BRUSSELS — The EU’s competition chief has said it was her strategic decision not to hold a press conference on fining Google €2.95 billion — directly contradicting the explanation provided by a European Commission spokesperson.
Teresa Ribera told POLITICO she had agreed with her boss, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, that it wasn’t the right approach to talk to reporters on Sept. 5, in contrast with how her predecessor Margrethe Vestager had announced major rulings.
A few days after the decision, Arianna Podestà, the Commission’s deputy chief spokesperson, told reporters they had chosen not to arrange a press conference because Ribera was unavailable as she “was traveling to Ethiopia very early” the following morning. When POLITICO put it to Podestà on Monday that this was inaccurate, she said she had been “acting in good faith.”
The episode adds to growing criticism among journalists in Brussels of the Commission’s communications service. Complaints range from mixed messaging on policies to questions over transparency.
Ribera, a prominent Spanish Socialist, has occasionally voiced opposition to the official line of the Commission, which is dominated by commissioners from von der Leyen’s center-right European People’s Party, in particular on green issues and on Israel. In an interview with POLITICO, Ribera said she had been sitting in her office in the Commission’s Berlaymont headquarters in Brussels at the time the press conference would have taken place. Instead of the commissioner taking the podium, the Commission published a press release containing remarks by Ribera, and sent officials from its competition department to give accredited reporters an off-record briefing, meaning they could not be identified by name.
‘We thought it was enough’
“We thought that it was enough with the statements and with my comments being made, knowing that I could be available for journalists in the following days,” Ribera said. “It was not that I was going to disappear.”
Ribera said a report published by the Capitol Forum that said von der Leyen had forbidden her to hold a press conference was inaccurate. Ribera had given a speech in Paris earlier in the week contradicting the Commission’s official line on Israel by describing the country’s action in Gaza as “genocide.”
Three days after the Google decision, Podestà told reporters Ribera had been unavailable on the Friday evening because she “was traveling to Ethiopia very early Saturday morning.” Ribera did travel to Addis Ababa, but not until late Saturday evening.
Podestà told POLITICO her remarks had been based on information provided by Ribera’s team. “The Cabinet of EVP [Executive Vice-President] Ribera had indicated to me that one of the reasons for which it was agreed not to have a press conference on the Google case was that the EVP had to travel to Ethiopia immediately the day after,” she said.
She added: “I provided information in good faith and relying on the feedback of colleagues.”
When this response was relayed to a member of Ribera’s cabinet on Monday, they said there must have been a “misunderstanding.”
“Nobody made any particular comment about travel arrangements,” they said. The person was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and was granted anonymity.
Correcting information
The Commission’s spokespersons’ service, which manages the public communications of the EU executive, hasn’t corrected the record nor acknowledged an error.
Podestà told POLITICO that this was because she was never asked to.
“Later in the afternoon of Monday, 8 September, the cabinet of EVP Ribera informed me that they were directly correcting this information with the media who were reaching out to them,” she said. “Hence there was no need to clarify this further.”The EU fined Google €2.95 billion for abusing its dominance in the online advertising market. It was one of Ribera’s biggest decisions in her nine-month stint at the top of the EU’s powerful competition department.
The action had particular political significance because it was a potential flashpoint with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly criticized the EU’s fines of American tech firms. Adding to the possible friction, a U.S. court had just ruled in a case brought by Trump’s Department of Justice against Google.
“The political relevance of the decision was so obvious,” Ribera said in explaining why she had agreed with von der Leyen not to do a press conference.
She did not say whether it was von der Leyen who first proposed the approach, or whether it was Ribera’s own initiative.
The incident is the latest in a series of events that have left reporters frustrated by apparently conflicting official statements, including on whether von der Leyen’s plane had been compromised by Russian radar jamming this month. Earlier this year her office also failed to disclose the seriousness of an illness that left her in hospital.
The post Ribera says she decided handling of €3B Google fine, contradicting Commission claim appeared first on Politico.
