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Brussels – The main political groups in the European Parliament have agreed to postpone the verdicts of the six candidates for the vice-presidencies of the next community executive of the German Ursula von der Leyen, including the current third vice-president of the Government of Spain, Teresa Ribera, with the aim of forcing a block decision so that none of the appointees is approved until the rest are.
The agreement came last night between the European People’s Party (EPP), Socialists and Democrats (S&D), and liberals (Renew Europe), as confirmed by various parliamentary sources to Europa Press, although the political families differ regarding the deadline they give themselves to agree on the final evaluations.
For the moment, a spokesperson for the European Parliament has confirmed via a statement that the evaluations of the two candidates who have appeared throughout the morning of this Tuesday, the far-right Italian Raffaele Fitto and the liberal Estonian Kaja Kallas, have been “postponed,” without specifying the date. In the afternoon, the rest of the candidates, including Ribera, will undergo evaluation starting at 18:30.
In this way, socialist and liberal benches point out that the goal is for the coordinators of the committees responsible for evaluating each vice-presidency to express their views on the suitability of the candidate under their scrutiny tonight, at the end of the day’s hearings or, at the latest, this Wednesday.
Popular sources, however, believe that the decision could be delayed even further until next week, once the plenary session held by the European Parliament this Wednesday and Thursday in Brussels is over.
The Popular Party of Spain, which has been very critical of Ribera’s management during the floods in the east and south of Spain after the DANA, questions the socialist’s ability to assume a community vice-presidency and pressures for the decision on her candidacy to be postponed even after her appearance before the Congress of Deputies, scheduled for next November 20.
The European Parliament, whose rules state that candidate evaluations must be made “without delay” after passing exams, expected the entire College of Commissioners to go to the plenary vote on November 27.
The procedure establishes that after a three-hour hearing, the coordinators of the responsible committees assess the candidate, who will be approved immediately if he or she has the approval of two-thirds of the coordinators.
If not, there will be a second opportunity to overcome the doubts of the MEPs by answering a written questionnaire or in a second shorter hearing, and the coordinators must decide again with a two-thirds proportion, which if not obtained, would require a decision by a simple majority of all MEPs in the involved committees.
Although for the moment the European Parliament has not ruled on whether it approves or disapproves of Teresa Ribera, because such a decision cannot come until her appearance this afternoon, the Spanish PP has assured that they have managed to “block” and “overturn” her appointment as vice-president and European commissioner. “Today we have stopped it,” PP national leadership sources told Europa Press.
The PP considers that in the European Union “the concern” about the management Teresa Ribera has made of the DANA is growing and recalled that she “already has three lawsuits” in court for her Department’s inactivity in the face of the catastrophe, the same sources added.
In the Spanish PP they boast of this movement in Brussels against Ribera, who, they say, “does not currently have the support of the European People’s Party” either. In addition, national PP sources have questioned “to what extent does Von der Leyen need to import a leader with this situation,” whom they have accused these days of being “missing” after the disasters. (November 12)
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