The European Parliament’s Socialist group has promised a rough ride for Wopke Hoekstra, the Dutch nominee to replace Frans Timmermans as European Commission Vice-President, citing controversial remarks about south European states during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Friday (25 August), Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte formally nominated Hoekstra, currently serving as foreign minister, as its candidate to be the country’s next European Commissioner.

Hoekstra is set to replace Frans Timmermans who resigned earlier this week to lead a Labour and Green party coalition.

Rutte is standing down at November’s general elections after more than a decade in power, a move which has prompted Timmermans to return to Dutch politics. 

In a statement on Friday, the Socialist and Democrat group, for whom Timmermans had been the lead candidate at the 2019 European elections, pointed to Hoekstra’s remarks as Dutch finance minister during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, Hoekstra’s calls for an investigation into the budgetary difficulties faced by southern European countries to cope with the economic fallout prompted an angry reaction from Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa and others. 

The leader of the centre-right Christian Democrat Action party, and one of the eurozone’s fiscally hawks, Hoekstra was a leading opponent of any plans to change the EU’s rules on debts and budget deficits.

“A Commissioner nominee does not make a Commissioner – let alone get the support of the S&D Group by default. Any Commissioner-designate must go through serious and tough hearings in the European Parliament,” the S&D group stated.

Hoekstra is likely to face a hearing before the European Parliament’s environment committee in September before MEPs confirm whether he will join the Commission.

The centre-left group has sought to put support for the EU’s Green Deal and climate change policies at the heart of its campaign ahead of next June’s, arguing that this portfolio, which was held by Timmermans, should remain in the hands of a centre-left member of the EU executive.  

While the Slovak former diplomat Maroš Šefčovič, who has been assigned to take over Timmermans’ role as Executive Vice-President for the European Green Deal, is from the centre-left family, a statement by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen indicated that the Climate Action Portfolio would be given to the new Dutch commissioner.

“Against the backdrop of the conservative EPP’s recent cynical and populist manoeuvres to water-down the Green Deal and derail key legislative files such as the nature restoration law, it is crucial for our Group that the climate portfolio remains in the hands of the Socialists and Democrats family,” the group stated.

[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]

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