EU countries are taking positions to form the leadership of the next Community legislature. This Wednesday, it was Spain’s turn, which officially presented the candidacy of the Minister for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, as the Spanish candidate to obtain a portfolio in the Community Executive for the next five years. And everything indicates that she will be the next Commissioner for Climate and Environment.
But the distribution of positions is far from being finalized. For now, the Member States have until August 30 to present their candidates for the leadership of the European Commission. And that is what Spain did this Wednesday. The Government sent a letter to the Community Executive to officially present Ribera’s candidacy, as reported by EFE.
The Spaniard has all the assets to occupy the post of Commissioner for Climate and Environment. Ribera was the head of the PSOE list in the local elections, but she has not yet compiled her list of achievements as a Member of the European Parliament, pending the next distribution of posts in Brussels.
The process can be extended until the end of the year and it depends mainly on the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who will decide the final distribution of the nominations. It is not that the appointment of the Minister for Ecological Transition to the European Commission surprises anyone. Ribera is the name that has been heard from the beginning as a Spanish candidate. So much so that she herself confirmed this aspiration in July and it has become a given in the group that constitutes the Twenty-Seven.
The government’s letter confirms that the minister will be the profile that Spain will present for the new European Commission. The previous Spanish representative, Josep Borrell, is the EU’s high representative and holds important diplomatic positions.
In Ribera’s case, everything indicates that his portfolio will be Climate and Environment, although it is not clear what responsibilities will be covered by such a portfolio. The question is whether segments such as the energy transition or the part of climate policies most linked to the economic aspect will fall under his competence. Some Brussels voices see his profile more linked to activism and the environmental struggle, marked by the confrontation with the large energy companies of the Ibex 35 on measures such as the capping of the price of electricity or the tax on profits falling from the sky.
Community sources point out that its more environmental profile would distance it from these powers during the next energy drift of the bloc and the transition to clean technologies. Such responsibility would fall, a priori, into the hands of a popular commissioner, leaving behind the banner of the Green Deal, which marked Ursula von der Leyen’s first European Commission, to give space to a sector of society that rejects such measures, such as the primary sector, especially the agricultural sector.
