Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, announced her new team on Tuesday to lead the European Union’s executive arm, capping a difficult process as she navigates the rise of nationalist, far-right political forces and Europe’s shrinking share of the global economy.
Ms. von der Leyen assigned top positions to leaders including Stéphane Séjourné of France, Spain’s Teresa Ribera and Italy’s Raffaele Fitto, solidifying the influential role that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, whose party has long been skeptical of the E.U., plays in determining European policymaking.
“The only guiding star is the European interest,” Ms. von der Leyen said on Tuesday, speaking from the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
Mr. Séjourne will oversee industrial strategy, Ms. Ribera will be in charge of competition policy and the transition to a cleaner economy, and Mr. Fitto of Italy will take control of issues involving the European Union’s single market, the zone where European goods and services can flow without internal borders.
The European Commission has 27 commissioners, with one for each member state. The commissioners act much like national ministers and shape policy affecting E.U. member countries in areas including health, economy and trade for the bloc. The proposed appointments require approval from the European Parliament, a process that is expected to take weeks.
In her second term, Ms. von der Leyen must balance her priorities in office — providing support to Ukraine, bolstering European defense and reshaping the economy so the bloc it can better compete with the United States and China — while presiding over a continent that has titled to the right and is skeptical of concentrating more power in Brussels.
About 40 percent of the commissioners, or 11 commissioners, were women, up significantly from what members states originally proposed. Ms. von der Leyen said she worked intensely with member states to boost the representation of women.
“It shows that as much as we have achieved, there is still so much more work to do,” she said. Of the six vice presidents, four are women.
Piotr Serafin of Poland received the crucial budget portfolio, and Magnus Brunner of Austria will oversee migration. Andrius Kubilius of Lithuania will head the newly created portfolio of defense.
Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, said Ms. von der Leyen had sent a clear signal by putting leaders from Baltic countries, which have taken a hard line against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, in charge of foreign and security policies. He also said that she had assigned a number of commissioners portfolios that were overlapping, which could be problematic.
“I worry that the number of double portfolios will require a very large amount of coordination that may end up taking a lot of time,” Mr. Kirkegaard said. “She is notorious for having run a very top-down commission. When you set up a lot of overlapping portfolios, who is to adjudicate between turf wars? Obviously the president.”
Ms. von der Leyen, a conservative Germany politician, was elected in July to lead the European Commission for a second five-year term, with the backing of greens and liberals. Representatives from nationalist parties, including those aligned with Ms. Meloni, voted against her.
She narrowly won enough backing after elections for the European Parliament in June rewarded centrist conservatives but also increased support for nationalist political groupings farther on the right.
Ms. Meloni, who was the only leader of a major Western European country whose party made significant gains in the June vote, has positioned herself as a bridge between centrists and the far right. Her support remains critical to Ms. von der Leyen.
Ms. von der Leyen also faces the risk that her native Germany, as well as France, the two biggest economies in the European Union, will be consumed by domestic political fissures as nationalist and hard right parties gain.
This may mean Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France have less bandwidth to fight for initiatives that are central to Ms. von der Leyen’s agenda and require increased collaboration between member countries, such as defense.
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