Alenka Bratušek, the Slovenian nominee to be the next European Commission vice-president for energy union, will be rejected in a vote tomorrow by the European Parliament’s environment and energy committees.  Both Bratušek and Miguel Arias Cañete, the Spanish nominee to be European commissioner for climate and energy, will be put up for a vote at the same time. Cañete has been blocked because of concerns over his ties to the oil industry. The centre-left S&D group will drop its objection to Cañete in exchange for the centre-right EPP group going along with the vote to reject Bratušek.

Once Cañete is safe, the EPP will vote to approve Pierre Moscovici, the centre-left French nominee who has been blocked because of concerns over his commitment to austerity, according to the plan.

UK nominee Jonathan Hill, who had been held over concerns about his lack of knowledge of European Union policy, will be waved through tomorrow following a second round of questioning today. Véra Jourová, the Czech nominee who saw confirmation withheld last week over her vague answers, was waved through today.

Who will replace Bratušek? That is the million-dollar question. There are three possible scenarios:

1) Bratušek is replaced by Tanja Fajon, a centre-left MEP. Fajon does not have enough experience to be a vice-president, so she becomes commissioner for transport. Maroš Šefčovič, the commissioner from Slovakia who was given the transport portfolio, becomes vice-president for energy union.

2) Bratušek is replaced by Tanja Fajon. Fajon is given the education, culture, youth and citizenship portfolio from Hungarian nominee Tibor Navracsics (the culture committee voted yesterday that Navracsics cannot have citizenship in his portfolio because of Hungary’s human rights abuses). Navracsics gets transport, and Šefčovič gets energy union.

3) Bratušek is replaced by Janez Potočnik, the current Slovenian commissioner (for the environment). Potočnik keeps the vice-president for energy union position for Slovenia. Navracsics has only citizenship take out of his portfolio, given to Dimitris Avramopoulos the Greek commissioner for migration and home affairs.  In any event, new confirmation hearings will have to be held. According to Parliament sources, the aim is to keep the final confirmation vote on 22 October in Strasbourg and quickly hold the two new hearings next week.