Days after a leaked EU document hinted that Brussels may be toning down the green rhetoric ahead of June’s elections, the frontrunner to become Spain’s next European commissioner has doubled down on eco zealotry.
Teresa Ribera, the Spanish Ecological Transition Minister, told Euractiv: “I’m always prepared to fight for the climate, for clean energy, for my country and for Europe.” When asked about her interest in becoming an EU commissioner, she added. “I have never discarded [the option], but it is not me who takes the decision.”
Under the helm of EU Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen, climate policy has been the flagship and defining issue of the present Commission, whose mandate started in 2019 and is coming to a close this summer. With the help of Dutch commissioner Frans Timmermans, supported strongly by Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton, von der Leyen rolled out the European Green Deal, a series of rules and directives promising to “green” Europe without causing any economic pains.
However, as Europe suffered under the economic effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and high inflation, and as farmers protested both onerous climate policy and the flood of Ukrainian products allowed into the EU, the center-right has—at least temporarily, and in time for election campaigns—backed down from many of the Green Deal’s more controversial policies and even pledged to re-examine some measures already enshrined in the Common Agricultural Policy.
It looked like EU politicians might have backed off from the aspirations of the Green Deal and would focus on other issues of concern to Europeans.
But not Teresa Ribera, who is widely believed to be Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’ choice for his country’s EU commissioner. In her interview with Euractive, she affirmed that Europe needed to lean into—not away from—the Green Deal.
In Brussels, the coalition of left-leaning parties, including socialists, has largely stuck to the hardline of the original Green Deal proposals, such as the controversial Nature Restoration Law (NRL). The center-right European People’s Party (EPP), internally split on the issue, was instrumental in passing the NRL in February after MEPs defected from the group’s party line and supported it. In the European Council, some ministers and heads of government have also backed down from the toughest proposals and agreed to compromises with farmers.
But Spain’s domestic policy of going all-in on renewable energy, championed by Ribera for nearly five years, aligns perfectly with the original plans of the Green Deal, so it is little surprise that she is in favor of continuing to pursue its policies and is critical of those who have backed down. In words that suggest the next Commission is unlikely to make any major changes to green policy, Ribera said:
I don’t like at all the way we have witnessed in the last year and a half, this lack of respect to the procedure. We should pay attention not to get this as a new custom in Brussels, where everybody has a kind of veto at the very end of the process. … This does not help to create Europe.
She told Euractiv that she would like to see a Green Deal that is more “social” and includes greater measures for compensating people for the costs of environmental policy and also leverages climate change policy to tackle economic inequality.
Even if the Right triumphs in this year’s EU elections, Ribera’s comments suggest climate change and environmental policies are unlikely to drop off the political agenda of Brussels completely.
