By Francesca Ross - 10th July 2009
Details of which MEPs are likely to chair parliament's new committees are beginning to surface ahead of next week's Strasbourg plenary session.
According to sources in Brussels, EPP member Mario Mauro, who was thought to be among the favourite candidates for the parliament's presidency, will take on the influential foreign affairs role, and economic and monetary affairs is likely to go to British Liberal Sharon Bowles.
French Green Eva Joly is said to have been lined up for development, Portuguese Socialist Antonio Correia de Campos will take international trade and the figurehead of last year's parliamentary reforms EPP veteran Alain Lamassoure will take budgets.
French Socialist Pervenche Berès is expected to move from her current economic and monetary affairs role to the employment and social affairs committee, though her countryman Harlem Désir is also being touted for the role. Italian Liberal Luigi de Magistris is poised to take budgetary control, say Brussels rumours.
If the buzz is to be believed the former head of constitutional affairs and veteran German Socialist Jo Leinen may take a side step to environment, public health and food safety.
Socialist Brit Brian Simpson is said to be readying himself to take on transport and tourism and German right-winger Doris Pack should stay at the helm of culture, says the Brussels grapevine.
Klaus-Heiner Lehne, from the German Conservative delegation is believed to be headed for legal affairs and Spanish Socialist Fernando Lopez Aguilar is thought to want to take the role of head of the civil liberties committee.
Sweden's Eva-Britt Svensson may take the women right's committee say murmurs from the parliament, and either Herbert Reul or Christian Ehler (both German right-wingers) may take the helm of industry, research and energy.
Other possible appointments include former commissioner Danuta Hübner as head of the regional development committee, though she told this website on Thursday that it is still uncertain she will take her seat.
The agriculture, fisheries, constitutional affairs and petitions committees have been allocated according to political groupings, but no clear candidates are yet being mooted, say sources.
Negotiations for all of these roles are still ongoing, and nothing will be confirmed until the committees hold their constituent meetings on 16 July in Strasbourg and 20 July in Brussels.
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