Ribera will defend her appointment to European Commission tomorrow in the midst of DANA crisis

Eduardo González 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 hearing comes in the midst of a crisis over the DANA tragedy and criticism of the role of two organisations dependent on his Ministry: AEMET and the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation. On Tuesday, the candidates for executive vice-presidencies in the European Commission will be heard. The hearings begin with Rafael Fitto, proposed for Cohesion and Reforms; Kaja Kallas, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security; Roxana Minzatu, in People, Skills and Preparation; Stéphane Séjourné, for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy; Teresa Ribera, in Clean, Fair and Competitive Transition; and Henna María Virkkunen, in Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy. 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. The Spanish government, which formalised the nomination of Teresa Ribera to join the new college of commissioners on 28 August, is confident 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 post, in the European Parliament examination. For the moment, the PP announced a month ago its opposition to the appointment of Ribera, as the Spanish socialists also did with Miguel Arias Cañete in 2014, with the argument that “a bad minister for Spain cannot be a good commissioner”. The DANA Ribera's “hearing” occurs in the midst of the tragedy produced in Spain as a consequence of the isolated depression at high levels (DANA), which caused around 200 deaths in the east of the country, mostly in the Valencian Community, and everything indicates that this issue will have an important role during the defence of the candidacy of the minister. The State Meteorological Agency (AEMET), which depends precisely on the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, has been called into question for its alleged inability to avoid the disaster and the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (also dependent on the Ministry) has been criticized for its lack of means to avoid overflows and for not having warned the Valencian Generalitat that the flow of the ravine had increased a hundredfold. According to close sources, the European Popular Party (EPP) will ask Ribera during the 'hearing' to answer whether the tragedy could have been avoided with better management of the channels, about the delay in the transmission of alerts to the local authorities and why he has not moved to the area or appeared before the media or before the Courts to explain the actions of his Ministry. In fact, the Popular Party in Congress asked for his appearance, but it was the Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, who intervened.

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