The game in which the new Commission has entered together with the European Parliament is at a standstill right now, but has just entered a decisive week. Dates are tight and President Ursula von der Leyen has returned from the G20 summit in Brazil. with the aim of unblocking the European People’s Party’s (EPP) veto of Teresa Ribera and with a growing risk of misrule in the Union: there is less and less chance that the Commission will start working in December.
“The condition is that she resigns if a judge indicts her,” parliamentary sources told 20minutosemphasizing that this is the premise they give for supporting Ribera. “We doubt that she will be prosecuted and given the speed at which the Spanish justice system works it would be more than 5 years from now and she would not even be a commissioner”, they add. The still vice-president of the Government, on the other hand, still has the ‘no’ of the Spanish PP for her to be the new vice-president of the Community Executive. “There is no possibility whatsoever that the Popular Party supports a community government in which Teresa Ribera is after everything that has happened in the last two weeks”, said Dolors Montserrat, in line with Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who asked Pedro Sánchez for “responsibility” and the proposal of another candidate.
Otherwise, the Spanish popular want to force “a secret ballot” of Ribera for each party to position itself. This is also complex because the idea is still that the six vice-presidents of the new Commission are voted en bloc. There is still the game of crossed vetoes: if the Spanish one falls, the Social Democrats will not support the Italian Raffaele Fitto.and the whole College of Commissioners would collapse. The most dramatic scenario would be that one. In the PP, in fact, there are some voices that believe that Ribera will not pass 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. who has a management and public accountability problem in which 220 Europeans have lost their lives in the Valencian Community and in Castilla-La Mancha”, said Montserrat, leaving the ball in the court of other leaders, also aware that for the moment she has the support of her ‘colleagues’ of the rest of the EPP, led by Manfred Weber who wants to go to the clash with Von der Leyen.
For the moment there is no progress towards an agreement and the sources consulted on the Social Democrat side indicate that this piece is not moving either: if Ribera falls, the whole Commission falls, Von der Leyen included. It is the same point they stressed a few days ago, when they accused the EPP of getting out of the historic centrist agreement of the European forces. In addition, they recall that the votes “are already secret” so that the request of the PP in this regard has nothing new.
We will see if the MEPs want to sponsor with their vote a vice-president who has a problem of management and public responsibility.
The calendar is tight. The first key date is November 20, when Ribera is scheduled to give an account in Congress for her management of the DANA, something also demanded by the PP. The 21st, only one day later, remains a key moment for the European Parliament to close the hearings process. to the Commissioners-designate. However, this might not be the case if the vote of the vice-presidents were to be held against the clock. However, in order for the European Commission to to become operational on December 1, all of it would have to be approved in the plenary session of the European Parliament. which begins on November 25 in Strasbourg. In other words, there is only a week and a half left to meet the deadlines.
And in these moments of some tension there are already some important critical voices with 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.”He spoke of a blockage due to “political whims”, although he is optimistic “that common sense can be imposed”.
Are there any alternatives? Yes, but without precedents. The first one involves a call from Ursula von der Leyen -who maintains “confidence” in Ribera- to Pedro Sánchez to propose another candidate. Under Ribera’s current conditions such a thing has never happened, although a few months ago German did do 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 on the table Stephane Sejourné, who aspires to be, like Ribera, vice-president of the Community Executive.
Ultimately, Von der Leyen could go 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 ‘skips’ the war between institutions would be open. At the moment, no one is contemplating such a scenario. “If it has not happened before, it will not happen now”, the sources repeat. All in all, the ‘brown’ that Von der Leyen has to solve is big, and with time already running against him.