Teresa Ribera (Madrid, 1969) is the Vice-President of the European Commission for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition since 2024, in a legislature that has veered to the right and must constantly battle to preserve unity against the unpredictable attacks of the United States. The most recent, a war in Iran that has shattered peace in the Middle East and distorted the global economy. The former socialist minister is now working on what the European response to this latest crisis should be, and defends democratic values that she believes must be asserted in the face of Donald Trump's aggressions.

The European Union is studying possible measures such as rationing fuel and releasing more oil from strategic reserves in the face of the risk of a "lasting" energy shock resulting from the war in the Middle East, European Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen assured this Friday in an interview with the British newspaper Financial Times. The bloc is evaluating "all options," according to Jørgensen, who warned that "energy prices will be higher for a long time."

The European Union is considering possible measures such as rationing fuel and releasing more oil from strategic reserves in the face of the risk of a "lasting" energy shock stemming from the war in the Middle East, European Commissioner for Energy Dan Jørgensen said this Friday in an interview with the British newspaperFinancial Times. The bloc is evaluating "all options", according to Jørgensen, who warned that "energy prices will be higher for a long time".

This week, the Catalan government (Generalitat) requested increased funding from the European Commission (EC) – through the Next Generation EU and ERDF funds – to boost the construction of three new desalination plants in Catalonia. The government conveyed its request to Claudia Olazábal, head of the EC's Sustainable Water Resources Management Unit, during a visit to Barcelona. The government justified the request by citing the need to bolster water availability and reduce dependence on rainfall after a historic drought. While this drought currently seems distant given the levels of water reserves in reservoirs and internal basins (92%), it led Catalonia to a critical situation in 2023. The Commission issued a warning to the Generalitat: more desalination plants are welcome, but only if they are part of a broader and more comprehensive plan for managing water supply and demand. And only if all other necessary steps are taken.

Fifteen years after the Fukushima accident, Europe is once again betting on nuclear energyUntil now, only a few member states—especially France, the European Union's leading nuclear power—had advocated for increased nuclear energy production and investment in the sector. Brussels had remained largely neutral, although in 2022 it yielded to French pressure to include nuclear power as a non-polluting energy source, classifying it almost as green energy. Now, however, the European Commission has fully aligned itself with France and believes that nuclear power must be expanded. "Europe made a strategic error by turning its back on a reliable, economical, and low-emission energy source," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her address at the nuclear energy summit held this Tuesday in Paris. The head of the EU executive and French President Emmanuel Macron have demonstrated their unwavering support for nuclear energy. Macron has called for more investment in the sector, especially now that the international geopolitical context is complex and dependence on hydrocarbons "can be an instrument of pressure and destabilization." The wars in Ukraine and Iran have made the vulnerability and energy dependence of many countries more evident, exposing them to escalating oil and gas prices. Nuclear energy accounts for 10% of the world's electricity production, with some 450 reactors spread across about thirty countries; France alone has 56.

First agreement between Brussels and an automotive company to circumvent tariffs on electric cars manufactured in China. The European Commission announced on Tuesday that it has reached an agreement with the Volkswagen Group to remove the 20.7% tariffs previously applied to the Cupra Tavascan model. These customs duties dealt a severe blow to Seat, and the profits of the Catalan-based company plummeted by more than 90% last year. As a result, Cupra Tavascan cars—designed in Catalonia but manufactured at the Chinese plant in Anhui—can now be imported throughout the European Union without tariffs. However, the import volumes and agreed minimum prices have not been made public for confidentiality reasons.

In an increasingly unstable world, the First Vice-President and Commissioner for Competition of the European Commission, Teresa Ribera, is clear on the matter: "We are shaken by the feeling that the world order is faltering, and that the use of energy and raw materials and the dependencies between different powers are becoming a geopolitical weapon," she stated in Barcelona, ​​at an event organized by the Foundation for Energy and Environmental Sustainability (Funseam). But she was quick to point the way forward: "We must be aware of the progress we have made. The future is not written, but we must not let ourselves be swayed by the noise and pessimism." For the former Vice-President and Socialist Minister, the capacity for reaction of the different member states is key, especially given the major shock that Europe experienced with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which highlighted the excessive energy dependence and the response of severing the supply chain. While in 2022, 45% of the natural gas consumed by Europe came from Russia, this figure has now fallen to 12%.

The green transition in the European Union (EU) is becoming increasingly less vibrant. The radical change in the roadmap that the bloc had established for the phasing out of combustion engine cars is proof of this. There is a big difference between prohibiting its sale from 2035 onwards and removing this limitation.Pressure from the automotive industry, which wields considerable influence in countries like Germany, has ultimately weakened the European Commission's regulations. And this is not the only setback—or, as the European Commission calls it, a relaxation—of the EU's climate plan for the automotive sector. Not long ago, it also postponed for three years the entry into force of sanctions against automotive groups that fail to meet CO₂ emissions standards. And the previous Commission, also headed by Ursula von der Leyen, who retained her mandate after last year's European elections, had already relaxed environmental requirements following protests by European farmers.

The Catalan government announced on Wednesday a €10 million financial aid package for the pig farming sector, which could be increased by another €10 million in the near future. The aim of this package is to begin providing direct aid to farms and companies affected by African swine fever (ASF). Regarding the impact the outbreak will have on the Catalan pig farming and livestock sector as a whole, Ordeig said it is still too early to make calculations, as it will depend on how the epidemic evolves in the coming days. "At the moment we have no figures, but as we have them we will see how we proceed," he emphasized. The Catalan government is also working with the European Commission and the Spanish government to coordinate other lines of economic support for the sector.

Trawling is the main fishing method used by the Catalan fleet, responsible for most of the fish and shellfish that reach fish markets in Spain. However, of the approximately 190 trawlers in Catalan ports, 80% are currently moored, unable to set sail each morning. These are dozens of boats that are not putting to sea because, a month and a half before the end of the year, they have exhausted their quotas. quota days set by the European CommissionOr they have very few left and are rationing them until the end of the year to extend the season as much as possible before the Christmas season. All of this has left hundreds of sailors unemployed and the skippers without income on land. Faced with this situation, the sector feels suffocated by quota regulations, fishing bans, and restrictions, and complains that the numbers simply don't add up for them to continue in the profession.

Advertisements featuring idyllic fields and blossoming trees, promises of "clean" or "less polluting" vehicles, advertising for "sustainable" flights using "green" fuel, and claims of carbon neutrality in the coming decades. Companies—especially large corporations—have become accustomed to exaggerating, or outright fabricating, environmental credentials in their communication strategies to portray their products and operations as more sustainable than they actually are. It won't be long before the business world finds it somewhat more difficult to engage in eco-posturing. -either greenwashing, in English- Left and right.

The earthquake began on Sunday night, and the exact cause is still unknown. After months of threats, US President Donald Trump met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at her golf resort in Scotland. to seal "the biggest deal of all", in the words of the Republican president, and avoid a trade war. Once they shook hands, the exact details of the agreement depended on who answered the question, with Trump very forceful on aspects such as the impact on products like steel and aluminum, and Von der Leyen qualifying what many European states have seen. like a defeat.

"Those who do not go together are hung separately" ("Those who don't hang together get hung separately"). This is how a European diplomat expressed himself in the Financial Times about thetrade agreement between the European Union and the United StatesThe phrase recalls the need for the Twenty-Seven to unite before Washington to close a satisfactory pact, with the added irony that it is a quote from a founding father of the United States, Benjamin Franklin, who uttered it during the conflict between the thirteen American colonies and the British Crown that led to the United States' declaration of independence in 1776. During her appearance on Sunday in Scotland with US President Donald Trump, the president endorsed the agreement, which leaves tariffs on European exports to the US at 15% and imposes a long, multi-million dollar list of unspecified expenses and investments that the EU will have to carry out in the US. The following day, however, arose amid an avalanche of criticism of the agreement from member states, employers' associations, and analysts. The continent's press, like some governments, spoke of European "submission" to Washington.

Ursula von der Leyen and the European Commission may try to sell the situation as a success. negotiation of the trade agreement between the EU and the US Trump's, but it's obvious to everyone that 15% tariffs are too big a deal to try to disguise the suspense, even when the starting point was 30% tariffs and the threat of a ruthless trade war. It's not a success (it's a failure) because, once again, Europe is bowing to the demands of a US president who is openly anti-European and anti-Atlanticist. These demands, moreover, are arbitrary (Trump announces tariffs whenever and wherever he wants, displaying the behavior of a petty Caesar who imposes his will everywhere) and which have much more to do with the desire to frighten and humiliate adversaries than with correcting any supposed historical grievances Europe has had against the US. What Trump signed this weekend in Turnberry, Scotland, between a golf club and a blow, is not a trade agreement: they are the terms of blackmail, subject to revision at the whim of the blackmailer.

With the deadline looming, US President Donald Trump met this Sunday with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to see if it was possible to break the deadlock on a trade deal that would avoid a trade war. After much back and forth, both economies agreed on a general 15% tariff on European exports, in line with the agreement the United States reached with Japan.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has heard firsthand the arguments for and against amnesty during two hearings devoted to examining the preliminary questions submitted by the Court of Auditors and the National Court, as provided for in Article 257 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU. We have had to come this far because the Spanish political and judicial right, despite this being an eminently domestic issue, decided some time ago to take its private war to all possible continental bodies, as before to the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, in order to delay—rather than make it illusory.

Catalonia continues to take steps to become one of the fifty most innovative European regions before 2030. According to the Regional Innovation Scoreboard, the tool that compares the research, development, and innovation (R&D&I) performance of 241 regions, Catalonia maintains its status as a highly innovative region and, furthermore, climbs ten places, moving from 82nd to 72nd in the ranking in just two years. This position consolidates the country's role as a technology transfer hub, connecting science with companies to bring their knowledge to market.

The European Commission criticizes the fact that the amnesty law "seems to constitute a self-amnesty" by Pedro Sánchez to the partners who guarantee his governability, but does not believe that the Process compromised the financial interests of the European Union. "There is not a sufficient link between illegal activities aimed at the secession of part of the territory of a Member State and the financial interests of the EU, with regard to the Union's own resources," it concludes. It's a mixed bag in the non-binding observations that Brussels sent last December to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in relation to the preliminary ruling referred by the Court of Auditors, according to the text it has released. The Spanish and to which ARA has had access.

As summer approaches, air passenger protection regulations are taking a major hit. Until now—and this will continue this summer—compensation was between €250 and €600 for flight delays of more than three hours, as well as missed stopovers or cancellations notified with less than seven days' notice.

Brussels increases pressure on Donald Trump. The US president maintains part of the tariffs frozen that he announced against the European Union and has left up in the air what he will ultimately do. Faced with this uncertainty, the European bloc does not want to sit idly by, and the European Commission presented this Thursday a new list of US products on which it threatens to increase customs duties if Trump does not reconsider his trade strategy and take a right to the front in the tariff war.