MEPs postpone decision on Hungary’s Olivér Várhelyi

European lawmakers have delayed their decision on whether to sign off Hungary’s choice for EU commissioner, Olivér Várhelyi, until Wednesday, five Parliament officials told POLITICO.

Coordinators from the Parliament’s public health (ENVI) and agriculture (AGRI) committees met on Monday to decide whether to approve Várhelyi’s nomination as the next EU health and animal welfare commissioner. They agreed to delay the decision until the final commissioner hearings have finished.

Várhelyi is so far the only candidate to face a second round of written questions after failing to impress lawmakers in his oral hearing last week. Committee coordinators met on Monday to discuss his answers to their follow-up questions.

“We just decided to postpone the decision on the Fidesz Commissioner,” MEP Pascal Canfin, the group coordinator for the centrists Renew in the ENVI committee, wrote on X. 

He told POLITICO that his group and the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) are “not happy” with the choice and have not yet decided whether they can vote for him or not.

It would be “impossible,” he said, “to support a commissioner coming from Fidesz in charge of anything related to preparedness,” he said, referring to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s right-wing party.

While Várhelyi praised the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in his hearing last week, MEPs are still pointing to Budapest’s approach to the Covid-19 pandemic — when it was the only EU country to distribute non-EU approved vaccines from Russia and China — as a reason to reject the Hungarian candidate.

They are also stalling at approving a portfolio that would include reproductive rights, Canfin said.

The Greens and the Left Group have also opposed Várhelyi’s nomination so far, meaning the Hungarian lacks the numbers to get the green light. Only far-right groups and the European Conservatives and Reformists supported him after the initial hearing.

One idea floated by S&D and Renew had been to approve Várhelyi in exchange for stripping competencies from his portfolio, such as reproductive rights, animal welfare and vaccines, and giving them to another commissioner.

The far-right Patriots’ chief whip sees that as playing games.

“It is of course unacceptable to see the groups play their games regarding the commissioner hearings,” Patriots chief whip, Danish MEP Anders Vistisen, told POLITICO. 

“But it only shows the helplessness of the liberals, socialists and greens. They don’t hold any other real power in the parliament than EPP wants to grant them. The sole responsibility for the wrong direction Europe is heading now lies on the shoulders of EPP — they have a conservative parliament but refuses to use it.”

Last week, a decision on Belgium’s Hadja Lahbib was also held hostage after a poor performance by Jessika Roswall. In the end, the the green light for Lahbib and Roswall was part of a deal between the EPP, the Renew group and the Socialists & Democrats.

Similarly, the delay on Várhelyi means his fate can be used as a bargaining chip among the groups, who still have to sign off on the most high-profile of nominations on Tuesday, when the six executive vice presidents proposed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will be quizzed by MEPs.