European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced the list of Commissioner-designates for the new Commission. Spain’s Vice Prime Minister Teresa Ribera will lead DG Competition. She will also oversee climate and competition policy as Executive Vice-President for a “clean, just and competitive transition” leveraging her expertise in energy and green policy.

We expect the new Commission to start on 1 December, but delays are possible. This post outlines the policy focus for the next five years, what to expect from Ribera’s leadership, and the next steps towards the formal appointment of the new Commission.

Von der Leyen II

Priorities 

The new Commission’s priorities are: sustainable prosperity, defence, social strength, quality of life, democracy, global influence, and future preparedness. There are five other Executive Vice-Presidents, alongside Ribera. The other EVP portfolios are digital and frontier technologies (Virkkunen), industrial strategy (Séjourné), foreign and security policy (Kallas), people, skills and preparedness (Mînzatu), and cohesion and reforms (Fitto). 

The President has tasked Ribera with developing a new State aid framework and revising the guidelines on mergers to support these priorities. As part of the Clean Industrial Deal, which she needs to develop with Séjourné, the new State aid framework must accelerate the rollout of renewable energy and industrial decarbonisation, ensuring sufficient manufacturing capacity for clean technology.  The merger guidelines are to support innovation and investment. 

Scope for reforms, the Draghi report, and outstanding issues

Mario Draghi’s report on EU competitiveness has already left a mark in the allocation of tasks. While some proposals have met resistance from Member States, it will continue to influence the new Commission’s direction. Draghi advocates increasing cross-border alignment, strengthening the single market, and promoting consolidation and cooperation of EU businesses to boost competitiveness in a de-globalising world. For competition policy, the Draghi report proposes revamping competition policy to focus on innovation-heavy sectors (such as digital markets) and deglobalisation. Key changes include:

• State aid: Expanding State aid policies to support innovation and cross-border projects, facilitated by significantly higher government spending. Von der Leyen’s mission letter to Ribera  emphasises the need to simplify the State aid review process, especially for Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEIs) in strategic sectors. Ribera should lead efforts to make the review of IPCEIs simpler and faster, which echoes the recommendations of the Draghi Report. Support through programmes, subsidies, and financial relief is proposed (such as energy, critical raw materials, and digital markets) to increase the competitiveness of EU companies and to reduce the EU's dependency on foreign countries. Despite a general message of cutting red tape where possible, FSR enforcement is here to stay.
• M&A: Giving greater weight to innovation and considering resilience in merger decisions. Ribera is tasked with reviewing the Horizontal Merger Control Guidelines, ensuring they reflect the EU’s needs in resilience, efficiency, and innovation, particularly in strategic sectors. Draghi’s call for facilitating consolidation of the defence and telecommunications sectors is so far not implemented, but the mission letter does spell out that the merger guidelines need to take into account “time horizons and investment intensity of competition in certain strategic sectors, and the changed defence and security environment”. Following the recent Illumina judgment, the President calls on Ribera to “focus on the particular challenges facing SMEs and small midcaps, notably to address risks of killer acquisitions from foreign companies seeking to eliminate them as a possible source of future competition”.

• R&D: More competitor cooperation on R&D but thorough competition enforcement to stay. The mission letter also instructs Ribera to “speed up enforcement”, notably in the field of R&D cooperation, such as data pooling and AI development. This will likely be reflected in the ongoing evaluation of the antitrust enforcement framework. Based on the mission letter, there will still be stringent competition enforcement, but some of it may be in different forms. Some examples are enhancing ex-post enforcement with ex-post reporting obligations for companies and a new market study tool (which will take years to be implemented).  

What to expect from Ribera

Teresa Ribera, a lawyer, former UN climate negotiator, and Spain’s minister for ecological transition, and a socialist, brings extensive experience in energy and green policymaking. Her notable achievements include negotiating lower power prices in Spain and Portugal during the 2022 energy crisis. Ribera has been vocal on connecting the Green Deal with industrial competitiveness and promoting investment in sustainable and green energy. Ribera’s experience will be particularly valuable given energy is described as the “key driver” of the EU’s competitiveness gap vis-à-vis other world regions – a gap which has deteriorated as a result of the energy crisis, which the Draghi Report describes as causing “cascading” effects of throughout the whole economy.

Ribera's experience is crucial as energy is seen as the key driver of the EU’s competitiveness gap, worsened by the energy crisis. However, she has clashed with other policymakers over her anti-nuclear stance, which contrasts both with the Commission's strategic view of nuclear power for decarbonisation and the Draghi Report’s emphasis on new nuclear assets. Focussing State aid rules on supporting the energy transition sits well with what Ribera has stood for, but her views on antitrust, mergers, and the digital economy remain less clear. 

What’s next?

In October, European Parliament hearings for Commissioners-designate begin, with a plenary vote expected at the end of October. The EP can veto the entire College but not individual candidates, though veto threats have forced candidate withdrawals before. If approved by the EP, the new Commission will be officially appointed by the European Council and start on 1 December 2024 for a five-year term. If there are delays, the current Commission will work in caretaker mode, handling day-to-day operations without taking major decisions. 

Timeline:

• Week of 14 October: EP hearings. The candidates for Commissioners will need to attend hearings before the relevant committees of the EP. These hearings will assess their suitability for the role, policy priorities, and expertise in their assigned portfolios. 
• Week of 21 October: EP plenary vote. Following the hearings, the EP will hold a vote to approve or reject the entire College of Commissioners. This could take place as early as 24 October.
• November: Formal appointment by the Council. If the vote passes, the Commissioners will require formal appointment by the Council before they can begin their work, expected by the end of November.
• 1 December: Start of the new Commission. Upon formal appointment, the new Commission will set the work programme for the upcoming year and commence its activities.

We hosted a webinar on Thursday 19 September regarding the new Commission. Those interested in learning more can listen to the recording of the webinar here.