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Strasbourg (France) – The European Parliament will hold the hearing of the candidate for Executive Vice-President of the European Commission for a Clean, Fair and Competitive Transition, as well as responsible for Competition, Teresa Ribera, on November 12 at 6:30 p.m., European Parliament political group leaders decided this Thursday.
The European People’s Party and the three ultra-conservative and far-right groups supported this option, which places all the vice-president candidates at the end of the series of hearings between November 4 and 12, as opposed to the alternative preferred by socialists, liberals, greens, and the left, which scheduled the vice-presidents’ hearings at the beginning.
This decision, in which the EPP has once again aligned with the far-right instead of the majority pro-European groups as was customary, did not go down well with the socialist ranks.
Their president, the Spanish Iratxe García, lamented the “political intention” of leaving the vice-presidents until the end of the process, as they would be the last to receive the green light.
“This will complicate the process. We cannot understand why the EPP plays to have a double majority, sometimes with us and sometimes with the far-right,” she noted.
The leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists, the Italian Nicola Procaccini, defended the chosen order and stressed that it follows the same logic as the last legislature. The Italian Government’s candidate Giorgia Meloni, Raffaelle Fitto, will be the first of the vice-presidents to undergo his hearing.
Each candidate needs a two-thirds majority among the commission examiners to advance in the first or second vote. If any reach the third vote, in that case, only a simple majority is needed.
Ribera will be examined in the European Parliament by the MEPs of the Economy, Environment, and Industry committees, while five other committees (Employment, Transport, Agriculture, Regional Development, and Internal Market) will attend her hearing as guests.
Alongside the other 25 commissioner candidates, the Spaniard also received the green light this Thursday from the Legal Affairs Committee, which examined her statements of interests in search of conflicts that might question her suitability for the role. (October 10)