On November 12, the ENVI, ECON and ITRE Committees met for the hearing of Ms Teresa Ribera Rodríguez, Commission Executive Vice-President-designate for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition. The IMCO, EMPL, TRAN, REGI and AGRI Committees also participated as “invited committees” with the right to ask one oral question each during the hearing.
The hearing was at times contentious with a number of MEPs from the right of the house seeking to apportion the candidate with the blame for the recent floods in Spain. During her introductory speech, she pledged to implement the climate ambitions of the EU in the simplest and fairest manner possible and stressed the need to work on climate adaptation. Addressing her potential future role as Commissioner responsible for Competition, she said that she would seek to ensure that competition policy evolves to deal with a changing world. This would include a review of the tools on the table including the merger review powers and the strict enforcement of competition rules to protect the single market. Another area of priority for her was the Clean Industrial Act.
During the ensuing debate with MEPs, issues raised included her approach to competition law, whether the Green Deal rules should be relaxed, what needs to be done to ensure a fair transition, the implementation of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and how to help industry in the decarbonisation effort whist retaining competitiveness.
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