“I cannot go out and say: well, you know, I was a member of a club, which finally I would not have liked to be a member [of]. It’s not serious. I have endorsed the policies of this Commission,” he told POLITICO on Friday.
He added that his party supported the current Commission in the European Parliament, and that “many important issues have been driven by Social Democratic commissioners.”
“So yes, I can say: yes, I stick … I stand by this result.”
Schmit did give insights into how he would change the direction of some of the flagship programs of the current mandate in the next term, such as making the Green Deal “more social.”
Schmit labelled the far-right campaign against the Green Deal as fake news, but he pointed out that “the only way to make [it] acceptable or to keep it acceptable is to give the Green Deal a strong social dimension.”
“We have to reassess the way how we are funding [farmers],” he said, adding that some of them have “very, very good” revenues and others “are really fighting for survival.”
