How a political hostage deal saved 2 commissioners’ jobs

The European Parliament approved Belgian and Swedish commissioner-hopefuls Hadja Lahbib and Jessika Roswall on Wednesday — but only after significant backroom horse-trading.
The green light for Lahbib and Roswall was part of a deal between the European People’s Party, the Renew group and the Socialists & Democrats, four lawmakers and four staffers told POLITICO.
It came after the EPP’s Roswall flunked her parliamentary hearing, putting in a disappointing performance as she attempted to convince MEPs that despite her lack of experience in environmental policymaking, she had the chops to become the bloc’s environment commissioner. Lahbib, from the liberal Renew group, performed well in her own hearing, but was on shaky ground going into it due to her controversial reputation in Belgium and a series of gaffes.
With both the liberals and the EPP determined to protect their commissioner-hopefuls, they resorted to a strategy of mutually assured destruction: The EPP would only approve Renew’s Lahbib if the liberals cleared Roswall.
“Obviously, the two negotiations for the two commissioners were connected, and it was not possible for us to agree on Roswall without having EPP agreeing on Lahbib and vice versa,” lead Renew MEP Pascal Canfin, who was involved in the negotiations, told reporters after the talks.
But there was more to the deal than just the commissioner quid-pro-quo.
In a meeting on Wednesday, S&D chief Iratxe García, Renew boss Valérie Hayer and EPP President Manfred Weber used the Lahbib-Roswall stalemate to agree on the competences of the health committee — which the Parliament wants to upgrade from a sub-committee to a fully fledged one, Canfin and others confirmed.
Despite a political agreement in July to upgrade the committee’s status, implementation had stalled as political groups couldn’t agree on which responsibilities to keep within the environment committee’s remit, and which ones to pass on to health.
Per Wednesday’s multi-layered deal, the health committee will assume responsibility for everything related to public health policies such as health systems, tobacco, pharmaceutical policy and medical devices, while environment will keep food safety, pesticides, environmental health and air quality, Canfin said.
The agreement was a major win for the S&D, which had feared the health committee might encroach onto the territory of the environment committee — chaired by one of its own, according to an MEP who spoke on condition of anonymity.
At first, lawmakers wanted to include as part of the package deal a decision on new amendments from the EPP on the EU’s deforestation regulation ahead of next week’s voting session in the European Parliament, several MEPs indicated. But ultimately, “it was agreed that it will be out of the scope of the discussion,” Canfin said. 
Roswall’s hearing on Tuesday left many lawmakers disappointed with the Swede’s failure to provide detailed answers. Some groups initially wanted to send Roswall additional questions to answer. Eventually, Roswall’s evaluation meeting was postponed to Wednesday at 2:30 p.m.
Despite Lahbib putting in a good performance during her own hearing on Wednesday, rumors started swirling that the EPP would hold the liberal nominee hostage to Roswall’s approval. An EPP spokesman explained the group wasn’t happy with Lahbib, as she “was looking for an ideological agenda rather than common EU interest.”
As Lahbib’s evaluation meeting neared, political groups decided to postpone the meeting from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. to match the timing of Roswall’s, effectively interlinking their outcomes.
Additional reporting by Eddy Wax and Barbara Moens.