THE next 10 days could make or break a plan to reshape the European Union under new management in an attempt to revive the economy and regain trust among its half-billion people.
From today, MEPs elected on a wave of anti-Brussels protest will subject nominees for posts on executive European Commission to hearings that could wreck the line-up and a complex new structure proposed by incoming president, Jean-Claude Juncker.
The former Luxembourg prime minister has presented his team as "political, not technocratic", featuring former premiers and fewer career bureaucrats. But lawmakers are uneasy about some appointments and nominees from Britain, France, Spain and Hungary face interrogation.
Mr Juncker hopes to overcome member states' resistance to EU policies by handing nominees power in areas where their government is at odds with Brussels. By giving Britain's Jonathan Hill control of banking, he aims to win London over to common EU financial rules.
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