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How do I follow the Parliamentary hearings online?
Hearings - Institutions - 08-01-2010 - 11:53
Europarltv: Winning hearts and minds
Before the EU's new executive takes office, all of its hopeful office holders must pass through European Parliamentary hearings. All 26 candidates will face three hours of questions from MEPs on the committee covering their portfolio. So, for example members of the Development Committee will quiz Andris Piebalgs on the policies he intends to pursue as EU development Commissioner. Policy and personality matter as each of the nominees must convince the committee they are up to the job.
The hearings will be in Brussels and Strasbourg from 11-19 January. A final vote on the whole college of Commissioners will take place on 26 January.
Read about the Q&A sessions
A special Hearings website has been set up with the times and dates of the hearings as well as the CVs of the candidates. It also has the written answers the Commissioners-designate have submitted in response to questions from Members of the committees they will face.
After each hearing a press release, the speech or remarks of the candidates as well as a verbatim report of the Q&A session will be available on the special site. A video of the hearing will also be made available online. In addition the News part of this website will provide daily rounds up of the previous day's action.
Watch the action from Brussels and Strasbourg
All 26 hearings - lasting about three hours each can be seen live online. This link can be accessed from the special hearings website or the "EP Live" part of the site.
In addition europarltv will be doing a daily evening new report examining the day's events and looking at how each candidate fared.
EbS - Europe by Satellite will have a full programme of the hearings and of the press conferences.
Discuss the personalities and policies on Facebook
Throughout the hearings you can visit the Parliament's Facebook page to leave comments and remarks and to discuss the personalities and policies. We will also be using twitter to alert you to when events are starting and when new material becomes available.
Images of the week
Our photographers will be out and about during the week to capture some of the images from the hearings. As well as seeing some of them here you can see more posted on the Parliament's Flickr page.
REF.: 20100106STO66872