Last week, Ursula Von der Leyen, the new European Commission President, announced the new term of College of Commissioners. The most notable new Commissioner is Valdis Dombrovskis from Latvia who will serve as one three new Executive Vice-Presidents of the European Commission, as well as coordinate the work on "An Economy That Works For People". He will be the Commissioner for financial services, which is supported by the Dictorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union. President-elect Ursula von der Leyen addressed the role of Executive Vice-President Dombrovskis, stating, "We have a unique social market economy. It is the source of our prosperity and social fairness. This is all the more important when we face a twin transition: climate and digital. Valdis Dombrovskis will lead our work to bring together the social and the market in our economy." 

Dombrovskis' key priorities that will impact credit unions in the EU are outlined in President-elect Von der Leyen's Mission Letter, and include: 

• Completing the Banking Union by finalizing the common backstop to the Single Resolution Fund;
• Agreeing on a European Deposit Insurance Scheme;
• Speeding up the work towards a Capital Market Union;
• Improving cross-border investments, improve the supervisory system and better harmonize insolvency and tax proceedings;
• Developing a green financing strategy to direct investment and financing to the transition to a climate-neutral economy;
• Devising a FinTech Strategy to support new digital technologies in the financial system;
• Developing a new private-public fund specializing in initial public offerings for SMEs;
• Developing a comprehensive approach to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorist activities;
• Ensuring a common approach with the Member States on cryptocurrencies; and
• Developing proposals to improve European resilience against sanctions by third countries, and to ensure that EU sanctions are properly enforced.

To view the European Commission's (EC) press release regarding the President-elect's team and new structure of the EC, please click here.