The European Parliament's favourable vote on the new European Commission does not necessarily mean a blank check, MEP Renate Weber stated. In an interview for the RFI, Weber said that Dacian Ciolos, the Romanian designated Agricultural Commissioner, needs to convert himself from expert into politician. The Barroso II Cabinet has been approved on Tuesday, February 9 2010, by the Strasbourg Legislative plenum, with 488 votes in favour, 137 against and 72 abstained.

• "Even if the vote from yesterday was a comfortable majority vote for the Barroso Commission, it reflects the European Parliament's concern of having a Commission. But it is not necessarily a blank check for the current Barroso II Commission and for its members or mandates that some commissionaires have."

• "I believe this Commission will have to work quite a lot to convince us that it is a competent European Union Executive. During hearings, there were very few who made a good impression on the deputies. Most of them proved to hesitate slightly regarding the issues they will manage, regarding their own opinions on those issues. So I don't think there's a great satisfaction relating to the Commission's members. It is certainly expected that this would be run on collegian terms, at the level the European Union needs."

• "We have all these expectations from the European Commission, naturally, we express our thought on t. But we hardly speak about the European Union's president, who so far has a very low profile, shadowy. Nobody sees him taking a stand in a moment when both in the European Union and worldwide extremely grave and worrying events take place."

On Romanian Dacian Ciolos, European commissar for Agriculture:

"Mr. Ciolos' biggest problem would be to go beyond his expertise quality and to convert himself into a politician, because politics is exercised in the European Commission as well and you need to be a politician in order to know to negotiate the others' support. Here is where Mr. Ciolos will need great skills, because his ideas need to be accepted by all states or at least by most of them and it is not easy at all."