Commission president-elect calls for speed after blow of rejections

Incoming chief tells MEPs to hasten installation of her team after they rejected three nominees

Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s president-elect, has told national leaders and the European Parliament to “speed up the process” of approving the commissioner nominees due to serve under her from 1 November, so as not to delay tackling “major challenges such as climate change, digitisation and migratory flows”.

Her statement came on 10 October, shortly after MEPs rejected France’s nominee Sylvie Goulard, whom von der Leyen had provisionally assigned an internal market portfolio that included responsibility for industry, digitisation, space and defence research. MEPs were concerned about Goulard’s past conduct. They earlier rejected the nominees from Hungary and Romania over perceived conflicts of interest.