The committees in the European Parliament are being constituted from today. At least the chair and the first deputy must be elected. Three further deputies can be elected later. It has been decided that at least one woman will be appointed as chair or first vice-chair.

The firewall will also be raised: The chairmanship of the Culture Committee and the Transport Committee, which, according to D’Hondt, belongs to the radical right-wing Patriots for Europe Group, will be taken away from it and will go to the Greens (CULT) and the EPP (TRAN). Nela Riehl from Germany, who is new to Parliament and belongs to Volt, becomes chair of CULT. The chairmanship of TRAN goes to Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi. The Italian Antonio Decaro (S&D) is to head the ENVI, while Bogdan Rzonca (EKR) from Poland is to head the Petitions Committee. It remains to be seen whether the PiS politician will get a majority. Who is a member of which committee was decided in plenary on Friday.

The German CDU/CSU group will have three chairmen: David McAllister will again head the Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET), Sven Simon will be head of the Constitutional Committee AFCO, Niclas Herbst will be head of the Audit Committee CONT. The first deputies will be Monika Hohlmeier (CSU) on the Budget Committee BUDG, Christian Doleschal (CSU) on the Internal Market Committee IMCO and Marion Walsmann on the Legal Affairs Committee JURI. The second deputies are Norbert Lins on the Agriculture Committee AGRI, Hildegard Bentele on the Development Committee DEVE.