Hearing of Commissioner-designate Mariya Gabriel

Political groups’ coordinators from the committees will meet within 24 hours to assess the performance of Commissioner-designate Gabriel.

Creating synergies and opportunities for youth

During her introductory speech, Mariya Gabriel highlighted the importance of creating a European space of research, innovation, education, culture and sport and synergies between programmes in order to live up to Europeans expectations not least the young in terms of creating sustainable development and opportunities for young people.

The two committees were critical of the lack of reference to culture and research in the name of the Commissioner’s portfolio.

Members of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy underlined the necessity of an ambitious budget for the forthcoming Horizon Europe research programme in line with the EP’s position and of involving the EP in its implementation.

MEPs from the Culture and Education Committee put forward questions on the budget of the Erasmus+ programme, calling on the Commissioner-designate to support the tripling of the budget. They also wanted to know how digitalisation can be useful for European heritage as well as how to best protect and guarantee access to culture and education for all cultural and language communities in Europe. Further questions underlined the necessity to promote audiovisual media from a cultural perspective.

You can watch the video recording of the full hearing here.

Press point

At the end of the hearing, Committee Chairs Adina Vălean (EPP, RO) and Sabine Verheyen (EPP, DE) held a press point outside the meeting room: watch it here

Next steps

Based on the committees’ recommendations, the Conference of Presidents will decide on 17 October if Parliament has received sufficient information to declare the hearing process closed. If so, the plenary will vote on whether or not to elect the Commission as a whole on 23 October, in Strasbourg.