BRUSSELS — Donald Trump's dismissal of U.S. climate efforts will enable competitors to dominate future industries, warned Europe’s top competition and climate official on Thursday.
“It is not good news that a major player like the United States decides to go in a different direction,” Teresa Ribera said in an interview from her Brussels office. “It is not good news for anyone. But … whenever a major player leaves the room, others will step in.”
Ribera, in her third week as a European Commission executive vice president, is one of six officials running the EU’s executive branch. Her influential portfolio includes overseeing the transition away from the EU’s fossil fuel economy and managing state aid and antitrust policies, making her one of the most powerful EU executives in history.
With her high-profile role comes the significant task of responding to China and America’s subsidy-driven clean tech advancements, which threaten to leave Europe behind. Ribera and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen believe that a clean economy is Europe’s best chance to avoid permanent industrial decline.
In contrast, Trump’s vision for America involves boosting fossil fuel production to lower energy costs and abandoning President Joe Biden’s clean energy subsidy regime, which aims to stimulate a clean industrial boom.
Ribera cautioned that Europe should not follow the same path, citing past delays in the auto sector’s green transition that allowed Chinese carmakers to dominate the electric vehicle market.
“For a long time, the Western car industry believed they were unbeatable in internal combustion engines,” she said. “Others saw things differently, and we missed the train. We need to avoid that mistake.”
Ribera welcomed competition from foreign companies providing affordable, clean goods and services, as long as there is a “level playing field.”
“I have no issues with great companies succeeding — wherever they come from — in producing things that help decarbonize. That’s great. We need that to happen everywhere,” she said. “Even if others have outperformed us.”
However, the EU is already targeting what it considers unfair subsidies for Chinese electric cars and is seeking to tax high-carbon imports from countries that do not price their greenhouse gas emissions.
Ribera also has a powerful new tool to protect European companies: the Foreign Subsidies Regulation. This mechanism allows Ribera to block mergers or bar foreign companies from European public contracts if the EU determines that an overseas government is providing unfair assistance.
So far, the EU has used the regulation to target Gulf and Chinese firms.
“In principle, the regulation is a great thing,” Ribera said, but it faces “practical difficulties,” primarily in finding “sound evidence” that subsidies are market-distorting.
Ribera aims to share intelligence with competition authorities in the U.S. and the U.K. to ensure that EU actions are targeting the right entities.
Ribera recently moved into her new office and met POLITICO in a room with green midcentury furniture. Above the seats was a 1977 photograph of Margaret Thatcher, then Britain’s conservative opposition leader, sitting on those exact chairs.
Entering the room, Ribera sat opposite the seat Thatcher occupied nearly half a century ago.
Ideologically, Ribera, a Spanish socialist, contrasts sharply with the free-market, government-slashing Thatcher. Ribera’s previous role involved managing Spain’s clean energy transition for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, where she negotiated with unions and companies to shut down Spain’s coal mining industry
Ribera emphasized her awareness of the social upheaval associated with the EU’s climate strategy. She insisted that the EU must ensure Europeans are comfortable with the “speed of change” and do not perceive it as a threat.
“How we can provide the means for them to adapt to this change is crucial,” Ribera stated. “This aspect was not sufficiently considered in the past and needs reinforcement.”
When asked how she would respond to EU politicians using Trump’s climate policy reversal as an excuse to slow down the green transition, Ribera argued that maintaining established targets is in the best interest of the European economy.
“Our businesses need stability,” she said. “It’s not appealing for investors if one day we say ‘yes,’ and the next day we say ‘no,’ changing time frames or parameters. That doesn’t work for anyone.”
This also involves setting a new, EU-wide 2040 climate goal to provide companies with certainty. The Commission plans to propose legislation targeting a 90 percent reduction in planet-warming emissions by that year.
“To create and update a new golden age for European industry, we need to focus on the green and digital revolutions,” Ribera said. “This means identifying our goals.”
However, Ribera acknowledged that this target would be too late for the EU to meet the United Nations’ February deadline for submitting a new climate plan under the Paris Agreement. This was the first time a Commission official confirmed POLITICO’s report that the bloc would file its plan late. Last month, White House officials told POLITICO that the U.S. would likely release its plan before Trump takes office.
The EU needs to demonstrate compliance with its duties by filing a plan, including a 2035 target, by the next global climate summit in November, Ribera said. However, she noted that the bloc’s “complicated governance structure” hinders a February submission.
“I’m optimistic about the possibility of meeting this deadline,” she said, “even if it’s not February.”
Regarding the Thatcher photo, she joked that with the U.K. Labour Party renationalizing the railways that the Conservatives once privatized, she might also hang a photo of the current British prime minister.
“We’ll get Keir Starmer over there,” she said.