Good morning from Strasbourg, EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen presented on Tuesday her much-awaited team for leading Europe over the next five years. Bureaucratically, nothing is fully clear yet about who reports to who, and some key policies are mixed in several portfolios. Some in Strasbourg explained that this happened because her team was sealed at the last minute, while others estimate that von der Leyen herself could seek to intentionally exploit these “grey zones” in implementing policies. Now, the time for European Parliament to have the last say has come. Procedurally, the Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (Juri) will scrutinise candidate commissioners’ financial statements and potential conflict of interests. In parallel, the relevant Parliament committees will send written questions to the candidate commissioners related to their portfolios and will expect written replies. An ambitious plan suggests that some hearings could already take place in mid-October. In any event, MEPs have already started talking about Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s candidate, Raffaele Fitto (ECR) – who gets executive vice presidency, again putting him in the spotlight. All pro-EU coalition groups said Fitto’s choice goes against the deal not to work with the extreme right. But for the centre-right EPP, the ECR does not belong to this category. Whether they will vote against Fitto remains to be seen, but it’s almost certain that Italy’s candidate will be grilled by EU lawmakers. Meanwhile, von der Leyen’s new team has caused mixed feelings in the EU capitals, while Mario Draghi’s report – mentioned in almost all von der Leyen’s mission letters – was slammed by the extremes and hailed by the centre of the EU House. | 
