Green light from the European Parliament for the appointment of Ambassador Ferdinando Nelli Feroci as pro tempore European Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship. A post that remained uncovered following the resignation of Antonio Tajani, who on May 25 was elected to the European Parliament, the institution of which he is now first vice president. Nelli Feroci's mandate is over, since at the end of October the Commission still in office will conclude its mandate to make room for the new formation led by Jean-Claude Juncker. Unless at that point the Italian government decides to confirm it for the next five years, a hypothesis that does not seem very probable today.
The favorable vote of the European Parliament also regarded the substitutes of the other three commissioners who were elected at the Strasbourg Assembly "transferred" to the European Parliament. The new commissioners are the Finn Jyrki Katainen, who resigned as head of state to replace (probably with the ambition of being confirmed for the next five years) his compatriot Olli Rehn in Economic and Monetary Affairs; the Luxembourgian Martine Reichert who will replace Viviane Reding in Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, and the Polish Jacek Dominik, who will replace Janusz Lewandowski in Economic Planning and the Budget. For all four, the formalization of the appointment will be completed on 23 July with the (only formal) ratification by the General Affairs Council.
As for Nelli Feroci, during a preliminary hearing to the parliamentary committee for Industry, she illustrated the fundamental lines which will inspire her during her presumably short stay at the European Commission. Europe, which due to the crisis has lost almost four million jobs and 150 billion in investments in five to six years, must change the order of priorities of its agenda and move as soon as possible along the line traced by the Council March European. A line that is increasingly shared by growing numbers of citizens who are asking the European institutions, as well as the national ones, to embrace the goal of economic growth and the recovery of pre-crisis employment levels. This, in summary, said the ambassador who until a year ago managed the Italian representation at the European Union.
Nelli Feroci affirmed that she shares this line of the Council, a line along which she intends to walk in the performance of her office. Which, he clarified, will be based on some main axes. The first concerns access to markets, both domestic and international (in this latter regard, the new commissioner defined the conclusion of the free trade agreements under discussion as "very important", and more particularly that between the the EU and the United States).
Then there is the question, crucial for businesses, of access to credit and access to energy sources and the related costs. At least equally important, according to Nelli Feroci, is the support for innovation, essential for achieving a higher level of competitiveness, which currently has funding for around 100 billion.
The attention of the new commissioner will also turn to the quality of the regulation ("whose streamlining cannot be postponed"), as well as to small and medium-sized enterprises ("which have 89 million employees in Europe". And finally, "in line with the Tajani's most recent commitment”, under the watchful eye of Ferdinando Nelli Feroci there will be the small job act, steel, cars and shipbuilding.
