Spring was springing up, but the Madrid landscape was bleak. It is April 2022, not even two months have passed since the first Russian soldier crossed the border with Ukraine, thus starting the first war on European soil in three decades. The energy markets are literally on fire and, after a dog-eat-dog fight, Spain has just obtained the approval of its European partners to light up the very heterodox Iberian exception. From a room next to her office, Teresa Ribera (Madrid, 55 years old) interrupts a long interview with Morning Express to try to explain what was —at that time— inexplicable. “If you give me a piece of paper and a pen…” She moves a jug of water aside, turns the coaster over and, in four strokes, explains the result of months of very tough negotiations with the orthodoxy of Brussels and Berlin to come up with a temporary solution that would later ease the pressure on the electricity bill.
The current third vice-president and minister for ecological transition in Pedro Sánchez’s government is leaving behind the most influential position ever achieved within the Spanish administration by someone dedicated to the environmental and climate field to further increase the ambition of her commitment. Now she is jumping to Europe with a new position in which, in addition to what she masters with enough ease to explain it on a coaster, she adds a key area of economics in which she has no previous experience: competition. The socialist is the one chosen by the president of the Community Executive, Ursula von der Leyen, to take the reins of one of the most powerful executive vice-presidencies of the European Commission: Clean, fair and competitive transition. A department dedicated not only to defending an ecological and fair transition, but also free competition between companies in the European market. In short, she will have to deal with the old polluting sectors and the new digital giants, as well as decide on mergers and acquisitions that transcend the merely national.
Von der Leyen’s decision – who is seen to have a professional connection with Ribera, although they are very distant ideologically – allows Spain – the fourth largest economy in the euro area, clearly pro-European – to be given a very, very important portfolio. In this way, this jurist by training and civil administrator of the State on leave, who is usually up at 6.30 during the week, becomes a dam against European progressivism in a Community Executive that is increasingly leaning to the right.
Traditionally, the Competition portfolio is one of the most important in the Commission and it is significant that it has been further expanded to include green and social transition. However, it may become even more relevant if Ribera is able to combine these two areas to introduce environmental and social criteria, in addition to economic ones, into the field of business competition.
Clashes with energy companies
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This environmentalist, who likes to walk in the mountains of Madrid and tries not to wear fast-fashion clothes, has never had any problems speaking the same language as companies and economists: unlike what happens with some other climate specialists, Ribera – who speaks English and French – has always shown great strength in addressing environmental issues from an economic and social perspective. As head of energy policy in the Sánchez government, she is also very used to dealing with large companies. And she has not backed down when it comes to calling out some CEO for their “denialism and delay.” Words that have earned her a major clash with the private sector.
Just over six years ago, when this tough woman, very demanding with her team, took the helm of the newly created Ministry for Ecological Transition, few imagined the political savvy she would later develop. Her background was, above all, that of a renowned climate profile technician with a professional career straddling the Administration – she had been Secretary of State in the times of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero – and the international sphere – she was almost five years at the head of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), in Paris.
The future vice-president of the European Union, who has Fito Cabrales’ music playing as a ringtone on her personal mobile phone – a tune that has been played at some work meeting by mistake – will now have to contend with the Apples, Googles and Microsofts of the moment, as the anti-monopoly czarina. A subject totally unrelated to her background, which will force her to get up to date on some issues outside her field of expertise.
He will be helped by his vast experience in international forums and his ability to promote agreements, despite the severe clashes with electricity and oil companies during the energy crisis. Unlike what happens in Spain, where confrontational politics prevails and agreements with the adversary are usually avoided so as not to give them a chance to breathe, in Brussels those who build bridges are valued more than those who tear them down.
Big deals with rivals
On the national board, Ribera, who devoured the series Iron and the book The Soldiers of Salamis, He has not avoided clashes with the right and the far right on issues such as Doñana. However, he has also achieved resounding agreements with the same rivals he faced, such as with the Andalusian president Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla (PP) on irrigation in the area surrounding the national park.
It is, however, far from the everlasting domestic squabble where she has most exerted this pact-making facet. With two decades of climate summits under her belt, she has spent many nights practising that Brussels sport of sleeping little or nothing in the name of a minimum agreement. As in the European councils, it is common at the United Nations conferences to resort to so-called “facilitators”, representatives appointed at some point in the negotiations to promote or speed up the agreements. A role that she herself has played on many occasions.
Mother of three daughters whom she loves to talk about and married to Mariano Bacigalupo (CNMV advisor and, yes, a great expert in competition issues), the greatest difficulty of this new stage will be getting away from her family. The Madrid politician is a very family-oriented woman who tries to dedicate the weekends to her daughters, her parents and her sisters. She herself admits that the hardest moment she has experienced was the death of her little brother in 2022. Hence, in her new life plan, one of her priorities now is to find a three-bedroom apartment in Brussels so that they can go visit her.
Nor will it be easy to replace him in the ministry, where speculation has become common since last spring, when Ribera was confirmed as the Socialist candidate for the European elections. The options being considered are basically two: Sánchez opts for a technical profile, as he has done with the Minister of Economy Carlos Cuerpo – the successor of Nadia Calviño, his great supporter – or that he opts for a politician, as he has just done with the new head of Digital Transformation, Óscar López.
In the first case, the list of possible candidates is long, with several names of former regional councillors or active MEPs on the table. If the second option comes to fruition, all eyes will be on his closest collaborators in the ministry: the Secretary of State for Energy, Sara Aagesen; the head of IDAE, Joan Groizard; or the director of the Spanish Office for Climate Change, Valvanera Ulargui. A wide range of possible future candidates and a fear on the horizon for environmentalists: that, as happened in the Economy with the departure of Calviño, Energy Transition will also lose the rank of vice-presidency in the post-Ribera era.
