He only had an official agenda for 16 days in the two months before DANA.

Ribera spent most of his time preparing for his exam as European commissioner and rallying support, now under threat, to secure the elections.

For this reason, the PP maintains that Teresa Ribera completely abandoned her functions as Minister of Ecological Transition during these two months, a position under which two organizations that were supposed to warn about the effects of the torrential rains of October 29 depend: the Agency State Meteorological (Aemet) and, more specifically, the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar (CHJ).

This latter organization is also the one that had to undertake the infrastructure works needed in Poyo ravineto contain the effects of floods like the one which has already claimed more than 200 lives. But these investments were not made.

The data is more evident if we compare Teresa Ribera’s agenda of the last two months with that of the previous two years.

During the same period of 2023, she accumulated 30 days of official acts, despite the fact that she was then acting minister, after the general elections of 23-J. During the same period of 2022, he has performed in 74 acts. That is to say more than one per day.

As reported by EL ESPAÑOL, on the tragic day of October 29, Ribera was in Brussels, “to resolve issues regarding her nomination to the post of executive vice-president” of the European Commission.

Ribera claims that throughout the afternoon of October 29, as the news became more worrying, he attempted four times to contact the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, by telephone.

Having failed to do so (Mazón claims that at that time communications were already damaged in much of the province of Valencia), he sent him a WhatsApp message: “President, my name is Teresa R. We are waiting and worried. The president of the CHJ is agitated but leads Marlaska and civil protection with the greatest caution in this regard. Tell me anything we can do to help you“.

Nine minutes before Ribera sent this message, the Cecopi emergency coordination center, already under Mazón’s presidency, had sent an alert to all cell phones in the province, fearing a rupture of the Forata dam.

The PP accuses Teresa Ribera of On October 28 he was in Paris and on October 29 and 30 he had no public agenda.. “Meanwhile, Spain was suffering one of the worst natural disasters in its history and the vice-president for the Environment was missing,” denounced the parliamentary spokesperson of the PP, Miguel Tellado.

Since Pedro Sánchez appointed her European Commissioner, Ribera “left the field of her competences within the government empty, but not that of the presidency”, according to Tellado: “Not a decision, not an assumption of responsibilities and now she doesn’t want to give a single explanation.

The last to publicly join these criticisms was the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martinez-Almeida. “For me it is incomprehensible that Therese Ribera was vice-president of the government only to receive a public salary until the European elections and then be vice-president of the European Commission“, declared the Madrid councilor during an event against the victims of terrorism last Wednesday.

Meet at to wait for

“I think it’s very sad everything that is happeningbut specifically these things that they are saying now, because my agenda is not only public, but it is known,” Teresa Ribera said on November 8 in an interview on the network Be on the criticism received.

Last Tuesday, Ribera underwent his examination in the European Parliament, but the PP managed to paralyze his nomination. Manfred Weberpresident of the European PP, assured that “the community executive cannot import into Brussels someone with legal and political responsibilities”.

The minister was harshly attacked during the hearing for its management of DANA In Valence. Foreign MEPs questioned Ribera, as did the Spanish. Among them, Dolors Monserrat (PP) and Jorge Buxadé (Vox).

In Weber’s words, Ribera’s appointment will never take place without her “answering all outstanding questions regarding her responsibilities as minister before the Spanish Parliament.”

In other words, to “seek new responsibilities in Europe”, Ribera will have to respond, at least, to the Congress of Deputies. In addition, she must agree to resign if she is criminally charged. In reality, even that won’t guarantee you a job.

The third vice-president of the Spanish government will have to give explanations about what happened in Valencia next week. More precisely, the 20th. Hence the EAR will postpone its decision at least until the plenary session of the European Parliament at the end of November Strasbourg.

“She is the minister of DANAhas been hiding for two weeks and our European colleagues discovered him,” a popular source said in Europe to this newspaper a few days ago. While the responsibilities are settled, the European government remains in limbo.