Mimica: EPP Group will vote in favour of Mimica after receiving assurances on concrete proposals

"After receiving a letter with additional commitments on three issues, namely his political priorities on the implementation of consumer protection legislation, the funding of the Online Dispute Resolution tool, and his views on the legislative proposals on medical devices, the EPP Group will vote in favour of investing Neven Mimica as the first Croatian Member of the European Commission”, said Andreas Schwab MEP, EPP Group Spokesman in the Internal Market Committee.

After the 3-hour question and answer session in the hearing on 4 June, the EPP Group felt that more political commitment was needed to make sure that the new Commissioner, with his newly-designed portfolio, could play a leading role for consumer empowerment in the European Commission in future.

"We are very satisfied with the openness and diligence that Mr Mimica showed towards the Parliament in dealing with the additional information requested", said Andreas Schwab, Spokesman on the Single Market.

“In his letter, Mr Mimica laid down clear implementation priorities, notably regarding the Directive on unfair commercial practices that was adopted back in 2005 but is still not implemented in all EU countries."

“Mr Mimica also made some concrete proposals on securing the €8.5 million financing for the multilingual Online Dispute Resolution tool and we will follow that issue closely”, continued Schwab. "We are ready to stand with Commissioner-Designate Mimica in order to make sure that EU laws are enforced equally all over Europe!"

Peter Liese MEP, EPP Group Coordinator in the Environment Committee, said: “The Medical Devices Directive needs to be agreed in the mandate of this Commission. We have received sufficient assurances that Mr Mimica will seek the necessary compromises with this House. We were particularly pleased to see that the Commissioner-Designate does not support pre-market authorisation for medical devices.”

“We look forward to working with the future Commissioner Neven Mimica for the next year,” concluded both EPP Group Members.

The European Parliament will vote on the appointment of Mr Mimica tomorrow, Wednesday 12 June.