I’m struggling to think of a European official whose impact on the Balkans has been more corrosive than Oliver Várhelyi. (That includes HRVP Mogherini and her push to partition Kosovo, stopped just in time by Merkel.) If MEPs are really considering, as reported, to wave him through out of fear...

...that Orbán could hold up the whole process, they wouldn’t just be making a mistake: this would be nothing less than a dereliction of their duty. Confirmation hearings are a rare moment of accountability for a European Commission that has been openly contemptuous of the EP. Giving up...