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The Spanish environment minister nominated for a top EU job has blamed the “incompetence” of regional officials for the death and destruction caused by recent floods as recriminations from the opposition delay her appointment in Brussels.
Teresa Ribera, a Socialist politician, was rebuked by opposition lawmakers on Wednesday for waiting more than three weeks since the floods to address the national parliament. Attacks by the conservative People’s party had threatened to delay a vote on the new European Commission scheduled to take office on December 1.
While disaster management in Spain is led by the regions, Ribera has been implicated by the PP because her ministry oversees the state weather agency and a river basin authority charged with supplying critical data on rainfall and flood risks.
Seeking to turn the tables, Ribera berated PP lawmakers for disrespecting public servants at those bodies and instead “trying to blame them for the incompetence of those responsible for civil protection and emergencies” in the Valencia regional government.
Carlos Mazón, head of the Valencia government, has come under fire for attending a three-hour lunch on the day of the disaster, when his government sent emergency alerts to mobile phones only after some towns and villages had already been swamped.
Last week, Mazón avoided any reference to his lunch in an appearance before the regional parliament but blamed the local river basin authority for a “two-and-a-half hour information blackout” about surging river levels during the afternoon.
Ribera said there was “never” such a blackout and cited dozens of messages that were sent to Valencia’s emergency managers.
“Protocols, regulations and codes must be adapted to the climate risk,” she said, “but all the necessary information is of little use if the person who is meant to respond to it does not know how to do so”.
The death toll from the floods on October 29 stands at 219, most of whom perished in Valencia, while 8 people remain missing.
Alluding to climate change scepticism in parts of the Spanish right, Ribera said: “If you consider this to be climate dogmatism, if you consider the information to be unreliable, if you mock the [weather agency’s] red warnings, it is very difficult to draw conclusions that will prepare us for the next calamity.”
The disaster has turned Ribera into a target for criticism from the centre-right European People’s party in Brussels.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen nominated Ribera to be the most senior Socialist in her new commission, promising her a powerful new competition and environment portfolio.
Following her appearance, the EPP criticised her for “avoiding” repeated questions about quitting. But the party later on Wednesday agreed with the Socialists and liberal Renew group to approve her and the rest of the candidates for the new Commission.
A spokesman said she would have to resign if subjected to formal investigation.
Ribera has already been named in at least two lawsuits over her role, one launched by a hard-right group and another by an anti-establishment political party.
But a Spanish government official dismissed the EPP’s demand as nonsensical. The commission’s code of conduct contained no such requirement for resignations, the official noted, adding that commissioners in the past had carried on in their roles while under investigation in their home countries.
Additional reporting by Alice Hancock in Brussels
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