After the storm, calm comes. After the tension experienced in the European Parliament last week, the MEPs went home on Thursday and, beyond the discreet contacts, the decibels have dropped considerably. All parties are seeking ‘in extremis’ to overcome a blockade in the EU and save the vote on the new College of Commissioners, which is scheduled for next week in Strasbourg. To do this, the six vice presidents appointed by Ursula von der Leyen, including the Spanish Teresa Ribera, must receive the approval of their corresponding parliamentary committees, a procedure that for now is suspended until there is an agreement between the three families that make up the coalition that ‘governs’ in the EU.
“There are conversations going on to try to unblock this. We are responsible, but for now there is nothing,” they point out from the social democratic group. The socialists, through the Government of Pedro Sánchez, which is the one that has the main open conflict with the European People’s Party, have substantially lowered their tone and have opened themselves to lifting the veto that they had imposed on the Giorgia candidate from the beginning. Meloni, Raffaele Fitto, as vice president of the new European Commission, and that is the demand that the European conservative family made of him.
The Government has appealed to the need to end the blockade. “The EU cannot plunge into instability with short-sighted crossed vetoes,” government sources have pointed out. The “crossed vetoes” on the table pivot precisely between the rejection of the Italian by socialists and liberals and the blockade of Ribera that the group led by Manfred Weber is using as a bargaining chip to pressure its pro-European allies to give approval. Good to Fitto, even though they have the numbers to push through his nomination with the far-right forces.
Sánchez will take advantage of his presence at the G20 meeting to address the matter with Ursula von der Leyen, whom his own party has challenged, and with other heads of government from the EPP family to increase the pressure on Weber to unblock the situation, as published by El País. However, at that time in the conservative ranks, except for the PP of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, there was no explicit veto of Ribera, but rather a delay in his evaluation so that he would be held accountable in Congress for the management of DANA and a ordered the socialists to support Meloni’s candidate.
“Everything will be resolved on Wednesday”
“They spend the time talking, either among themselves, or through an intermediary,” EPP sources point out about the contacts that have occurred in recent days between Weber and the head of the Social Democrats, Iratxe García. In fact, Feijóo’s PP was the first to assume that the socialists would end up supporting Fitto in exchange for unblocking Ribera. “Everything will be resolved on Wednesday,” they say in the group led by Weber. The EPP spokesman on the Environment Commission, the German Christian Democrat Peter Liese, who during Ribera’s examination said that he was not giving him arguments to convince his people to vote in favor of his nomination, assured this Monday that “in principle” is in a position to ask her group to support her. “I hope that all parties finally come together and that we have a strong European Commission for the next five years,” he expressed.
For the moment, the key date will be Wednesday. First thing in the morning the socialists have the group meeting in which they will establish the final position. The Conference of Presidents will also meet with the intention of holding the vote of the College of Commissioners for next week. And Ribera’s appearance in Congress will be held, which was the EPP’s demand before evaluating his candidacy.
While the path for Von der Leyen’s new cabinet is being paved, Feijóo’s PP maintains its rejection of Ribera and remains confident that its European colleagues will overthrow his candidacy to force Sánchez to make a new proposal. But Weber has so far shown no signs of wanting to go to total war, which would mean plunging the EU into an unprecedented political crisis. What he has achieved with his maneuver with Feijóo is to hit the table (from Von der Leyen, who took his position five years ago), to show his power as leader of the largest political group in the European Parliament – given that he has the extreme right the ability to assemble an alternative majority to the traditional European coalition – and wear down Ribera and the social democrats.
Source: www.eldiario.es
