After the storm, calm returns. After the tension experienced in the European Parliament last week, MEPs returned home on Thursday and, beyond discreet contacts, the decibels dropped considerably. All parties are seeking “in extremis” to overcome the EU blockade and save the vote on the new College of Commissioners, scheduled for next week in Strasbourg. To do this, the six vice-presidents appointed by Ursula von der Leyen, including the Spaniard Teresa Ribera, must receive the approval of their corresponding parliamentary committees, a procedure which is for the moment suspended until it there is an agreement between the three families that compose them. the coalition that “governs” in the EU.
“Discussions are underway to try to unblock this. We are responsible, but for the moment there is nothing,” they emphasize from the social democratic group. The socialists, through the government of Pedro Sánchez, which is the one with the main open conflict with the European People’s Party, have considerably lowered their tone and opened themselves to lifting the veto that they had imposed from the start on the candidate by Giorgia. . Meloni, Raffaele Fitto, as vice-president of the new European Commission, and this is the request that the European conservative family made of him.
The government has insisted on the need to end the blockade. “The EU cannot plunge into instability with short-sighted cross vetoes,” government sources stressed. The “crossed vetoes” on the table oscillate precisely between the rejection of Italy by the socialists and liberals and the blockade of Ribera that the group led by Manfred Weber uses as a bargaining chip to put pressure on its pro-European allies for them to give their consent. to Fitto, even if they have the necessary figures to pass his nomination to the far-right forces.
Sánchez will take advantage of his presence at the G20 to raise the subject with Ursula von der Leyen, whom his own party has challenged, and with other heads of government from the EPP family to increase pressure on Weber in order to unblock the situation, as published by El País. However, at that time, in the conservative ranks, with the exception of the PP of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, there was no explicit veto from Ribera, but rather a delay in his evaluation so that he was held accountable before the DANA management Congress and one ordered the socialists to support Meloni’s candidate.
“Everything will be settled on Wednesday”
“They spend time talking, either among themselves or through an intermediary,” EPP sources point out about the contacts that have taken place in recent days between Weber and the leader of the Social Democrats, Iratxe García. In fact, Feijóo’s PP was the first to assume that the socialists would end up supporting Fitto in exchange for unblocking Ribera. “Everything will be resolved on Wednesday,” they say in the group led by Weber. The EPP spokesperson in the Environment Commission, the German Christian Democrat Peter Liese, who, during Ribera’s hearing, declared that he was not giving him arguments to convince his people to vote in favor of his nomination, assured this Monday that he was “in principle” in a position to ask his group to support it. “I hope that all parties will finally unite and that we will have a strong European Commission for the next five years,” he expressed.
Pressure from socialists and liberals for a written commitment
“We continue, we continue,” declared the S&D spokesperson on Tuesday after leaving the plenary session. “We are negotiating,” Weber noted. Contacts continue and sources of the negotiations indicate that socialists and liberals are putting pressure on the popular parties to have a written commitment, a “pro-European road map for the next five years”. The intention is for the EPP to engage alongside its traditional allies in Parliament and distance itself from the alternative majority it has with all the forces of the far right and to which it has already appealed on several occasions since the start of term in July. However, popular Europeans are throwing cold water on this possibility, which was also raised, unsuccessfully, a few months ago, before Von der Leyen’s vote for president of the European Commission.
For the moment, the key date will be Wednesday. In the morning, the socialists hold a group meeting during which they will establish the final position. The Conference of Presidents will also meet with the intention of holding the vote of the College of Commissioners next week. And Ribera’s appearance in Congress will take place, which was the request of the EPP before evaluating his candidacy.
As the path for Von der Leyen’s new cabinet is being mapped out, Feijóo’s PP maintains its rejection of Ribera and remains confident that his European colleagues will overturn his candidacy to force Sánchez to make a new proposal . But Weber has so far shown no signs of willingness to launch into all-out war, which would mean plunging the EU into an unprecedented political crisis. What he achieved with his maneuver with Feijóo was to bring himself to the table (of Von der Leyen, who took office five years ago), to show his power as leader of the largest political group in the European Parliament – given that it has the far right the capacity to bring together an alternative majority to the traditional European coalition – and to exhaust Ribera and the social democrats.
