The toads that Teresa Ribera swallows in Brussels

BrusselsIt is the European Union most right-leaning in history. In the elections of June last year, conservative and far-right parties obtained excellent results and even added an alternative majority to the grand coalition between the European PP, social democrats and liberals that have governed the European institutions during the last legislatures. At the state level, the situation is similar. The executives led by progressive forces can be counted on the fingers of one hand and there are more and more governments led by or with a strong far-right accent.

In this context, the government of Pedro Sánchez and the European commissioner who sent to Brussels, former vice president Teresa Ribera, are almost alone in some of the main political battles of the socialists, such as the fight against climate change and the green transition. Thus, despite being the second most powerful woman in the European Commission, Ribera finds herself with little room for manoeuvre to try to minimise the anti-ecological wave that is spreading across the continent and has already reached the European institutions.

The main measure that will water down Brussels' green agenda is the one that aims to simplify administrative procedures and reduce bureaucracy. The intention is to reduce the expenditure on paperwork by around 6,000 million euros annually and to alleviate the bureaucratic burden that companies, especially small and medium-sized ones, must face. Ribera herself, who presented it to the press last week because it is an initiative that hangs from her portfolio, said she was "proud" and "satisfied" with a legislative proposal that aims to make the European institutions more efficient.

However, as denounced by the same social democratic family and several environmental NGOs, the reduction in paperwork that Brussels desires is intended to be achieved to the detriment of the environmental requirements that the European Union currently demands. Thus, 80% of companies will be exempt from climate controls because only companies with more than 1,000 workers and more than 450 million euros of annual turnover will be obliged to do so.

Besides, the minimum fine is withdrawn (5% of the company's turnover) imposed on companies that fail to comply with the environmental requirements directive in their activities in third countries. And, among others, the scope of green tariffs is reduced, which will finally only tax 10% of the total number of companies initially planned to import products with a high ecological footprint and which involve a higher pollution than what is allowed within the EU itself.

Although this legislative proposal falls directly on the department of Ribera, which heads Net and Competitive Transition, there are several other initiatives that have been promoted by the European Commission as a whole that also slow down the EU's ecological fight. The most problematic has been the relaxation of the pollution limits of combustion vehicles, which had been requested for some time by the employers' associations of the automobile industry, or the reduction of ecological controls for farmers who want to access to aid from the common agricultural policy (CAP).

This week, Ursula von der Leyen has proposed a three-year postponement of the entry into force of sanctions for car manufacturers that do not comply with CO₂ emissions standards, which is expected to save around 16 billion Euros in fines. And, as for the CAP, Brussels is considering stopping some environmental controls on small and medium-sized farms and, among other things, promises to avoid banning more pesticides if there is no alternative on the market that is equally efficient.

Little room for manoeuvre

Although these measures clearly curb Brussels' environmental ambition, reality is what it is and Ribera has little room for manoeuvre within the European Commission and the European institutions as a whole. The Spanish socialist has set herself up in the main ecological voice of Brussels, but it is part of an eminently conservative executive and even with some far-right members, such as the Italian vice-president Raffaele Fitto.

In this regard, it is worth remembering that each member state appoints a European commissioner –there are 27– and, although they form the executive body of the EU, they work in total coordination with the state governments and the European Parliament, with which they must negotiate the vast majority of legislative proposals. Therefore, as community sources recall, Ribera is also responsible to the majorities of the European Parliament and the heads of state and government of the European bloc, and has no choice but to balance and row against the current in an increasingly right-wing context. In this way, he must end up accepting that the European Commission goes ahead with some initiatives that contradict its ecological discourse, even those that are promoted from its own portfolio.