a subtle smile after the answer.

Many countries are looking for those portfolios, but in the end, they are not available to everyone.

Prime minister in Finland too Petteri Orpo (kok) has said that he is pursuing Henna for Virkkus portfolio related to competitiveness. Last Tuesday in Brussels, Orpo defined portfolios related to the internal market, know-how and innovation, and transport as part of competitiveness.

“If I think about where European competitiveness comes from, it comes from high competence, technology, digitization and artificial intelligence. Because all these solutions for the green transition will be based on digitization and high competence,” said Orpo.

Orpo seems to define a lot of options under competitiveness, as a result of which, at the time of the announcement of the portfolio division, he may very well state that he got what he wanted.

Still, the portfolio roulette has inevitably continued, at least to some extent, until these moments, because some countries have changed their commissioner candidates at von der Leyen’s request. It probably required favors from von der Leyen.

Von der Leyen’s support is just another important stop for the commissioner candidates. During the fall, the members of the commission and the whole commission still have to get approval from the European Parliament.