The European Parliament today faces its own super tuesday. Just one week after the US elections which, with the victory of Republican Donald Trump, have confirmed the worst fears of the EU, the six candidates for vice presidents of the next European Commission, including the Spanish Teresa Ribera, face their examination before MEPs in a marathon session that will last all day.
The other commissioners, except the Hungarian Oliver Varhelyi, already achieved approval last week with deceptive ease. Facing the super tuesday European, the political groups have been negotiating again intensely and until the last moment so that nothing derails in this last curve. “Nobody wants a crisis,” said a deputy in the corridors of Parliament this Monday, adding that, in any case, it will not be easy to avoid it. The person who least wants this crisis is the president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who is in a hurry to launch her new Executive “as soon as possible,” her spokesperson stressed this Monday. There is not only the changing of the guard in the White House in January: there are two wars at the doors of the EU and its two large states – France and Germany – are not emerging from political instability.
Six heavyweights of the Executive are examined: the Italian Raffaele Fitto, appointed to take charge of the Cohesion Funds; the Estonian Kaja Kallas, high representative for Foreign Policy; Stephane Séjourné, candidate to govern industry policy; the Romanian Roxana Minzatu, in Employment; the Finnish Henna Virkunen, head of technology and security policies; and the third vice president of the Spanish Government, Teresa Ribera, who would be in charge of Competition. But the focus is, above all, on two members of this sextet: Ribera, to whom the Spanish Popular Party – who already voted against him in the first part of the process, the analysis of the conflict of interest – promise a harsh questioning of his response to the dana in Valencia, and in the ultra-conservative Fitto.
The appointment of the Italian Minister for European Affairs as Vice President of the Commission has caused blisters in families such as the Renew liberals – who remember time and again that Von der Leyen explicitly promised them that he would not elevate the Italian candidate Giorgia to that high rank. Meloni—, the S&D social democrats or the Greens. They emphasize that in July they supported the German woman’s candidacy, something that ECR did not do, Meloni’s political family, whom the German has nevertheless rewarded with a vice presidency, they regret.
Fitto will be the first to submit to the questions of the MEPs this Tuesday and Ribera (the first sword of the Social Democrats) the last, in a calendar highly criticized by the center and left forces. The agenda was approved thanks to an alliance of the European People’s Party (EPP) with far-right groups as a strategy to ensure that their candidates did not fall during the hearing process, especially the Italian one. This shows that it is the EPP that has the power to configure majorities by agreeing to its left or right and that if the candidates end up submitting themselves to the vote of the MEPs of the different commissions (something that has not happened until now because given the approval of those already ratified by the consent of two-thirds of the spokespersons of each parliamentary group), the Spanish one remains in the hands of the popular ones.
To avoid a political blockade, which would delay the implementation of the Commission, Von der Leyen is working hard. He has canceled his attendance at COP29 in Baku (Azerbaijan), due to the process underway in Brussels, to which he “gives his full attention.” Something that was already evident last week: the apparent ease with which most of the candidates were approved, even those considered the most fragile, such as the Maltese Glenn Micallef (due precisely to that calendar set by the right and extreme right), was almost of breaking last Tuesday.
That day, the designated commissioners for the Environment, the Swedish conservative Jessika Roswall, and for Crisis Management, the Belgian liberal Hadja Lahbib, appeared before their honorable Members of the European Parliament, whose hearings were weak, analysts agree. To avoid its rejection, which would have caused a blockade and inevitably delayed the start of the new Commission, Von der Leyen took a coup: on Wednesday, just when Trump’s victory was known and the Hungarian Varhelyi was preparing to present himself to her Once before the MEPs, the German brought together the presidents of the groups that form the historic coalition that has governed the EU: the conservative Manfred Weber, the social democrat Iratxe García and the liberal Valérie Hayer, who ended up giving the go-ahead to the two candidates . In the package it was also negotiated that the Hungarian, who also did not convince most groups, would send a new batch of answers to written questions instead of undergoing a new appearance.
And that strategy of the “package” of approved commissioners tested last week – in the style of all together, or none – is what is also emerging as the plan to follow in the face of this super tuesdaymost of the groups agree. Although things will not be easy. In case any more proof is needed, few expect the process to be quick. “There are too many open questions to have white smoke,” acknowledged this Monday a parliamentarian, who postponed the announcement about the vice presidents to Wednesday or even Thursday. This new large package would also include the final decision on Varhelyi, whose appointment, which was debated this Monday, has been delayed at least until Wednesday.
The liberals, pragmatic (after all, two vice-presidencies are at stake this Tuesday), are willing to end up approving the Italian in a new package. But the socialists do not like, to begin with, linking Ribera’s examination with Fitto’s: “They cannot be connected. The EPP’s agreement, at all times, since the beginning of the legislature, has been with the pro-European forces, with social democrats and liberals; What is not acceptable is that they are putting Fitto on the same level with Ribera right now,” lamented the president of the socialist group, the Spanish Iratxe García, before starting a meeting of the group in statements that are reminiscent of those already were heard when the conservatives allied themselves to impose a calendar that places the Italian with an advantage.
Late in the afternoon, analyzing the strategies to follow this Tuesday, the socialists left seriously and without making statements, although with the premise that without Ribera, Von der Leyen will not be able to start his new team as quickly as he wants.
