(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 12 - The European Parliament on Tuesday postponed to "a date to be determined later" a vote on confirming the appointment of Italy's Raffaele Fitto as one of the new executive vice presidents of the European Commission, with the cohesion brief.
    The coordinators of the EP's Regional Affairs Committee opted for a postponement to a "date to be determined" for the evaluation of Fitto's Tuesday hearing, parliamentary sources told ANSA.
    Fitto, a heavyweight in Premier Giorgia Meloni's rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party and hitherto European Affairs, South and Cohesion Minister in her government, told the parliament earlier in the day that he would not represent the FdI or Italy but the whole of Europe.
    The FdI didn't vote in favour of Ursula von der Leyen's confirmation as EC chief nor for the NextGenerationEU programme, but Fitto said if the latter vote were repeated they would now do so.
    The EP also decided to indefinitely postpone a decision on the nomination of Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas as new High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, EP sources said.
    The decision reflected the one taken on Fitto by coordinators of the EP's Regional Affairs Committe and was in line with the one taken by the majority to freeze the vote on all six designated executive vice presidents.
    Previously, EP sources said the confirmations would probably be postponed until Wednesday.
    The decisions have now been put off to a later date pending "mediation" by EC chief von der Leyen, the sources said.
    Centre-left Italian opposition Democratic Party (PD) MEP Dario Nardella, the former two-time mayor of Florence, reiterated that their Socialists and Democrats (S&D) caucus would voice "strong perplexity" about making a European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) representative that voted against von der Leyen an EC vice president.
    Earlier on Tuesday, Fitto, who will have the reform and cohesion portfolio if he is voted by MEPs, told his confirmation hearing at the European Parliament that he was not representing Italy or his party but Europe as a whole.
    "Five years ago I was sitting among you," said Fitto, a former MEP.
    "I remember my political journey, from the local to the national level to Brussels.
    "I have always worked for a stronger Europe.
    "It is an honour for me and I am ready to put all my experience at the service of the Commission.
    "It is an honour that my government recommended me.
    "I am not here to represent a political party or a member state, but for my commitment to Europe".
    In his new role, Fitto is set to oversee the EU's post-COVID Recovery Plan, the Next Generation EU programme, and the implementation of the related National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRP) Valentina Palmisano, an MEP for the Italian opposition 5-Star Movement (M5S), asked about FdI's failure to back the programme when it was presented.
    "In relation to our abstention on the Next Generation EU programme, I can say that, at that stage, we had doubts about its implementation," Fitto said.
    "But that was a wait-and-see position, not opposition to it.
    "If I were to vote tomorrow morning, it would be a yes vote".
    (ANSA).