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Parliament approves new European Commission

09 February 2010 16:08 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Victoria Dementyeva â€“ APA. The European Parliament elected the new European Commission by 488 votes to 137, with 72 abstentions, in Strasbourg on Tuesday, APA reports. The vote took the form of a single ballot on the whole College of Commissioners, consisting of one Commissioner from each of the 27 EU Member States.
The new Commission will stay in office until 31 October 2014. By way of comparison, the first Barroso Commission was voted into office in November 2004 by 449 votes to 149, with 82 abstentions.
Ahead of the election, the EPP, S&D and ALDE groups announced that they would vote in favour of the college of Commissioners. The Greens, GUE/NGL and EFD groups said they would vote against the new college and the ECR group announced it would abstain.