The third vice president of the Government and minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, has signed that she is “absolutely neutral” in the lawsuit filed by Iberdrola against Repsol for unfair competition, and has defended a green agenda that does not lead to “confusion”. Ribera, who considers it “relevant” that companies are demanding with the required trust, has asked the general director of Repsol, Josu Jon Imaz, to continue with the company’s transformation.
The minister traveled to the Basque Country today, Wednesday, to attend the opening ceremony of WindEurope 2024, the main event for the European wind sector that is being held at the BEC in Barakaldo until Friday. In statements to the media – reported by Europa Press – before the inauguration, Teresa Ribera has been questioned about the lawsuit filed by Iberdrola against Repsol in the Commercial Court number 2 of Santander for “unfair competition and misleading advertising”, considering that it has incurred ‘greenwashing’ or ecological whitewashing.
Asked whether she is more in favor of Iberdrola or Repsol, she assured that she is “absolutely neutral” on this issue. “But I do know where I am, where I am is in a green agenda that cannot induce confusion or error,” she assured. In her opinion, this is something that can happen in the energy sector and “in many other cases.” Teresa Ribera has assured that it should not happen in “any case” and it should be possible to trust the messages transmitted by the companies.
“It remains to be seen what happens, but I do believe that the fact that each of the companies in our country are as demanding as possible is first and foremost relevant.”
“Let me of course be absolutely neutral on this but I do want to emphasize that it is new, it is not just a question of misleading advertising that can be considered or that a company considers that it can lead to error on the part of the consumer. “There is one company and another company that understands that this can distort market conditions, so it is a novel approach,” he stated.
Decarbonization of companies
Asked what she would say to the CEO of Repsol, Josu Jon Imaz, if she met him, she responded that she would tell him that she would be “very happy to see him and I would ask him to continue” following the direction of transforming his company into a coherent and compatible energy services company, and I would say consistent with that need for decarbonization and that commitment to leave fossil fuels behind that we adopted in Dubai with the support of more than 190 countries, including all fossil fuel producing countries. “
In relation to this issue, he stated that it is “very interesting to see how there is a clear demand from European society for trust, to be clear.” As he pointed out, the green agenda is important and we cannot ask for “a break from the alterations in the climate system”, but rather we must continue to support a transformation of production systems and that “obliges us to facilitate the generation of industrial opportunities, social and adaptation.”
Ribera has stated that, behind this green agenda there is a “great effort and a great economic commitment”, and he believes that “trust is required and, however, I believe that this requires, as I say, trust, “that what is say, that what is announced has a reality behind it.”
“We also want, obviously, to see what happens with this analysis by the courts”
In this sense, he assured that, in recent years, they have seen how “messages, advertisements, publicity about whether a product or service is sustainable or green have proliferated, and they did not always respond to sufficiently clear parameters.” “. and reliable.”
The vice president added that this has led, for example, to the United Kingdom prohibiting the broadcast of advertising by some oil companies “because it considered that what they were saying did not correspond to a green reality behind it.”
As he pointed out, this has led to some consumer and user associations “demanding much more clarity” and the Commission proposing a directive that regulates “greenwashing, that is, misleading advertising presenting as green, as sustainable, what is not “.
New in demand
The Minister of Ecological Transition has pointed out that the novelty of this demand, which, as she added, we will have to see “how far it goes”, is that “there is a company that considers that this could be considered unfair competition, which could be generating distortions when it comes to consumers choosing one product or another.”
“It remains to be seen what happens, but I do believe that it is first relevant that each of the companies in our country are as demanding as possible with respect to the trust that they want consumers to place in them and second, “We want to avoid these distortions in the market, which as I say is a novel point in the presentation of a lawsuit by another company,” he added.
Ribera has indicated that, on the part of the Government, they must remain “vigilant” and work “on that idea of clarity, of avoiding misleading advertising with the rest of the member states of the European Union.” “We also want, obviously, to see what happens with this analysis by the courts. Perhaps the most striking thing is that it has not been non-governmental organizations, it has not been consumer associations that have filed a lawsuit of these characteristics, I insist, without prejudging the content, the viability or not of this requirement from one company to another,” he added.
