In her opening remarks, Ms. Ribera paid tribute to the victims of the recent floods in Valencia, Spain. She committed to maintain the course of the European Green Deal to meet climate targets and set-up a new approach to competition policy that is supportive of European companies to achieve a global level playing field.

Combatting climate change

With reference to the recent floods in Valencia, several MEPs asked how Ms Ribera would improve Europe’s ability to prepare for growing climate-related risks. Ms Ribera highlighted the need to do more and better when it comes to improving the EU’s resilience to extreme weather events including on early warning systems and the capacity to respond. She promised a new European Climate Adaptation Plan to address those issues. She also committed to making water resilience a priority.

Ms Ribera also committed to work towards implementing EU climate and energy targets for 2030 as well as set an EU 2040 target to reduce net greenhouse gas…