MEPs have elected Italian social democrat Antonio Decaro as chair of the European Parliament’s influential committee on environment, public health and food safety (ENVI), while the far-right was denied a vice-chair position by a member of the new Hungarian opposition.

Decaro, mayor of the Italian port city of Bari for ten years before being elected as an MEP on 9 June, stood unopposed following back-room horse trading that saw the main political groups divvy up committee chairs between themselves in proportion to the size of their groups.

The far-right Patriots for Europe (PfE) group was denied the last of four vice-chair positions after the EPP’s coordinator for the ENVI committee, as it is known – German MEP Peter Liese – put forward Hungarian doctor András Kulja, who was backed by 64 members in a secret vote.

Kulja is one of seven MEPs elected on the list of the new Freedom and Respect (Tisza Party) set up by a former insider from Hungarian premier Orban’s right-wing Fidesz, which ran in the June EU election in opposition to the party that has ruled Hungary since 2010.

Jorge Buxadé Villalba, of Spain’s Vox party, launched a tirade against the committee after winning only 24 votes, accusing centrist groups of “circumventing” rules that would normally allocate chairs in proportion to group size. PfE, the brainchild of Hungarian premier Viktor Orban, is third largest group in the Parliament.

“You do not represent the real Europe of ideological freedom, of freedom of expression, of science,” Buxadé said after telling MEPs who tried to interrupt him to “shut up”.

The Greens, liberal Renew Europe and Socialists & Democrats tried to block the appointment of Pietro Fiocchi, who as a member of Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party sits with the eurosceptic ECR group, by forcing a secret ballot.

Fiocchi took the second vice-chair position by 52 votes to 25, with 12 abstentions, after Liese signalled his support by raising his hand during the vote. The first vice-chair went unopposed to the EPP’s candidate Esther Herranz Garcia, while the Left group’s Anja Hazekamp similarly took the third vice-chair by acclamation.

Decaro declaring himself honoured to be asked to chair in his first term as an MEP one of “the most important committees in the European Parliament”, one whose legislative work would have implications for “the entire world”.

“It’s the future of our continent that’s at stake right now,” the Italian lawmaker said, adding that the committee’s work on public health and, indirectly, food security, were also “very important”.

Heavyweights

Veteran MEP Liese, as coordinator for the EPP, is influential in setting the agenda on environment and health policy legislation for the largest political group in the joint largest committee in the parliament. The role of coordinator is in some ways more influential than the largely administrative committee chair positions.

ENVI counts several other political heavyweights among its ranks.

Lithuanian social democrat Vytenis Andriukaitis – who was EU health and food safety commissioner under former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker between 2014 and 2019 and, like Liese and Kulja, has a background in medicine – is also the S&D’s coordinator for the subcommittee on public health (SANT). German lawmaker Tiemo Wölken is the S&D’s coordinator for ENVI proper.

French lawmaker Pascal Canfin is now Renew Europe’s ENVI coordinator, having chaired the committee for the past five years. Czech MEP Alexandr Vondra is the ECR’s coordinator, while Czech Ondřej Knotek holds that position for the Patriots, and Swede Jonas Sjöstedt will coordinate the Left group’s work on the committee.

Among other prominent committee members are the German Green Jutta Paulus, whose background is in chemistry and pharmacology, who returns for a second, consecutive term as MEP, and Dutch liberal Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, who sat on the ENVI committee between 2009 and 2019, partly as a vice-chair, and has now returned for a third term as an MEP.

The ENVI committee will reconvene on 4 September, when legislative work will resume. Among key policy files that await it in the coming months and year are a proposal for a new emissions reduction target for 2040. Freshly re-appointed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has pledged to propose a cut of 90% compared to 1990.