European Parliament approval of the new European Commission appears to be on track for the February 9 2010 plenary vote, with 25 of 26 candidate Commissioners getting the all-clear and with no obstacle expected to Bulgaria’s Kristalina Georgieva getting the nod.
 
Georgieva was scheduled to meet European Commission President Jose Barroso on January 21, two days after she was named as Bulgaria’s new Commissioner-designate.
 
Barroso has confirmed that Georgieva, who will move from being a World Bank vice-president, will be European Commissioner for International Co-operation, Humanitarian Aid and Emergency Response. Her confirmation hearing in front of the European Parliament's development committee has been scheduled for February 3.
 
On January 21, European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek said that committees who had held hearings of the other 25 candidate Commissioners had agreed to approve all of them.
 
The February 9 vote, postponed from the initially planned date of January 26 because of problems with Bulgaria’s previous candidate, will see MEPs asked to vote to approve the Commission as a whole.
 
It is expected that the "Barroso II" Commission, so named because it is the EC President’s second term of office, will be sworn in on February 10, a day before a crucial special meeting of EU heads of state and government that is scheduled to discuss pressing issues from economic recovery to the crisis in Haiti, the latter certain to be a priority issue for the EU’s new Commission in charge of humanitarian aid.