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This week, the European Commission detailed its proposals to curb soaring gas and electricity prices. The Ministers in charge of Energy are due to decide on September 30 in Brussels, after meeting last Friday. At the negotiating table, among other personalities, Teresa Ribera, the Spanish Minister for Ecological Transition.
Teresa Ribera has been talking about her in recent weeks in France, because she is one of the promoters of the MidCat gas pipeline project. She has engaged in a standoff with France on this subject. The third vice-president of the Spanish government wants to relaunch, in the name of European solidarity, this gas pipeline between Barcelona and the south of France. A project started in 2013 before being interrupted, partly for environmental and budgetary reasons.
Paris is still opposed to its finalization. But Teresa Ribera does not intend to capitulate so quickly, as she hinted on Spanish radio OndaCero in early September: “ I do not believe that the debate can be closed with the opinion of a single country, but we will see. I believe that the French president made this statement for French public opinion. »
« A little bit inside »
The Spanish minister raised the subject of infrastructure at last week’s Energy Council in Brusselss. Meetings of ministers which are multiplying to deal with the crisis. And in European debates, Teresa Ribera is used to taking her part, recalls Barbara Pompili, former French Minister for Ecological Transition and counterpart of Teresa Ribera until last spring: ” He is someone who is one of the leaders of the meetings. It often expresses itself, providing arguments that have not been provided elsewhere. And she has a side a little bit inside which is important in meetings where sometimes, we tend to decline elements of language. »
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Especially since the 53-year-old Madrilenian is known not to let go easily. Barbara Pompili confirms: she is ” determined and she knows where she wants to go. There are many ministers who are more reactive and try to manage day by day. She is one of those ministers who have a political structure and who use it. »
« Not quite standard politician »
This vision, Teresa Ribera will have drawn it from her experience and her knowledge of climate issues. A graduate in law and political science, Teresa Ribera was president of the advisory committee of the Momentum for Change initiative of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. She was in the 2000s director of the Spanish Office on Climate Change and Secretary of State in the Zapatero government. She then joined the Paris-based Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI).. Teresa Ribera, who masters the language of Molière, even directed it before being called into the government of Pedro Sanchez.
This course makes this Madrilenian, a ” not quite standard politician », Estimates his successor at the head of IDDRI. Sébastien Treyer particularly remembers his commitment during his first government experience between 2008 and 2011. It helped to renew the dialogue between the countries of the South and the North which had separated angry in Copenhagen in 2009, during the great failure of the climate negotiations of [la COP] 2009. Immediately after that, Teresa Ribera was judged to be a personality both very attentive to the countries of the South and at the same time very credible on what the countries of the North could or could not accept as a position, in particular on questions, very present today, of adaptation. As for the more recent negotiations for an exit from coal in Spain, Sébastien Treyer welcomes “ a negotiation that today refers ».
His European commitment does not prevent him from openly criticizing European decisions. She called the inclusion of natural gas and nuclear in the European green taxonomy a mistake. This does not prevent him from trying to change certain mechanisms either. Almost a year ago, she called for the decoupling of the price of gas and electricity for Spain. Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, promised this Wednesday, September 14, a structural reform “ in depth of the electricity market. Meanwhile, Madrid and Lisbon have obtained an exceptional measure.