The European People’s Party assumes that it will support Teresa Ribera as vice president of the European Commission. The leader of the European Popular Party group, Manfred Weber, has communicated the acceptance of the socialist to carry out the new government of Ursula von der Leyen while waiting for the completion of her appearance in Congress, which was one of the demands she raised. last week under pressure from Alberto Núñez Feijóo. Iratxe García has also met with the group of social democrats to pave the way for support for Giorgia Meloni’s candidate, Raffaele Fitto. The spokespersons for the EPP, socialists and liberals will hold a new meeting this Wednesday to try to close the agreement.
Negotiations have intensified in the last two days after the entente of the coalition that ‘governs’ the EU was blown up last week. The reason was the blockade imposed by the popular Europeans on Pedro Sánchez’s candidate following Feijóo’s strategy, who wanted at all costs to delay the decision on Ribera to wear down the vice president and the entire Government for the management of DANA and remove the focus of Carlos Mazón. With this maneuver, Weber also increased the pressure for the socialists and liberals to lift the veto against Fitto.
After hours of negotiations and a meeting that ended without an agreement late on Tuesday, Weber and García have gathered their parliamentary groups to present the situation. The EPP will vote in favor of Ribera once the appearance in Congress is over. The president of the popular group in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, presented the idea to his national delegations in a meeting this morning and all except the Spanish one are in favor of this commitment, reports the EFE Agency.
In fact, it has even eliminated the requirement that Ribera have to previously commit to resign if she were prosecuted for the management of DANA, as the EPP said last week following its Spanish delegation. Ribera refers to the code of conduct of the European Commission, which only provides for resignation if the president demands it.
Feijóo’s PP assumes that it can be left alone
The acceptance of the European PP occurs against Feijóo, who maintains Ribera’s veto. However, in Genoa they assume that they can be left alone within their group with that decision: “We will vote conscientiously,” informs Aitor Riveiro. The intention of the Spanish popular is to vote even against the European Commission as a whole once the 26 commissioners are approved. That would mean going against the entire group, fourteen commissioners from her political family and Ursula von der Leyen herself. Sources from the group consider that it could take its toll on their relationship with the future community government.
Regardless of how the Congress session ends, where Feijóo’s PP has blamed Ribera for the deaths in the Valencia tragedy, the agreement is pending until the socialists and liberals give their approval to Meloni’s far-right candidates. , Raffele Fitto, and Viktor Orbán, Oliver Varhely. To avoid vote leaks that could jeopardize the approval of the six vice-presidents and the Hungarian commissioner, the EPP wants the approval to go ahead at a meeting of the coordinators of the corresponding parliamentary committees (which requires a majority of two thirds).
Division in the socialists over support for Fitto
After months saying that they would reject a Meloni vice president in the European Commission, the socialists have now opened up to supporting Fitto so that the appointment of Ribera, and also the Romanian Roxana Mînzatu, as vice presidents can go forward. However, the ground that the head of the S&D, Iratxe García, has been paving, has been met with rejection by some important delegations, such as the French and the German, according to sources present at the group meeting.
What one of the French MEPs has defended is that, in exchange for Fitto’s endorsement, there should be, at a minimum, an agreement that forces the EPP to commit to not allying itself with the extreme right, as it has already done in several parliamentary votes.
However, the document that is being negotiated to seal the agreement is going to be “very general”, according to social democratic sources, and will not include an allusion to the need to maintain the cordon sanitaire to the extreme right because they recognize that the EPP is not willing to take it on.
Source: www.eldiario.es
