Taking the floor after Jean-Claude Juncker’s speech in Strasbourg, the European Democratic Party Secretary General Marielle de Sarnez announced the Democrats put their faith in the new European Commission, “a demanding and impatient faith because the Europeans expect concrete results”.

For the French MEP, Vice-President of the ALDE Group, the new President of the Commission has assets to succeed but he “will need character and courage to move Europe forward”. The real challenge is to “make Europe a place which can form a political will”.

Mrs de Sarnez invited Mr Juncker to develop a vision that “too often lacking the Heads of State and Government”: the vision of a Europe “that finally deals with the big questions, that decides to weigh in the world, to defend its interests and to act for its economic and social development”. She welcomed the return to the community method and the resumption by the Commission of its right of initiative.

The Belgian MEP Gérard Deprez welcomed the new institutional architecture designed by Jean-Claude Juncker, seeing the “Prime Minister” Timmermans the brightest commissioner he heard. He also regrets that “audition procedure has not given everything it could.” He said the European Parliament should have the opportunity to vote on each commissioner, not on the college as a whole. “It’s a bad scenario,” said Mr Deprez.

To German MEP Ulrike Müller, the proposed distribution of portfolios is a “smart move by Juncker.” But it is important that the Commission starts to work quickly to deliver, because that is what the Europeans expect.

Note to editors: The European Democratic Party is a European political party, gathering centrist parties of Europe, chaired by François Bayrou (MoDem, France) and Francesco Rutelli (ApI, Italy). With the Liberal Party, the EDP forms the ALDE Group in the European Parliament. The EDP will hold its Congress in Brussels on December 10 and 11.
Marielle de Sarnez is member of the European Parliament (MoDem, France), Secretary General of the EDP and vice-president of the ALDE Group.
Gérard Deprez is member of the European Parliament (MCC, Belgium), Delegate General of the EDP et ADLE coordinator of the BUDG Committee.
Ulrike Müller is member of the European Parliament (Freie Wähler, Germany).