The Spanish PP has already announced that it is withdrawing from this pact cooked up by the head of the group, the German Manfred Weberand who maintains his opposition to Ribera. “He won’t count on our support”said the PP deputy, Ester Muñoz. The EPP MEPs from the rest of the countries have unanimously supported Weber’s proposal.
The green light for the new European Commission It will be formalized this afternoon. The coordinators of the political groups plan to approve majority of two thirds to Ribera and the other six commissioners who are still pending from last week. Among them, the Italian Raffaele Fittoappointed by Giorgia Meloni, who will also remain executive vice president despite the fact that the socialists wanted to strip him of this position.
The Hungarian will also be confirmed as commissioner Oliver Várhelyiclose ally of the ultra Viktor Orbánwho leads the radical right group Patriots for Europe. However, Varhely does lose some powers: Von de Leyen assigned him the Health portfolio, but he will no longer deal with sexual and reproductive health.
Once the evaluation of all the commissioners has been completed, the plenary session of the European Parliament will give its approval to Von der Leyen’s college of commissioners as a whole in a vote scheduled for next November 27 in Strasbourg. The grand coalition will have no problem reaching the required simple majority. In this way, the new Von der Leyen Commission will be able start working December 1.
After a week of chaos and hostilities in the European Parliament over the crossed veto of Teresa Ribera by the PPE and Fitto by the socialists and liberals, the three political groups that make up the grand coalition have buried the hatchet in order to unblock the EU Government. All political families argue that it is a priority for the EU to get moving immediately at a time when Donald Trump is already preparing his return to the White House and Vladimir Putin threatens to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
The EPP has agreed to lift the veto against Teresa Ribera after her appearance this Wednesday in Congress to give explanations about her performance at the DANA in Valencia. Once this step has been taken, the popular Europeans consider that The question of responsibilities must be resolved in Spain. A position that is not shared by the Spanish delegation, which left the group meeting in which the agreement was presented, visibly angry. Weber has been in contact throughout the negotiation with Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
In exchange for this transfer of the PPE, the European socialists -directed by the Spanish Iratxe García, very close to Pedro Sánchez- They have had to agree to vote in favor of the candidates of Meloni and Orbánsomething they refused to do. In fact, they wanted the popular votes to approve them with the votes of the radical right so as not to get their hands dirty. They also wanted Fitto demoted from executive vice president for Cohesion and Reforms to rank and file commissioner.
“In the formation of the college of commissioners, all countries have the right to elect a commissioner. I do not choose it, but the Government of that country,” said the president this Tuesday after the G20 in Rio de Janeiro to justify this change of posture.
In addition to resolving the crossed vetoes, the EPP, the socialists and the liberals have agreed on a joint declaration which renews the grand coalition agreement reached in July to re-elect Ursula von der Leyen. The three parties commit to continue working together for the future of Europe throughout the term and support the president’s government program.
However, The socialists have also failed in their goal of forcing the EPP to renounce any pact with the radical right.something they also wanted to include in this statement. The Popular Party assures that they will always resort to the grand coalition as the first option, but they reserve the right to explore other coalitions if negotiations with socialists and liberals fail.
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