The game into which the new Commission has entered together with the European Parliament is currently at a stalemate, but has just entered a decisive week. The dates are adjusted and President Ursula von der Leyen has returned from the G20 summit in Brazil with the aim of unblocking the veto of the European People’s Party (EPP) against Teresa Ribera and with a growing risk of misgovernance in the Union: there are increasingly fewer options for the Commission to start operating in December.
“The condition is that she resign if a judge prosecutes her,” parliamentary sources express to 20 minutesemphasizing that this is the premise they give to support Ribera. “We doubt that they prosecute her and given the speed at which Spanish justice works, it would be serious in more than 5 years and she would no longer be a commissioner,” they add. The still vice president of the Government, on the other hand, continues to have a resounding ‘no’ from the Spanish PP for her to be the new vice president of the community Executive. “There is no possibility that the Popular Party will support a community government in which Teresa Ribera is after everything that has happened in these two weeks,” said Dolors Montserrat, in the line also marked by Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who asks Pedro Sánchez for “responsibility” and the proposal of another candidate.
Otherwise, the popular Spaniards want to force “a secret vote” for Ribera so that each party can take a position. This is also complex because the idea continues to be that the six vice-presidents of the new Commission are voted as a bloc. There is still the game of crossed vetoes: If the Spanish company falls, the Social Democrats will not give their support to the Italian Raffaele Fittoso the entire College of Commissioners would go down. The most dramatic scenario would be that. In the PP, in fact, there are some voices that They believe that Ribera will not make the cut “in any case”, but the subsequent domino effect would complicate things.
“We will see if the MEPs want to sponsor a vice president with their vote which has a management and public responsibility problem in which 220 Europeans have lost their lives in the Valencian Community and in Castilla-La Mancha”, explained Montserrat, leaving the ball in the court of other leaders, also aware that at the moment she has the support of her ‘colleagues’ from the rest of the EPP, led by Manfred Weber who wants to go to the clash with Von der Leyen.
There is currently no progress towards an agreement and the sources consulted on the social democratic side indicate that this piece is not moving either: If Ribera falls, the entire Commission falls, Von der Leyen included. It is the same point that they highlighted a few days ago, when they accused the EPP of leaving the historic centrist agreement of the European forces. Furthermore, they remember that the votes “are already secret” so the PP’s request in that sense has nothing new.
We will see if the MEPs want to sponsor with their vote a vice president who has a management and public responsibility problem.
The schedule is tight. The first key date is November 20, when Ribera is scheduled to be held accountable in Congress for his management of DANA, something that the PP also demanded. The 21st, just one day later, is still a key moment for the European Parliament to close the hearing process to the designated commissioners. Now, this might not be the case if this vote by the vice presidents had to be placed against the clock. However, so that the European Commission can come into operation on December 1, all of it would have to be approved in the plenary session of the European Parliament which starts on November 25 in Strasbourg. That is, there is only a week and a half left to meet the deadlines.
And in these moments of certain tension there are already some important critical voices regarding what is happening, as is the case of the Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani (who was also president of the European Parliament). “It would be a very serious mistake to prevent the European Commission from being able to start working”expressed this Monday, that he spoke of a blockade due to “political whims”, although he is optimistic “that common sense can be imposed.”
Are there any alternatives? Yes, but without precedent. The first involves a call from Ursula von der Leyen – who maintains “confidence” in Ribera – to Pedro Sánchez to propose another candidate. In the current conditions of Ribera, something like this has never happened, although a few months ago the German Yes, he did the same with France so that Thierry Breton was not the name of Emmanuel Macron in the new Commission. The French president listened and put Stephane Sejourné on the table, who aspires to be, like Ribera, vice president of the community Executive.
Ultimately, Von der Leyen could press ahead against everything and everyone: that is, ignore what the European Parliament says and keep the Commission as it is. There is no rule that forces the German to accept the nuances and claims of the European Parliament, but if it is ‘skipped’ the war between institutions would be open. At the moment, no one contemplates that scenario. “If it hasn’t happened before, it won’t happen now,” the sources repeat. All in all, the ‘brown’ that Von der Leyen has to resolve is large, and with time already running against him.
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