This Sunday, Teresa Ribera assumed one of the most important positions that a Spanish woman has held in the European Union. The socialist, 55 years old and with good European credentials, is already community vice president of Clean, Fair and Competitive Transition and in charge of the powerful Competition portfolio, one of the few matters in the hands of the European Commission with real executive power. To get there, it has taken almost five months of negotiations between the Cabinet of President Pedro Sánchez and the team of the head of the community Executive, the German conservative Ursula von der Leyen. Five months and a crisis, the one unleashed by the European People’s Party (EPP) with the blocking of the parliamentary evaluation of the Spanish minister, pushed by the PP of Alberto Núñez Feijóo to cover up the management of the dana of its regional president of the Community Valenciana, Carlos Mazón.
Hours of telephone calls and meetings to outline the nuances of the position and personnel details, according to several sources familiar with the dialogue. Conversations that reached a climax with the blockade in PPE, which plunged the European institutions into uncertainty for two weeks, and which made President Von der Leyen, Sánchez and conservative leaders such as the Polish Donald Tusk and Greek Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
The anatomy of the European negotiations, reconstructed through conversations with various sources, shows that Spain coveted from the beginning a conjunction of the green portfolio – due to the profile and experience of Ribera, Minister of Ecological Transition – and that of Competition, the function most coveted by the Member States as it is an essential element for the maintenance of the single market, the one that monitors mergers and is in charge of fighting against monopolies, deals with State aid and also the one that largely deals measured with the great technological giants.
Spain’s objective in the EU was to have one hand in the controls of environmental policy and another in those of industry and state aid (a good part now, precisely, destined for the green transition). This also occurs at a time when the EU, which is lagging behind, has to mobilize and accelerate to boost its competitiveness and productivity in the face of the push from the US and China. All this without losing sight of the green transition.
The leaders of the member states appointed Von der Leyen – and the other two senior officials: the president of the European Council, the Portuguese socialist António Costa, and the high representative for Foreign Policy, the Estonian liberal Kaja Kallas – at the end of June, after an agreement between the three great traditional European families: popular, social democrats and liberals. So, many of the leaders already asked the German to take them into account for certain portfolios, in a certain way in exchange for that support. Less than a month later, the European Parliament confirmed Von der Leyen in office for his second term.
Union of dossiers
Between those two key dates, European sources explain, the teams of the leaders of the Twenty-seven began a carousel of more in-depth conversations, specific requests and pressure on the president’s cabinet, led by Björn Seibert, one of the most powerful people. from Brussels. Spain, in a strategy piloted by Sánchez’s then Secretary General of European Affairs, Diego Rubio – today, his Chief of Staff – had already put on the table the specific and clear request for a double portfolio for Ribera, making use of his experience in different Government positions (she has been third vice president), her profile and the argument that the union of these powerful dossiers could give a decisive boost to the work of the Commission.
Von der Leyen, who has a very good rapport with the Spanish president – one of the negotiators for the Social Democrats, along with the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz –, with whom she has been exchanging messages throughout the process, was “receptive” to the idea, says a high-ranking European source. The German conservative, who has had friction with several commissioners from the outgoing team, with personalities, very public comments and political visions that are not always aligned – such as the Dutchman Frans Timmermans, the Frenchman Thierry Breton and the Spanish Josep Borrell – was looking for technical profiles that pursue results and “team players.”
The president was also aware that to maintain the balance between political families and work with the centrist pro-European majority that had supported her, she needed a social democratic counterweight in a very unsocial and very right-wing European Commission—14 commissioners from the European People’s Party ( PPE) plus the president, also from that political family—.
And Ribera fit into that puzzle in which, in addition, Von der Leyen wanted gender parity – she has finally achieved 10 female commissioners and 16 male commissioners. After a couple of meetings in Brussels with the German to talk about the position that went “especially well,” according to a senior official in Brussels, the Spanish socialist emerged as his number two—something de facto and rather protocol, which fundamentally means that she will replace the German in her rare absences, as confirmed by a Commission spokesperson, as green executive vice president and in charge of Competition.
“One of the most powerful people in Brussels”
The more technical negotiation then began, due to the nuances, the teams and the power within the Community Executive, the European institution that proposes and weaves the regulation. Thus, Ribera will be in charge of a general directorate, Competition, and will supervise, along with other vice presidents and commissioners, another four: Climate, Environment, Energy and Taxation. “One of the most powerful people in Brussels,” says a veteran European source.
Von der Leyen announced the composition of her college of commissioners on September 17. And Ribera, who, like the rest, had to submit to a hearing in the European Parliament and the evaluation of the commissions specialized in their portfolios, began to shore up his new team in Brussels. Less than two months after that great announcement by the head of the Community Executive, one day before the Spanish hearing in Brussels, the crisis broke out.
In a videoconference, the president of the EPP and the popular parliamentary group in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, and the head of the Spanish PP, Feijóo – who through the popular MEPs had already maneuvered against the Spanish and strove to sow doubts about his appointment—agreed to block the necessary evaluation of Ribera that the European conservatives had already agreed with the other two traditional political families to do the next day, after the appearance of the Spanish and in the form of a package, with the rest of the vice presidents designated. Social Democrats and liberals refused to support the Italian community vice president, Raffaele Fitto, from the party of the far-right Giorgia Meloni, and the Hungarian commissioner, Olivér Várhelyi, an ally of the national-populist Viktor Orbán.
Weber and Feijóo’s plot against the future number two of the Commission – together with the blockade of Fitto and Várhelyi – put Von der Leyen on the ropes, who with the global situation on fire, was in a hurry to get the new thing going. Community executive. With the negotiations between the three groups of the traditional European coalition poisoned and stuck, and the tone of the PP against Ribera increasingly harsher, Sánchez – who is not only Ribera’s supporter, but also the strongest social democratic leader now in the EU — launched a round of talks with popular European leaders concerned about the delay in appointments, such as the Polish Tusk and the Greek Mitsotakis, and with Von der Leyen. The Spanish leader and the president met in Brazil, during the G-20 summit, to try to push towards unlocking.
The head of the community Executive – who also tried to mediate to unclog the mess in the European Parliament – stressed her trust in Ribera. But he also warned that he was not going to modify the agreement he had reached with Meloni so that Italy would have a vice presidency with Fitto, that of Cohesion and Reforms, which also fell on a southern country, like Spain, one of the most interested in protecting These solidarity funds aimed at reducing the gap between regions, explain community sources.
Although the political family of the European Reformists and Conservatives (ECR) did not give their votes to Von der Leyen in her confirmation in the European Parliament nor was it part of the agreement of the senior officials of the three traditional families, the German cultivates her relationship with Meloni, whom he considers a constructive ally. And Italy is not only the third largest economy in the Union; It is also a net contributor State to European funds.
Fitto was untouchable. Like Ribera. And that was the crystal clear message from the top of the Commission and from the main leaders of the Member States to the heads of the European parliamentary groups: Weber, the social democrat Iratxe García and the liberal Valérie Hayer. On November 20, almost on the verge of the deadline for the new community Executive to begin on December 1, the three families reached an agreement. Last Wednesday, the European Parliament confirmed – although with the tightest majority in recent decades: 370 votes in favor and 282 against, including all those from the Spanish PP – Ribera and the other 25 vice presidents and European commissioners. Almost five months of negotiations and a crisis later, Spain raises its position in the EU with the new vice president.
