EP committees approve Fitto, Ribera EC appointments (4)

(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 21 - The coordinators of the European Parliament's Committee on Regional Development late on Wednesday greenlighted the appointment to the European Commission of Italy's Raffaele Fitto as an executive vice president with the brief for cohesion and the NRRP.
    Meanwhile, the ENVI (environment, public health and food safety), ECON (economic and monetary affairs) and ITRE (industry, research and energy) Committees also gave final approval late on Wednesday to the appointment of Spain's Teresa Ribera as executive vice president for the clean, just and competitive transition.
    The vote came after an agreement was reached on the new appointments to the European Commission including Fitto and Ribera, who had been the subject of countervailing vetoes.
    Premier Giorgia Meloni said Fitto "has been confirmed in the role of executive vice president of the European Commission", commenting on the green light.
    "This important appointment attributed to the commissioner designated by Italy is a victory of all Italians, not of the government or a political force", she said.
    The prime minister went on to say that this "confirms Italy's recovered centrality in the European scenario, worthy of our role as a founding State of the EU, Europe's second manufacturer and the Continent's third economy".
    Fitto is a leading member of Premier Giorgia Meloni's right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party and hitherto Italy's minister for European affairs, the South, cohesion and the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP).
    He had been vetoed by the Socialists and Democrats because Meloni's right-wing Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group did not vote to confirm Ursula von der Leyen as EC chief or for the NextGenEU programme.
    Ribera, Spanish deputy premier with the ecological transition brief, had been vetoed by the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) for her alleged responsibility in the Valencia floods that killed over 220 people.
    The political agreement will be formalized at a plenary session of the European Parliament scheduled to take place on November 27 when MEPs will vote on whether to endorse commissioners.
    (ANSA).