The Popular Party moves to sow doubts about her as vice president and European Commissioner for Clean, Fair and Competitive Transition and in charge of competition. The third vice president of Pedro Sánchez’s Government is being examined this Tuesday before several committees of the European Parliament about her plans and her strategy for a key legislature for the future of the EU and the popular ones, who have been harshly criticizing Ribera for days and his management in the dana Furthermore, the party assures that it has conveyed doubts about Ribera’s suitability to the European People’s Party. Alberto Núñez Feijóo has spoken with the president of the European Popular Party, Manfred Weber, as confirmed by sources from the group in the European Parliament. The EPP affirms that it will judge the Spanish woman on her performance at tomorrow’s hearing.
The parliamentary balances of the different parties, with the hearings and votes of the commissioners that remain to be examined, are delicate and discarding Sánchez’s vice president could affect other pieces, because the green light for the commissioners has a lot to do with the . In fact, what happens with the Hungarian commissioner, the extremist Olivér Varhelyi, who is having problems in the hearings and to whom MEPs have asked for additional information, may also have an effect on that channel. MEPs have postponed the decision on the Hungarian until Wednesday. Meanwhile, the groups continue negotiating pacts and that the appointments go in a single package.
A tough hearing was already predicted for Ribera, well known in Brussels, with a technical profile and in a European Chamber and a European Commission leaning to the right. But now it is also expected that there will be anger and that the popular ones who are part of the commissions with the right to more questions in these ‘examinations’ will try to take the issue to the national level and focus it above all on the Valencia catastrophe. After Ribera’s hearing, scheduled for late this Tuesday afternoon, the evaluation of his appointment will be held among the spokespersons for three European Parliament committees.
The German conservative Ursula von der Leyen has placed Ribera as a community member. He has appointed her as his first vice president and has entrusted her with a substantial portfolio. A blow to Ribera would also be a blow to the popular German, recalls a veteran European source. The head of the Community Executive – and her Chief of Staff, Björn Seibert – is very focused on the parliamentary hearings of the commissioners and these days she has cleared her agenda to dedicate all her attention to these exams; He has not attended, for example, the COP summit in Azerbaijan. Furthermore, he has maintained close contact with the parliamentary groups, especially with the platform made up of the pro-European groups that endorsed his appointment.
In the current geopolitical context, with Russia’s war against Ukraine and, above all, in the face of a period of great uncertainty for Europe after the victory of the populist Republican Donald Trump in the United States elections, which anticipate a trade escalation, and begin work. Any clash with the commissioners would delay the process. “There is a complicated international situation, many pending issues in Europe and it would be good for the Commission to start as soon as possible,” a spokesperson for the Community Executive said this Monday.
For now, all those examined, except the far-right Hungarian commissioner, from whom MEPs have asked additional information in written questions, have passed the hearings. This Tuesday is, however, the big day: the six vice presidents are examined. If everything goes as planned, in the next plenary session, at the end of November, the European Parliament will vote on the entire Commission
In this context, the popular and the ultra Vox party have charged against the third vice president. “Teresa Ribera does not deserve to represent Spain in the European Commission,” popular MEP Esteban González Pons launched a few days ago in other countries, have increased since Ribera explained on Cadena Ser on Friday that he had problems locating Mazón on the day of the dana and that he called him by phone up to four times.
Ribera has already passed the first part of the parliamentary exams, which reviews conflicts of interest. On that occasion, the PP MEPs of the commission in charge of this examination – Legal Affairs (JURI) – separated themselves from their European family and, according to several parliamentary sources.
EPP MEPs have been making the ‘yes’ to Ribera subject for weeks to the approval by the Social Democrats and Renew liberals of the Italian Raffaele Fitto, appointed as commissioner by the far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and who Von der Leyen has also placed as one of its six vice presidents. In fact, the EPP of German Manfred Weber allied itself with the extreme right, breaking the traditional sanitary cordon against the ultra and more eurosceptic forces, to design the exam calendar and thus place Ribera as the last one – with the popular Finnish Henna Virkkunen—to examine himself and ensure that Fitto’s hearing, and corresponding vote, came first.
