| Most of the commissioner-designate hearings are now officially over after another intensive day in the European Parliament. Slovenia's Enlargement commissioner-designate Marta Kos convinced MEPs to greenlight her despite her native EPP party's accusations that she had worked for the Yugoslav secret service in the early stages of her career. Poland's Piotr Serafin won Commission budget job after pledging to end EU spending ‘bureaucratic nightmare, promising not to repeat mistakes of the Recovery and Resilience Facility. Latvian Economy commissioner-designate Valdis Dombrovskis' vigorous defence of the EU’s new fiscal rules proved convincing enough to earn him a third term as the EU executive. Dutch climate commissioner candidate Wopke Hoekstra, was approved but avoided committing to climate targets during his hearing, repeatedly pointing to the limited powers of the commissioner's role. Meanwhile, Socialist MEPs are under pressure to approve Hungarian commissioner-designate Olivér Várhelyi (PfE) following talks with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, multiple European Parliament sources told Euractiv. Coming out of his hearing on Wednesday evening, Várhelyi had not convinced a sufficient number of lawmakers to approve him for the job of commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare. MEPs elected to send him additional written questions, which will be done next Monday (11 November). That concludes this week's hearings saga, but fret not, next Tuesday (12 November) it will be the turn of Italy's Raffaele Fitto (Cohesion and Reforms), Estonia's Kaja Kallas (HRVP), Roxana Mînzatu (People, Skills and Preparedness), France's Stéphane Séjourné (Prosperity and Industrial Strategy), Spain's Teresa Ribera (Clean, Just and Competitive Transition) and Finland's Henna Virkkunen (Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy) to face the European Parliament. | 