The bloc’s new foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, European Council President António Costa and European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos visited Kyiv on Sunday, on the first day of the new European Commission’s mandate, to reaffirm their “unwavering support to the Ukrainian people,” Costa said on X. Russian lawmakers had already approved the budget plans … Read more
A string of top officials including the Georgian ambassadors to Italy, the Netherlands and Lithuania have resigned in protest at the move, as well as Deputy Foreign Minister Temur Janjali. “What we see is this resistance has really gone beyond previous public demonstrations,” said Tinatin Akhvlediani, a senior researcher with the EU foreign policy unit … Read more
Kos might also find it tough to answer questions about her professional past, including recent allegations of a link to the former Yugoslavia’s secret police more than three decades ago. More recently, Kos was Slovenia’s ambassador to Germany and Switzerland between 2013 and 2020 and resigned in the wake of complaints by employees at the … Read more
3. Von der Leyen crowns herself the winner on gender despite lack of balance Von der Leyen’s month-long struggle to get a gender-balanced European Commission did not lead to an equal number of men and women on her team, despite her pressure on countries to send one male and one female candidate from each country. … Read more
STRASBOURG — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen did not attach names to the portfolios in her next team during a meeting with senior members of the European Parliament on Tuesday morning, according to two EU officials. At a closed-door meeting, the Commission president only gave the heads of the European Parliament’s political groups … Read more
Consensus has been building around holding the hearings of new commissioners between November 4 and 12, allowing the Commission to take office on December 1, as Brussels Playbook reported. But on Friday, von der Leyen put pressure on the Parliament to revert to its earlier timetable and hold the hearings in the week of October … Read more
