Here’s the final schedule for commissioner hearings in November

The European Parliament on Thursday finalized the running order of its Q&A sessions with incoming EU commissioners after right-wing lawmakers won a political battle over the schedule.

At a closed-door meeting in Strasbourg, the leaders of the Parliament’s political factions opted to grill the six most senior commissioners, known as executive vice presidents, at the very end of the process on Nov. 12. The hearings will begin Nov. 4.

This was a win for the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), whose politicians dominate the roster of 26 commissioners (one from each member country, not including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen), and which stands to gain leverage by securing the bulk of its commissioners before members of the European Parliament turn to the six senior ones.

The Socialists’ parliamentary chief Iratxe García accused the EPP of breaking a firewall against cooperating with the far right. The Spanish MEP said that the EPP teamed up with the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), Patriots for Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations group to find a majority.

“What they demonstrate today is that the right and extreme right has a common position … this will have consequences for the hearing process,” she told reporters.

Pedro López, a spokesperson for the EPP group, said the only thing the Socialists were focused on was putting the hearing of Spain’s Teresa Ribera, the incoming powerful competition chief, first.

“We even made the concession that [Finland’s Henna] Virkkunen passes last. The idea behind the whole thing is that all the vice presidents and all the big groups have the evaluation together,” López said.

The right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists group co-chair Nicola Procaccini said: “We are happy … we appreciated the proposal from EPP to postpone the vice presidents [to] the end of the sequence. I think this is a fair proposal that we appreciate.”

On the morning of Nov. 12, there will be hearings for Italy’s Raffaele Fitto and Estonia’s Kaja Kallas; then in the afternoon, France’s Stéphane Séjourné and Romania’s Roxana Mînzatu will face MEPs. In the evening, Spain’s Ribera and Finland’s Virkkunen will have their turn.

No hearings will take place on Nov. 11, which is a public holiday in Belgium.