Spain’s Teresa Ribera gets top job in charge of competition, climate in new Commission

BRUSSELS — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has chosen Spanish Ecological Transition Minister Teresa Ribera as her second-in-command, tasking her with overseeing a vast portfolio including climate and competition policy.

Ribera, a Socialist politician, will be the new Commission’s “first executive vice president … responsible for a clean, just and competitive transition,” von der Leyen said Tuesday morning. “She will also be responsible for competition policy.”

She added: “She will guide the work to ensure Europe stays on track to stay on track for its goals set out in the Green Deal,” the European Union’s flagship climate policy package.

Like all commissioners-designate, Ribera will now face a confirmation hearing in the European Parliament.

Ribera has twice served as environment minister in Spain. In her second stint, under current Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, she took on the broader role of minister of the ecological transition and rose to be a deputy prime minister in his government. 

In that job, Ribera oversaw the closure of Spain’s coal industry, negotiated the phase out of nuclear power by 2035, volunteered Madrid to host the 2019 U.N. climate talks after Chile dropped out at the last minute and won a carveout for Spain and Portugal from the EU’s electricity market rules during the gas crisis.

Outside her ministerial work, Ribera has focused on climate change policy for most of her career — as a civil servant, climate change negotiator and the director of the Paris-based think tank the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations.