
Hearings of the Commissioners
The European Parliament publishes a summary of commitments made.
HS – 01/2025
The European Parliament has published a comprehensive briefing that
summarises all the statements and commitments made by the members of the College
of Commissioners in their written answers and hearings. The briefing is sorted
thematically, and it has been prepared to support the European Parliament's
scrutiny of the European Commission during the 2024-2029 term of office. It
will also act as the basis for the committees' annual structured dialogue with
the Commission.
Executive Vice-President Roxana Mînzatu
Roxana Mînzatu is responsible for social rights and skills, quality
jobs and preparedness. She has addressed a wide range of issues in her written
answers and hearing, among them social dialogue, skills, education and youth as
well as gender equality. Among other things, she promised to visit all Member States
in order to jointly develop a new action plan for implementing the European
Pillar of Social Rights. With regard to the roadmap for high-quality jobs, she
will launch a second phase of consultations with the social partners as soon as
she assumes office to produce an initiative on the right to disconnect. She
also pledged to work towards further integration of the social convergence
framework into the European Semester and to focus on social investment and
reforms.
Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi
The Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare promised among other
things to tackle the huge risks from antimicrobial resistance and achieve the
2030 targets through the One Health approach, update the list of critical
medicines and quickly propose a Critical Medicines Act. He also pledged to
create a pragmatic approach for orphan devices during the first quarter of 2025
as part of the revision of the Medical Devices Regulation. The European Health
Union should be completed, and the quality, resilience, safety and
sustainability of healthcare systems should be promoted.
Commissioner Hadja Lahbib
Hadja Lahbib is responsible for preparedness and crisis management
as well as gender equality. She has pledged to work on developing a new
strategy to support medical procedures to combat threats to public health. The
Commission will also adopt an EU health crisis and pandemic plan within the
first few months, which will be updated regularly, and which will ensure
cooperation between Member States in preventing and responding to serious
cross-border health threats. There is nothing in the European Parliament's
briefing on Lahbib’s responsibility for HERA or sexual and reproductive health,
as these responsibilities were only transferred to her after the hearing
process.
Other commissioners
Other Commissioners relevant to social security include Stéphane
Séjourné (whose responsibilities include simplifying REACH and providing
clarity regarding PFAS), Henna Virkkunen (whose responsibilities include the
public digital infrastructure and the EU Wallet) and Valdis Dombrovskis (whose
responsibilities include the European Semester). Their commitments can also be
found in the briefing.