Teresa Ribera will defend her appointment to the Commission before the European Parliament on November 12

Julio García-Aquí Europa The third vice-president and responsible for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, will undergo the examination of the European Parliament on November 12 to confirm her appointment as executive vice-president for the Clean, Fair and Competitive Transition and as Commissioner for Competition in the new European Commission. The European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee gave the green light on Thursday for the confirmation hearings of the 26 Commissioners-designate to take place. According to the European Parliament, MEPs in the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) have concluded the procedure of examining the potential conflicts of interest of the new Commissioners-designate in relation to their respective portfolios. The process will now continue with the confirmation hearings, as each Commissioner-designate will be heard in their respective committees in accordance with the timetable agreed by Parliament. The declarations of interest submitted by the Commissioners-designate will be publicly available before the start of the confirmation hearings. Following the examination, the Chair of the Committee on Legal Affairs, Ilhan Kyuchyuk (Renew, BG), said that “the JURI Committee carried out an impartial and in-depth analysis of the declarations of interest of the Commissioners-designate, examining potential conflicts of interest with reference to the assigned portfolios.” “Whenever we considered that the information was incomplete,” he explained, “we asked for more details in order to assess all the relevant elements and reach our conclusions,” she continued. “From a procedural point of view, some reasonable criticisms of the legal framework may arise and we will have the opportunity to analyse it and suggest amendments, if necessary,” she added. “But today, I would like to express my gratitude to all JURI members for actively participating in the process and safeguarding the interests not only of the Commission and Parliament, but also of European citizens, through their thorough review of all the data and information at our disposal,” she clarified. “I am glad that JURI, together with all the other parliamentary committees, can now focus on the confirmation hearings of the Commissioners-designate,” she concluded. In mid-September, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed Teresa Ribera as Executive Vice-President for Clean, Fair and Competitive Transition and declared that her responsibility will be to “guide the work to ensure that Europe is on the right path” to meet its climate goals and “decarbonise and industrialise” the European economy at the same time. During the presentation of the new commissioners in Strasbourg, Von der Leyen explained that Ribera will also be in charge of the Competition portfolio and that, in this area, her work will consist of monitoring large technology companies and ensuring that the new European rules on digital services and markets are applied, while in terms of ecological and social transition, her main challenge will be to reconcile the climate ambitions of the European Green Pact with the demands of the agricultural sector. Ribera is set to be the strong piece of the European socialists in a Commission that has turned even further to the right after Von der Leyen gave her one of the most influential positions in the Community Executive. The Spanish Government, which formalized the nomination of Teresa Ribera to join the new college of commissioners on August 28, trusts that the still vice-president will have the support of the socialists and the Greens, allies in the revalidation of Von der Leyen for the position, in the European Parliament exam. Although she will probably get the support of the People’s Group, sources from the PP have hinted that they will not make it easy for her, because they have their reservations about Ribera, who they consider to be excessively defending ecological issues, compared to the needs of the primary sector.

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