COMMISSION : HUNGARIAN ECONOMIST TO TAKE OVER FROM SPIDLA.

PositionLaszlo Andor on Vladimir Spidla

The new Hungarian candidate Commissioner is the economist Laszlo Andor. If all goes well during the hearings in the European Parliament, Andor will soon take over the social policy and employment portfolio from the Czech Vladimir Spidla. Born in June 1966,aAndor has an academic background. He studied in the UK and the US before becoming a board member at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in 2005. He is also an associate professor at the Economics Department at the Corvinus University of Budapest. Andor, who has been referred to as an anti-stalinist socialist', denies any involvement in any communist regime, but sources say that the EP might ask about this issue during the hearings in January.

Aside from his interest in academic sciences, he also has an interest in politics, having worked as a senior researcher at the Institute for Political Sciences in Hungary between 2002 and 2005. Andor is also a member of the governing Socialist Party in his home country and served as a policy advisor to the former Hungarian prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, between 2003 and 2005.

In a letter to Andor, European CommissionaPresident Jose Manuel Barroso wrote that Andor will have to take the lead in the development of a "modern social agenda for Europe". The letter reveals that there are some legislative proposals in the pipeline: "I have...

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