­Who aced (and flunked) the commissioner hearings? Here’s what our insiders have to say.

It’s showtime, baby!
Over the next week, the EU’s 26 wannabe commissioners will each face a three-hour grilling from the European Parliament’s specialist committees that will probe (in theory, at least) their credentials for overseeing EU policymaking.
While their success will partly be determined by political machinations beyond their control, the Parliament will also be poised to reject anyone who delivers a poor performance — and Brussels policy wonks will be watching closely for any hints of what the next five years have in store.
In one sense, the recipe for success is simple: Show off your language skills, be respectful to the Parliament, and above all don’t make any spending promises.
But it’s also a trial by fire for the commissioners-in-waiting, who’ve had seven weeks to beef up their understandings of the portfolios bestowed on them by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Will they be able to talk eloquently about the nitty-gritty of the issues on their patch, or will the Parliament’s lawmakers — many of whom have spent years deep in Europe’s policy weeds — expose major gaps in the candidates’ knowledge?
Here’s POLITICO’s snap insider take on how well each commissioner hopeful fared, which will be updated after each hearing.
Two-time Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius deployed humor, a raft of EU defense acronyms and real talk on Russia’s military ramp-up to get through his three-hour hearing in the European Parliament on Wednesday.
The vision he outlined, just hours after the victory of Donald Trump in Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election, was a stark one: Russia will spend more on defense in 2025 than the entire EU27, while the U.S. will inevitably be distracted by China and less concerned with European security.
That means it’s time for the EU to tool up, and quick.
In light of that threat environment, Kubilius urged that the EU budget be leveraged to spend more on defense, and that the bloc prefer cross-border, multicountry projects over purely national initiatives. Some €10 billion will be needed by 2028, he said, but only around €1.5 billion has been allocated in extra spending.
The EU and NATO, Kubilius warned, need to brace for Russia to test their “resolve” by the end of this decade by “ bringing a genuine European Defense Union to life.”
“Not to wage a war,” he cautioned, “but to maintain peace.”
To pay for it all, Kubilius told MEPs he expected “substantially larger spending lines for defense and space in the next [EU budget],” and said he was hopeful, after speaking with officials from the European Investment Bank (EIB), that “we can … open the door” for the EIB to invest in defense.
Kubilius’ space program, meanwhile, will be centered on boosting private rocket companies and finding ways to get more out of the bloc’s existing satellite programs.
Oh, and on trying humbly to get Elon Musk to comply with a coming EU Space Law that aims to set global rules of the road for orbit.
— Tom Nicholson and Joshua Posaner
EP committee verdict: Yes
Despite a sometimes tentative performance, Jozef Síkela received enough support from European lawmakers to be confirmed as the bloc’s next chief for development cooperation. The center-left S&D group said it would throw its weight behind him.
It was by no means a stellar hearing for the Czech politician, who displayed a shallow knowledge of development issues and sometimes struggled to find the right words to make his points. He also missed the mark in answering some of the most burning questions of lawmakers — for instance on the European Parliament’s involvement in the Global Gateway infrastructure initiative or on gender issues.
Síkela did shine when asked about money, funding and investments, thanks to his background in investment banking. A one-liner he repeated a few times summed up his pitch: “I was selected to turn the Global Gateway from a startup into a scale-up.”
He answered most questions in English, but clearly felt more comfortable speaking German whenever a German-speaking lawmaker threw him a query. To a single one, he responded in Czech.
A tricky moment for Síkela was on the European Union’s memorandum with Rwanda on building up sustainable supply chains for raw materials. Grilled by several French MEPs, he was told the deal is leading to smuggling from Rwanda’s war-torn neighbor, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In an awkward response to Green MEP Mounir Satouri, Síkela claimed “my level of information is not as dramatic as you told me.”
On how development funding can reduce irregular migration, Síkela balanced his answers between not committing to forcing fund-receiving countries to take their citizens back while acknowledging that the Global Gateway can help by boosting economic growth and giving people an economic future at home.
— Koen Verhelst
EP committee verdict: Yes
As the European Union faces increasing challenges from depleting fish stocks, fishing quota fights with the United Kingdom and dealing with Russia’s shadow fleet cruising along its waters despite sanctions, Costas Kadis promised MEPs he would steer a steady course through the storm.
The Cypriot commissioner-designate for fisheries and oceans did well in the three hour-long face-off with MEPs during his European Parliament hearing, proving he had expertise on some of the key issues that the fisheries committee is busy with.
Throughout the hearing, Kadis insisted on his commitment to supporting small-scale fishers amid international competition and valuing the role of fisheries and aquaculture in European food security. Kadis said he would work to “secure more support to this very important part of our sector,” emphasizing his academic background in conservation biology and experience as environment minister.
That’s not to say that the biologist by trade passed with flying colors. Kadis dodged several of the MEPs’ trickier questions, including on the revision of the strategy for the Baltic Sea and on whether the European Commission should revise the Common Fisheries Policy.
On the European Oceans Pact Kadis said it should remain soft law, something that didn’t go down well with S&D and Green MEPs in particular. He also left MEPs in the dark over whether they should expect more funding as part of the next budget. 
Overall, though, it was a decent performance from Cyprus’ bookish technocrat.
— Marianne Gros and Louise Guillot
EP committee verdict: Yes
Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib exceeded all expectations in her hearing, both in terms of performance as well as in terms of being at ease with her portfolio. 
Despite her controversial reputation in Belgium, she stayed calm and decisive during the entire hearing, fending off sensitive questions around her political past — whether it was the scandal around visas for Iranian officials or her visit to Crimea — in a politically savvy way.
During the 3.5-hour hearing, MEPs mostly focused on her equality portfolio, asking about gender equality, sexual reproductive health, abortion and women’s rights, but occasionally delved into preparedness, challenging the commissioner-designate on her plans to prepare Europe to face future crises. 
Through it all, Lahbib showed she had a clear grasp of her files and jumped from one question and topic to the next with ease, listing off various commitments and plans for her mandate as commissioner. 
The deliberate choice to answer all questions in her native French, in which she feels much more at ease, clearly helped her. Only her opening and closing statement was in (much-improved) English. After this hearing, the only way Lahbib wouldn’t sail through is if her assessment is politically linked to other hearings.
— Claudia Chiappa and Barbara Moens
EP committee verdict: Yes
Style-wise, Albuquerque sailed through Wednesday’s three-hour hearing, which happened to coincide with Donald Trump being confirmed the winner of the U.S. election. 
The political news from across the pond, however, did not fluster the former Portuguese finance minister. Albuquerque stayed focused throughout, handling technical questions without breaking a sweat while politely fending off provocative jibes about conflicts of interest. While she chose to speak mostly in English, demonstrating a good command of the language, she happily addressed questions from Portuguese colleagues in her native tongue. 
The slick performance enhanced her already good chances of being confirmed, even though a reluctance to be drawn on specific points of policy was duly noted.
Throughout the hearing, Albuquerque focused mostly on talking points already stressed in her mission letter and written replies to MEPs’ questions.
When pressed for specifics, she was evasive, deferring commitments on policy until her position was secure. She also repeatedly sidestepped questions about her tenure as finance minister in post-crisis Portugal, while downplaying concerns over her frequent shifts between public sector roles and the finance industry.
But it wasn’t all dodgeball. Albuquerque reassured the room she was open to various approaches to break through deadlocks currently plaguing the sector, among them on how to deepen the EU’s pool of private investment and how best to move ahead on establishing an EU insurance scheme for bank deposits.
She also provided some concrete thoughts on already-decided rules for banking and green finance, noting the EU should stay the course because it was important to focus on financial stability to avoid another economic crash.
Overall, the substance of the meeting set the scene for many of the conflicts that will define Albuquerque’s first months in the job. 
As largely expected, all parties voted in favor of the Portuguese nominee except the Left and the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations Group, according to two people in the room. 
Albuquerque will now be expected to offer concrete ideas about how to create a “savings and investments union” by getting savers investing and helping money to flow more easily within the bloc. She will also be under pressure to cut red tape across the industry, which is fed up with five years of dense rule-making by the outgoing Commission. Finally, she will need to decide whether to extend the EU’s recognition of U.K. clearing, in areas the EU still depends on the U.K. in what could prove a politically awkward post-Brexit hangover. 
Overall, a strong performance from Albuquerque — but the ghosts of her past, and the entrenched conflicts blocking the EU’s progress on finance issues, may still return to haunt her.
In his parting words to MEPs, Brunner said that he had been warned against the portfolio of migration and internal affairs as a “mission impossible” that is, at once, “politically, highly charged.” Clearly he took those warnings to heart, delivering a cautious and at times dull performance, revealing little to the assembled MEPs.
MEPs saw a commissioner-hopeful who knew what not to say — he didn’t slam Meloni’s plan to detain asylum seekers in Albania — but he didn’t give lawmakers much to get excited about, even when pressed. His safe performance served him well, as enough political groups’ whips waved through his appointment.
Brunner did commit to a new deportations directive, but told lawmakers they should not expect a proposal before June 2025 and after broad consultations with stakeholders. He also pledged that, as a guardian of the treaty, he’d trigger “necessary proceedings” if countries don’t implement the asylum and migration pact. And he repeatedly said he’d insist on an approach that’s “fair and firm” (without ever explaining how.)
Faced by several questions on whether he would support EU cash to finance physical barriers in the bloc’s external borders, Brunner said that “physical infrastructure such as fences and walls could be financed by European funding, in terms of legality. But we do not have funds in place for now.” However, he vowed to have funding for border management “reflected” in the next EU budget.
He paid homage to the importance of boosting the EU’s internal security but, despite frequent prodding by lawmakers, he wouldn’t take a strong stance against EU countries that have reinstated checks on borders in the free-travel zone — that list includes his own country, Austria.
He also dodged questions on search-and-rescue operations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Hamas and anti-Christian hatred.
Brunner did commit to launch a new strategy for internal security, an action plan against drug trafficking and a port strategy, and enhancing Europol capacities.
Sweden’s Jessika Roswall doesn’t have the longest track record in environmental policymaking – and that showed during the hearing.
The Commissioner-designate for the environment, water and the circular economy faced tough questions on virtually every single topic relevant to her extensive portfolio: From encouraging farmers to decarbonise their business and protect biodiversity, to harmonizing EU countries’s management of waste to create a single market for secondary materials. In light of the disastrous floods that hit Valencia, Spain last week, the Commissioner-designate was grilled on her plans to make sure the EU would be better prepared for increasingly frequent climate events in the future, flood risk, and water scarcity.
Just as she had done in her written answers to MEP questions, Roswall tried to thread the needle between lawmakers asking for an unwavering defender of the EU’s green agenda, and those who want her to protect European businesses at all cost. “A competitive economy and a clean transition goes hand in hand,” Roswall said.
But overall, the 51-year old lawyer-by-trade gave a disappointing performance. Appearing less and less confident as the hearings went on, Roswall was repeatedly dodging specific questions from MEPs on whether she would back the creation of a new biodiversity funds, which product groups would be covered by the Ecodesign regulation, or when MEPs could expect a timeframe for her proposed ban on PFAS in consumer products.
MEPs were not impressed.
No stranger to the European Parliament after serving as an MEP for almost a decade, Dan Jørgensen clearly knew how to please the crowd. The Danish commissioner-designate cleanly navigated difficult questions on affordable housing, energy costs and renewables during his hearing — while getting a healthy dose of laughs from MEPs.
Jørgensen faces a mammoth task: bringing down the European Union’s energy prices, a core plank of the bloc’s plans to remain competitive vis-à-vis the United States and China. To do that, he said he’d focus on more renewables and energy efficiency, better grid infrastructure, increased digitalization, faster permitting and homing in on new technologies like carbon capture and green hydrogen.
Still, there was one area where the former Danish climate minister struggled to please everyone: nuclear power. While remaining calm and charismatic, Jørgensen repeatedly refused to throw his support behind atomic energy in a move that did not please pro-nuclear lawmakers. He repeatedly poured cold water over the idea of pumping EU cash into new nuclear projects and cast doubt over the imminent rollout of advanced small-scale reactors, called SMRs.
He also remained wishy-washy at times, refusing to give details or timelines on overhauling EU state aid rules, phasing out Russian energy and where exactly he will find the much-needed euros to enact his ambitious agenda.
But hey, at least he brought entertainment. Facing pressure from French MEP Christophe Grudler for not being pro-nuclear enough and German MEP Jutta Paulus for being too favorable to nuclear, he asked Paulus: “May I suggest you go into a room with Mr. Grudler and sort this out?”
The 67-year-old Croatian center-right politician was clearly pursuing a no-risk strategy as she aimed to do just enough to get lawmakers’ approval for a second term in the European Commission.
Questions about Israel’s war in Gaza and migration dominated proceedings, with Šuica repeatedly asked to condemn Israel’s actions or take action by suspending an European Union-Israel trade agreement.
But Šuica stuck to the narrow tram tracks set out in the instructions she received from Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and toughed out the entire three-hour hearing without wavering from her center-right European People’s Party’s typical stance on the Middle East conflict: Namely, calling for a two-state solution, describing the Oct. 7 attacks as “unjustifiable,” and deploring the humanitarian situation in Gaza while refraining from laying blame at Israel’s door.
She promised to keep funding the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority.
Her new Mediterranean portfolio appears to be full of old intractable problems, not just on the Middle East but also on migration, something the EU is taking a tougher line on.
Here, she sketched out a desire to strike new “comprehensive partnerships” with Jordan, Morocco and other countries in the image of deals struck with Tunisia and Egypt. MEPs appeared to win some concessions from her to scrutinize the often lackluster human rights dimensions of these deals.
This was a solid performance before European lawmakers with no slip-ups or signs of misunderstanding.
It delivered exactly what you’d expect from an aspiring democracy chief: numerous mentions of EU treaties and fundamental rights; a firm “political will” to challenge member states weakening rule of law; a promise to avoid “double standards”; and a clear commitment to uphold the primacy of EU law.
McGrath’s priorities included enforcing the bloc’s new media freedom rulebook and the upcoming Digital Fairness Act to tackle social media’s addictive “business models” that can harm children online. And he pushed back on the idea that the General Data Protection Regulation harms innovation, saying that the EU can enjoy high standards and benefit from new tech.
Zaharieva’s strategy to survive her hearing was clear: Pick a couple of priorities that would resonate well with lawmakers and double down on them. 
Within the first hour, Zaharieva managed to clearly convey two of her main talking points: to simplify and cut red tape in Horizon Europe, the EU’s main research funding program, and to push EU countries to finally reach their target of spending 3 percent of GDP on research and innovation. 
It made for a strong first 60 minutes. Lawmakers have long called for both of these things, so Zaharieva was telling them all they wanted to hear. The only dissent was Left lawmaker Per Clausen, who pressed Zaharieva on EU research funding for Israel — but she managed to avoid controversy. 
After that, it fell a bit flat. 
Zaharieva kept repeating the same lines, on simplification in particular, without ever really going into detail. But lawmakers also seemed to run out of steam, refraining from pushing her to give more details. Once she was called out for dodging a question. Some major policy files promised by Ursula von der Leyen and falling under Zaharieva’s remit — such as the long anticipated but still mysterious life sciences strategy, comprising new legislation to support biotech development — were largely omitted from the discussions.
Greek politician Apostolos Tzitzikostas maneuvered his commissioner hearing like a seasoned veteran, deftly reminding the transport chair of his speaking time, addressing potential conflicts of interest head on and even navigating multiple interruptions from protesting MEPs.
The 56-year-old economist appeared well informed, with eloquent responses and occasional quips, though his answers largely lacked detail — even after multiple questions probed him for specifics.
The crisis surrounding the automotive sector took up a large chunk of the session, but automakers hoping to find an ally to reverse legislation mandating 100 percent zero-emission vehicles by 2035 left disappointed. Carmakers have had plenty of notice, he said, and the legislation creates certainty for the sector. The European People’s Party, however, received its desired commitment on an exception to the law for e-fuels.
TRAN Committee Chair Eliza Vozemberg, a fellow Greek, presided over the hearings, showing just how much control the Southern European country will have over the transport portfolio — and the potential conflicts of interest. On two separate occasions, lawmakers disrupted the proceedings to protest Tzitzikostas’ nomination.
The 2023 train crash in Greece that left 57 people dead loomed over the proceedings, but Tzitzikostas didn’t shy away from the controversy, instead preemptively bringing it up during his opening remarks. But his repeated insistence that safety will be his number one concern did little to quell questions of how he would handle a potential infringement case over the rail tragedy.
Luxembourg’s Christophe Hansen had a truly impressive hearing, at various moments brain-wrinklingly interesting, gut-wrenchingly funny, and heart-breakingly sad. The 42-year-old won a half dozen rounds of applause during the session as he deftly addressed tricky policy problems and personalities. 
After a polarizing year for EU agriculture, the MEP could’ve fallen foul of several issues. The Socialists were grumpy that their Spitzenkandidat, Nicolas Schmit, hadn’t got Luxembourg’s nomination. He chose to ignore the Patriots and ESN folk in his pre-hearing lobbying. And as its rapporteur in ENVI, he’s tied to the increasingly controversial (now-delayed) deforestation law. 
But it all went swimmingly. Hansen stuck to the center on most issues, promising fair pricing for farmers, environmental mirror clauses on agrifood imports, and generational renewal in farming. He veered conservative on some issues, refusing to legislate on Europeans’ meat consumption, downplaying the scale of livestock emissions, and criticizing the idea of an agri-emissions trading system, or ETS. 
He leaned progressive on others, defending his deforestation law, hinting that farmers’ fears over Ukraine’s accession were overblown, and even coming out in favor of the EU-Mercosur free trade deal (a near-taboo in agrifood circles).