By Brian Beary, Washington Correspondent for Europolitics
The upset in the European Parliament hearings on the new EU Commissioner-designates was its outright rejection of Slovenia’s nominee, former Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek. After giving a poor performance during her three-hour grilling on October 6 for the energy union portfolio, Bratusek lost the parliamentary committee vote two days later by an embarrassingly large margin: 13 votes for, 112 against. She refused to go quietly, venting anger at what she felt was a setup and being especially bitter that many fellow Slovenians threw her to the wolves as she saw it. But ultimately resignation was her only option. Slovenia moved swiftly to nominate Violeta Bulc, a recently-appointed minister, to replace her.