European Commission Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera will preside over the weekly meeting of her fellow commissioners next week if her boss, Ursula von der Leyen, hasn’t recovered from her bout of severe pneumonia, a spokesperson announced Thursday.
“If the president isn’t back next week for the college then, at that point, the Executive Vice President Rivera will perform the chairing of the college meeting next week,” said Paula Pinho when asked by journalists at a press briefing for an update on the head of the European Union’s executive.
The meeting of the 26 commissioners, one from each EU country and typically presided over by von der Leyen, was canceled this week due to her illness.
Von der Leyen is battling a “severe” case of pneumonia and is currently recovering and working from Germany. So far, the Commission president canceled her external engagements for the first two weeks of the year, including missing a Polish presidency of the Council of the EU’s inauguration event.
She has stopped short of handing off her duties at the Berlaymont, which has led to delays in unveiling key policies at the start of her second term as Commission president.
Von der Leyen was scheduled to kick off the new year with a proposal on how to tackle the EU’s innovation gap with global rivals, ensure the bloc’s economic security and make progress on decarbonizing EU industry.
“We intend, at the start of next week, to take stock of the situation,” Pinho added.
EU competition chief Ribera holds the institution’s second-most-powerful portfolio. The former Spanish deputy prime minister is next in line for succession if von der Leyen needs to step away from her duties.
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