MEPs grill candidates who will drive policy for the next 5 years

Nominees for some of the European Union's top jobs face parliamentary hearings on Monday, as lawmakers start to vet would-be commissioners to oversee Europe-wide policies ranging from agriculture to trade for the next five years.

Four of the 26 new members of the EU's increasingly powerful executive branch, the European Commission, will each undergo a three-hour grilling by senior MEPs most closely linked to their policy files. The others will be heard through to November 12.

The commission is the only EU body with the power to draft laws which, once passed by the European Parliament and the 27 member countries. They cover everything from water quality to data protection to competition or migration policy.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, now into her second term leading an institution with more than 33,000 employees, assembled her new-look executive...