The Diplomat
European Commission Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera will chair the weekly meeting of commissioners next week in the event that the current president, Ursula von der Leyen, has not recovered from the severe pneumonia she is suffering from, community spokesperson Paula Pinho said on Thursday.
“If the president does not return to the college (of commissioners) next week, executive vice-president Rivera will take over the presidency of the meeting,” Paula Pinho said at a press conference. The meeting of the 26 commissioners, one from each EU country and usually chaired by Von der Leyen, was cancelled this week due to the German leader’s illness.
According to the spokesperson, Von der Leyen is fighting a “serious” case of pneumonia and is currently recovering and working from Germany. So far, the Commission president has cancelled her external commitments for the first two weeks of the year, including the presentation of the Polish presidency of the EU Council.
However, she has not yet handed over her duties in the Presidency, which has led to some delays in the presentation of key policies of her second term as Commission president, such as her proposal to address the EU’s innovation gap with its global rivals, ensure the bloc’s economic security and advance the decarbonisation of EU industry, according to the newspaper Politico.
“We intend, at the beginning of next week, to take stock of the situation,” Pinho said. The meeting would be chaired by Ribera, who holds the second most important portfolio in the Commission and is therefore next in line if Von der Leyen needs to step away from her duties.
Last Monday, Pinho said that the European Commission did not yet consider it necessary to proceed with a formal delegation of functions by Ursula von der Leyen and already admitted that, if a delegation of responsibilities were required, the first in the line of succession would be the Spaniard Teresa Ribera.
