The third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, whose name usually appears in the pools to be the Spanish commissioner in the next European Executive, says that both in Brussels and in Madrid she will be "very happy" to continue developing the climate agenda. "In one place or another I will be very happy," Ribera declared to the press as she entered the ninth Cohesion Forum being held in Brussels.
The Spanish vice president made a plea in favor of maintaining climate action as a priority in the next European legislature because "it would be a huge mistake to think that security, peace, neighborly relations and industry can be built in Europe without a powerful green agenda." The European institutions need "very solvent people who are very committed to this agenda because changing the paradigm of many decades is not something that can be resolved in a mandate," she added.
"Ursula von der Leyen's Commission, in the previous mandate, has made a lot of progress in the right direction but that will not be resolved in four, five or ten years. This process of change and the ability to generate consensus and build opportunities need to be consolidated" Ribera said.
The leaders of the EU countries and institutions will meet next week in Brussels to discuss, among other points, the strategic perspectives of the EU between 2024 and 2029, in a context in which the green agenda is losing weight while areas are rising. such as geopolitics and defense, agriculture or industrial autonomy.
"Fortunately there are a lot of people in very solvent conditions. If I end up being the person who is lucky enough to be able to develop those things, I will be happy to do it. And if it is someone else, I will help the person who is. I'm not particularly worried or hurt about whether it is me or not," said Ribera.
The socialist minister added that in the campaign ahead of the June elections to the European Parliament she sees herself "as an important asset" of the Government of Spain and the PSOE. But she avoided commenting on whether she will lead the PSOE ticket, a circumstance that is not necessary to assume a portfolio in the European Commission.
"The decisions about who heads the list or how the Government of Spain is represented on the Commission are decisions that obviously transcend me and that will be communicated in due time by the appropriate bodies," he said. "We all know each other, we have seen each other on many occasions, and working in Spain is working in Europe," she added.
In any case, he considered that "it is not written" that the European Executive that is based on these elections will necessarily give less importance to the green agenda.
"A Europe ossified in a strictly defensive model is not an attractive project that allows us to evolve and respond to the great challenges that lie ahead. On the contrary, we obviously have to be careful and firm with respect to the defense of our values." , but simultaneously, the defense of our values is also what Europe and what common project we want to build," he said.
The third vice president added that it is necessary to "pay much more attention to groups that may be threatened by such big changes in such a short time," in reference to the farmers' protests, but she was firmly against "abandoning this climate policy." . "No one can imagine peace, prosperity and security if there are no policies that integrate the appropriate response to droughts and floods, in advance of the risks of desertification or loss of soil quality... They are closely linked," she summarized.
Regarding his participation in the Cohesion Forum, the reason for his trip to Brussels, Ribera defended that "structural policies cannot simply be a way to provide a compensatory resource, but rather they have to be a resource dedicated to the generation of opportunities." ". "The great social inequalities have in part a direct relationship with this different proposal of opportunities depending on the territory in which one lives" and defended the need to "update the criteria that are used so that cohesion policies" to advance in a "policy to reduce inequalities."
