In her opening remarks, Ms. Ribera paid tribute to the victims of the recent floods in Valencia, Spain. She committed to maintain the course of the European Green Deal to meet climate targets and set-up a new approach to competition policy that is supportive of European companies to achieve a global level playing field.
Combatting climate change
With reference to the recent floods in Valencia, several MEPs asked how Ms Ribera would improve Europe’s ability to prepare for growing climate-related risks. Ms Ribera highlighted the need to do more and better when it comes to improving the EU’s resilience to extreme weather events including on early warning systems and the capacity to respond. She promised a new European Climate Adaptation Plan to address those issues. She also committed to making water resilience a priority.
Ms Ribera also committed to work towards implementing EU climate and energy targets for 2030 as well as set an EU 2040 target to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by 90% compared to 1990 levels to enable the EU to become carbon neutral by mid-century.
MEPs also questioned Ms Ribera on issues related to the environment and the clean circular economy including on global negotiations on climate and biodiversity.
A clean and just transition
Ms. Ribera said support was needed for industrial decarbonisation, promoting a just transition, including housing and quality jobs, and capitalising on the benefits of the green and digital transitions. Members questioned Ms. Ribera about the role of nuclear energy in European policies. She said energy mix decisions are the responsibility of member states. When asked about Europe’s automotive industry and the sector’s decarbonisation goals, Ms. Ribera expressed her willingness to work with various industry stakeholders to “ensure that the transition is achieved.” She also committed to addressing the issue of support for automotive industry subcontractors.
A new approach to competition policy
Ms. Ribera committed to working on a reform of EU competition policy to improve the speediness of enforcement, simplify state aid rules, and clamp down on acquisitions, which prevent innovation.
MEPs asked how competition policy could be deployed to address the rising cost of living and the housing crises, and how competition rules would allow for the development of European global champions. Ms Ribera agreed that there was a space for competition policy to do more to address abusive pricing and to some extent the housing crisis.
They also asked how Ms Ribera would ensure predictability during the competition rules reforms, improve enforcement of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and what the main priorities for the competition agenda would be. She said that the Commission needs to be empowered further to better enforce the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Among other priorities, Ms Ribera mentioned simplifying competition rules, focusing on the worst offenders and supporting the green transition.
You can watch the video recording of the full hearing here.
Press point
At the end of the hearing, Antonio Decaro (S&D, Italy), Chair of ENVI and Aurore Lalucq (S&D, France), Chair of ECON held a press point outside the meeting room: watch it here.
Next steps
The chairs and political group coordinators of the committees on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on Industry, Research and Energy, and on Economic and Monetary Affairs, will meet without delay to assess the performance and qualification of the Commissioner-designate. Based on the committee recommendations, the Conference of Presidents (EP President Metsola and political group chairs) is set to conduct the final evaluation and declare the hearings closed on 21 November. Once the Conference of Presidents declares all hearings closed, the evaluation letters will be published.
The election by MEPs of the full college of Commissioners (by a majority of the votes cast, by roll-call) is currently scheduled to take place during the 25-28 November plenary session in Strasbourg.
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