The Bureau of the European Parliament appointed Alessandro Chiocchetti as the institution’s new Secretary General.
The newly appointed Secretary General will take up his functions on 1 January 2023.
The appointment follows the decision of the Bureau in June 2022 to accept incumbent Secretary General Klaus Welle’s wish to retire by the end of 2022.
According the European Parliament’s Rules of Procedure the Bureau appoints the Secretary General.
The process allowed for the Members of the Bureau to hear four different candidates and ask questions. After careful deliberations, the Bureau decided with a very large majority to appoint Chiocchetti as Secretary General of the European Parliament.
The Secretary-General is the European Parliament’s most senior official.
Chiocchetti is a long-standing civil servant of the Parliament. He is currently the Head of the Cabinet of the President. Before taking up this post he was Director for Legislative and Committees’ Coordination in the Directorate-General for Internal Policies of the Union. He has previously served as Deputy Head of Cabinet for the President and Cabinet member for two Secretary-Generals.
The European Parliament’s Bureau consists of the President and the 14 Vice-Presidents of the Parliament. It is chaired by the President. The five Quaestors are members of the Bureau in an advisory capacity. The Bureau takes financial, organisational and administrative decisions on matters concerning the internal organisation of Parliament, its Secretariat and its bodies.
The S&D members of the European Parliament’s Bureau has requested the postponement of the nomination of the new secretary general of the European Parliament so that “proper” hearings of the candidates to the post could be organised.
However, a majority of members of the Bureau rejected this proposal.
The president of the Socialists and Democrats, Iratxe García MEP, said: “Our Group does not agree with this procedure to nominate the new Secretary General as decided today in the Bureau meeting. This is an unjustified fast-track procedure which seriously damages the image of the institution, even though there is enough time to replace the current Secretary General until the end of the year. I deeply regret that our proposal for a postponement of this decision was rejected. The fast-track procedure did not allow for proper hearings to be organised and full transparency to be ensured regarding the most relevant post of our Administration.
“This Parliament should live up to its resolutions when it comes to transparency in the EU institutions. In this respect, I am worried about the damage that this decision can cause to the image of the institution, the internal democracy and the credibility of this house towards the citizens.”
