Respekt | The European elections are over. Czechia is awaiting the nomination of a European Commissioner

Who will become the new Commissioner for the Czech Republic? And what topics should we focus on? According to the Deputy Director of EUROPEUM Institute Viktor Daněk, it is necessary to abandon the idea of a strong economic portfolio in the next European Commission. Instead, we should focus on gaining influence and respect through other areas, he commented for the weekly Respekt.

First of all, we should abandon the mantra of a strong economic portfolio. While it would be great if someone from the Czech Republic in the next Commission would steer the promised turn to competitiveness or grease the skids of trade policy, it is unlikely to happen. And we are also hampered by a handicap - we are not familiar with the euro. But we need not hang our heads. Věra Jourová has shown that influence and respect can be earned even without an economic portfolio. We could, for example, build on her work on digitalisation. Even more interesting to me is the suggestion to focus on the climate or the environment. This will continue to be a key topic, and the Czech Commissioner could also speak in related economic areas, and perhaps we could learn something ourselves.

You can find Viktor Daňek's commentary here.

Viktor Daněk
Deputy Director

Before entering the NGO sphere, Viktor Daněk worked for almost ten years as a journalist. During his time with the public service Czech radio, he focused mainly on covering EU affairs. He spent almost five years as a permanent correspondent in Brussels, where he cooperated with other media outlets. Before his career in journalism, he gained experience in the area of marketing and communication in the Česká spořitelna banking group and at the Czech Technical University in Prague. He holds university degrees in Media Studies and International Relations. Viktor Daněk joined the EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy in October 2023. He continues to be active in the media as a freelancer. His main areas of interest are institutional questions of European integration, globalisation and the EU’s climate and migration policy.