On 17 September 2024, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented her second-term priorities and commissioner lineup. The Commissioners-designate are nominated by each EU Member State. Ms Von der Leyen assigns them their roles in her cabinet. Each must now face questioning by MEPs in hearings before the relevant parliamentary committee in the European Parliament. From that stage, the College as a whole must be voted on by the plenary.

Key appointments include Austrian candidate Magnus Brunner as Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration. In her press statement, Ursula von der Leyen underlined that he would focus on the implementation of the Pact on Asylum and Migration – but also on strengthening EU's borders and developing a new internal security strategy. More in detail in her mission letter, Ms von der Leyen inter alia tasked Mr Brunner to:

• achieve stronger common borders, inter alia by promoting integrated border management and overseeing the strengthening of Frontex, ensuring a fully functional European digital border management and overseeing the start of operations of the new interoperable IT architecture, responding to hybrid attacks and the instrumentalisation of migrants at the EU's external borders, developing an EU visa policy strategy and implementing recent improvements to the Schengen framework.
   
• stand fair and firm on migration, inter alia by overseeing the implementation of the Pact on Migration and Asylum, developing a new common approach on the return of irregularly staying migrants, leading the work in the fight against smugglers and people traffickers, stepping up enforcement and, when necessary, reviewing the rules on preventing exploitation of workers irregularly staying in Europe, working on stronger coordination of rescue operations, steering further reflections on innovative operational solutions to counter irregular migration, working on the external aspects of migration, ensuring real and viable legal pathways for refugees and working on legal migration to attract people with the right skills to match local labour market needs. 

In her mission as Commissioner for the Mediterranean, Dubravka Šuica has been entrusted with leading a new, dedicated portfolio that centres the Mediterranean within the European Commission’s agenda for 2024-2029. In her mission letter, Ursula von der Leyen inter alia tasks her with leading the work on the New Pact for the Mediterranean.

All the would-be commissioners still need approval from the European Parliament. Hearings are set to start in Brussels in the coming weeks.

For further information, please visit the website of the European Commission. You can also watch the press conference by President von der Leyen on the next college of Commissioners.