How Teresa Ribera became the second most powerful person in Brussels. The Spain's climate expert

By Karl Mathiesen and Zia Weise - "Politico" 

BRUSSELS — Ursula von der Leyen has a dream for Europe. Teresa Ribera is meant to make it happen. The European Commission president on Tuesday chose the Spanish climate expert to become one of the European Union’s most influential people — in charge of charting the bloc’s course toward a future both prosperous and green.

It is, perhaps, the most powerful post ever created within the EU’s executive arm: A position combining the jobs of competition chief, net-zero architect and economic transformer.

The move was not easy politically. To allay national and partisan concerns about Ribera — a Spanish socialist who von der Leyen’s own center-right party, the nuclear industry and the French government all criticized in recent weeks — von der Leyen proposed a Commission structure that placed some checks on Ribera's power.

But Ribera — currently Spain’s ecological transition minister — is the one von der Leyen is effectively tasking with implementing her overarching vision. And she’s handing Ribera a blueprint: An exhaustive report from former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi that calls for Europe to renew its economic fortunes via a more powerful EU and the green transition.

It’s a diagnosis Ribera broadly shares. “This is a great opportunity to keep on building the European dream,” Ribera told reporters in Strasbourg. Indeed Miguel Gil Tertre, the Commission official Ribera has named as her chief of staff, was on team who helped Draghi write the report.

Now all that stands in Ribera’s way is a confirmation hearing in the European Parliament. 

Ribera’s resume was crucial. Early on, von der Leyen made clear in her conversations with national leaders that commissioners with strong track records would be rewarded with top roles.

A senior Commission official said von der Leyen had chosen Ribera with an eye on the EU’s looming 2030 climate targets. The bloc is currently not on track to meet them, jeopardizing its 2050 net-zero goal. 

“Knowing her background, and I think in terms of getting the [green and digital] transitions done, especially the decarbonization side, I think she can deliver,” the official said. “She also has a reputation for being a good administrator.”

Tough, detailed negotiations are a Ribera specialty. 

Mario Draghi that calls for Europe to renew its economic fortunes via a more powerful EU and the green transition. | Antonio Masiello/Getty Images

She started out as a technocrat and diplomat focused on climate change but has also been an ambitious government minister. In 2020, Spain became one of the first nations to set a legal goal to reach climate neutrality by 2050, a target the EU later adopted for the entire bloc. At the same time, Ribera brokered deals with unions and industry to phase out coal and nuclear power — on the way becoming a darling of the international climate movement. 

Within Europe, she has led on discussions about implementing the EU’s green agenda. And internationally, she has been a go-to source to help deliver deals at the United Nations annual COP climate summits. 

After Russia invaded Ukraine, sending energy prices soaring, Ribera also negotiated a carveout from EU electricity market rules for the Iberian Peninsula, allowing it to set its electricity prices separately.

“Teresa Ribera has the rare ability to broker difficult deals: on just transition with Spanish coal workers and a fossil fuel phase-out with major petrostates. She will need these skills in Brussels,” said Linda Kalcher, the executive director of the Strategic Perspectives think tank.

These achievements won Ribera the complete trust of Spain’s leader Pedro Sánchez, who made her a deputy prime minister and asked her to lead the nation’s economic recovery from the pandemic. Sánchez then made Ribera getting a top job in the Commission one of his core political priorities, despite her initial reluctance to leave Spain. 

Who loves ya?

The challenges Ribera faces in Brussels have been on display in recent weeks. The center-right European People’s Party (EPP) argued she is too left-wing and anti-industry to be responsible for pivotal economic policy. 

“The nomination of Teresa Ribera is a challenge,” said Peter Liese, the EPP’s lead climate lawmaker. 

Referring to the previous Socialist in charge of EU green policy, Frans Timmermans, Liese exhorted Ribera to show greater consideration for industry and agriculture: “She should under no circumstances continue Frans Timmermans’ policy unaltered … I hope that the other commissioners push for this — if necessary in conflict with the vice president.”

French government officials have also raised concerns about her views on nuclear power.

Ribera has never been against atomic energy on principle, but she argued that sun-rich Spain had cheaper options than its aging fleet of nuclear plants. France has also clashed with Ribera over a proposed energy connection across the Pyrenees that Paris has resisted.F rench government officials have also raised concerns about her views on nuclear power.

On Tuesday, Ribera skirted the nuclear fight, saying the decisions capitals made about their energy mix had been treated with “great respect” in Brussels. Pointedly, Ribera noted she had brokered deals on the EU level that were big wins for nuclear.

Rings around Ribera

Von der Leyen’s proposed Commission balances these concerns by surrounding Ribera with numerous right-leaning commissioners.

To start, the EPP’s Wopke Hoekstra is in line to retain a climate portfolio reporting to Ribera.

"Hoekstra is close to von der Leyen and can be a guard dog of his bosses, for example, to make sure Ribera doesn't go too far with the green agenda,” an EU diplomat said. 

Von der Leyen also offered a major industrial strategy role to French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné, a close ally of French President Emmanuel Macron. Sweden’s Jessika Roswall, another EPP politician, was also nominated for the environment job — a major shift from Virginijus Sinkevičius, who now sits with the Greens in the European Parliament. 

Elsewhere, Luxembourg's EPP politician Christophe Hansen is in line for the agriculture portfolio, providing another potential counterweight to Ribera, who wants the agriculture industry to go faster on emissions cuts than her right-leaning counterparts.

“Obviously people will look a lot at the [executive vice presidents], but in reality, I think the key holders are the holders of the individual files,” said the senior Commission official.

Still, Ribera’s unwieldy official title of “executive vice president” for a “clean, just and competitive transition” barely obscures the breadth of her duties. It notably includes the job of competition chief, which turned Danish politician Margrethe Vestager — or Europe’s “tax lady,” as former U.S. President Donald Trump called her — into a household name. 

On top of that, von der Leyen wants Ribera to lead work on designing a “Clean Industrial Deal” bill to boost climate-friendly technologies, enshrining a 2040 emissions-cutting target of 90 percent into law, bringing down energy prices, redrawing taxation to match EU climate goals and ensuring social fairness in the green transition alongside drawing up a new state aid framework and enforcing competition rules. 

Much of the granular, climate-related work will be delegated to the commissioners working under her, which include Hoekstra, Roswall and Denmark’s Dan Jørgensen, a Socialist chosen to run energy and housing policy. 

Yet Ribera, von der Leyen said on Tuesday, is the person who “will guide the work to ensure that Europe stays on track for its goals set out in the European Green Deal and that we decarbonize and industrialize our economy at the same time.” 

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(Karl Mathiesen and Zia Weise - www.politico.eu - Max Griera and Barbara Moens contributed reporting from Strasbourg