New portfolio for Slovak EU Commisioner

European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen has proposed the trade and economic security portfolio for Slovak EU commissioner Maros Sefcovic in the new EU executive.

Sefcovic will also retain his inter-institutional relations and transparency portfolio, von der Leyen announced in Strasbourg on Tuesday.

The EC president described the new portfolio for trade and economic security as a strong one, with EU customs policy falling under it as well. However, she hasn't proposed the Slovak EU commissioner as an executive vice-president, a post that he occupied in the EC in the previous term.

Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) congratulated Sefcovic on his new portfolio.  Fico considers this outcome an unqualified success for the Slovak Euro-commissioner. "The President of the European Commission had no choice but to acknowledge the experience and qualities of Maros Sefcovic, which is why she has entrusted this portfolio to him, a portfolio we find essential and also quite important for the Slovak Republic," underlined Fico.

Sefcovic has been an EC member since October 2009, when he replaced the first Slovak EU commissioner Jan Figel, who was in charge of education. This was during the first term of then EC chief Jose Manuel Barroso. During Barroso's second term, Sefcovic became EC vice-president in charge of inter-institutional relations.

The current Slovak EU commissioner has served under three EC presidents. In addition to Ursula von der Leyen and Barroso, this includes Jean-Claude Juncker, under whom he was in charge of building the energy union. During this period, the EU went through two major financial crises, Brexit, the coronavirus pandemic and the outbreak of Russia's war against Ukraine with the subsequent rise in energy prices.

In the past couple of years, Sefcovic was in charge of the EU's post-Brexit relations with the United Kingdom, the European Battery Alliance and relations with Switzerland and smaller non-EU countries in Western Europe. He has also been responsible for joint gas purchases as part of the EU's response to the energy crisis following the outbreak of war in Ukraine.

Last October, von der Leyen also entrusted him with overseeing the implementation of the European Green Deal, one of the main initiatives of the current European Commission, which he took over from former EC vice-president Frans Timmermans.

Source: TASR