The European Parliament backs the new European Commission

The new European Commission led by Jean Claude Juncker lays emphasis on economic growth, investment and bolstering jobs.

România Internațional, 23.10.2014, 13:57

With 423 yes votes, 209 no votes and 67 abstentions, the European Parliament on Wednesday voted to approve the new European Commission due to take office on 1st of November. The head of the new Commission, Jean Claude Juncker, presented the members of his team and the Commission’s political programme for the next five years.

“Either we succeed in bringing European citizens closer to Europe, or we fail”, said Juncker, warning about “the last chance” to regain the trust of citizens. In a European Union still struggling with the economic crisis, Juncker said he would present a three-year investment plan of 300 billion euros by the end of the year, aimed at stimulating economic growth and bolstering jobs. In his opinion, national and European Union investment should go hand in hand with fiscal credibility and structural reforms.

In the meantime, EU member states should continue to keep their budget deficits under control. Investments are extremely necessary for the economy, agreed Romania’s Corina Cretu, who will be part of the new European Commission as holder of the regional policy portfolio. Ms Cretu said one of her priorities is to look for new ways to increase member states’ absorption of European funds through the transfer of the successful models used by countries such as Poland and Portugal to states like Romania and Bulgaria.

“I have lived most of my life in a country that has enjoyed impressive economic growth thanks to the tools of EU membership. I have seen with my own eyes the consequences of policy cohesion on the lives of ordinary people”, she said. However, after the crisis, Europe’s economy has slowed down, the gaps between Europe’s regions have increased and now we have to work twice as hard to bring the economy back on track and generate jobs, Cretu went on to say. According to Jean Claude Juncker, the European Union now has a 29th member state called “the unemployed”, many of them young people. The new EU commissioner for regional policy Corina Cretu says it is such people she will be thinking of when she takes office.