Latvian Representative to Be Appointed as Commissioner for EU Enlargement and Reconstruction of Ukraine

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has decided to appoint Latvian representative Valdis Dombrovskis as Commissioner for EU Enlargement and Reconstruction of Ukraine. 

This was reported by Welt, citing its sources in Brussels.

Von der Leyen has already made the first decisions on the portfolios for the recently nominated candidates for European Commissioner by EU member states.

Von der Leyen is expected to announce the overall package for the new European Commission leadership by the end of this week at the latest. But one thing is already certain: in addition to the appointed High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, the EC President will have four executive vice-presidents working with her.

There will also be two more EU commissioners who will report directly to von der Leyen due to the importance of their dossiers.

The previous level of vice presidents (currently four EU commissioners) will be abolished.

According to von der Leyen's wishes, Latvian Valdis Dombrovskis will be appointed executive vice president for ‘enlargement and reconstruction of Ukraine’.

Socialist politician Teresa Ribera Rodriguez, formerly Minister for the Environmental Transition in the Spanish government, will be responsible for the theme of ‘transition’ as Executive Vice President. She will be responsible for legislative proposals on social, digital and environmental transformation within the Commission's mandate.

Liberal French politician Thierry Breton will be responsible for the topics of ‘industry and strategic autonomy’.

It is expected that the new EU Trade Commissioner will be Dutchman Wopke Hoekstra, and the current Czech Minister of Industry Josef Sikela will become the EU Energy Commissioner.

In addition, for the first time, the right-wing populist Raffaele Fitto, who belongs to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party, will be appointed to a high position in the European Commission. Fitto will become Executive Vice-President of the European Commission and will be responsible for the economy and pandemic recovery assistance worth more than €700 billion.

The two issues that are likely to have the most political significance in the coming years will be directly related to the president of the European Commission: Slovak Mario Šefčovič will be responsible for cutting bureaucracy and inter-institutional issues, and Pole Piotr Serafin will be responsible for budgetary issues.

Von der Leyen wants to make deregulation one of the key issues of his work in the coming years. Serafin, in turn, will have to lead the negotiations on the new seven-year EU budget - a balancing act as Brussels demands more and more money in the face of new challenges, but member states do not want to spend more.

All candidates are to be heard and approved by the European Parliament in the autumn.

The day before, the President of the European Council said that the new composition of the EU executive body would include a separate post of Commissioner for Enlargement.

Earlier, MEP Andrius Kubilius, whom Lithuania decided to nominate as its candidate for the European Commission, said that the Commission should make enlargement - including the accession of Ukraine - its priority over the next five years.