The current spokesperson for Esquerra Republicana in the European Parliament, Diana Riba, has revalidated the trust of the party’s National Executive, which has proposed her as a candidate to head the Republican list in the European elections on June 9, as reported the Republicans in a statement, in which they point out that they have activated all internal processes for this election. A process that will be followed by territorial congresses and sectoral assemblies that will be convened soon, they add.
In this way, ERC management assures, they are committed to giving continuity to the work carried out by Riba; “a work of almost five years focused on the protection of rights and freedoms in the European Union, in the anti-repressive fight, in the promotion of the ecological and feminist agendas, and in the defense of the right to self-determination of Catalonia.”
Riba entered the European Parliament in 2019 and focused the first months of the legislature on vindicating the political rights of both Oriol Junqueras and Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comín, who were prevented from accessing their seats by the Spanish justice system. During that period, Riba had several high-level meetings with the former president of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, and with the Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, to defend the hundreds of thousands of votes that State repression prevented from being represented in the institutions. European.
At the legislative level, Riba has been a member of various commissions, including those on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, Women’s Rights and Gender Equality and Culture, Education, Media and Youth. Her involvement in her parliamentary work has led her to be chosen by her European parliamentary group, the Greens/ALE, as political coordinator in the fields of feminism and also culture.
In this sense, it has been in charge of negotiating legislation on behalf of the Greens/ALE such as the first European Directive against sexist violence or the European Regulation on Freedom of the Media. She has also promoted several campaigns at the Union level in favor of Catalan on large streaming platforms or against unpaid labor practices.
Riba has also been elected vice-president of the commission of inquiry into the use of Pegasus and other spyware in the European Union. The work of the Republican within the framework of this commission was decisive, say the Republicans, when drafting a final report that included in very detail the Catalan Gate case and that urged the Spanish State to clarify the 65 cases of espionage accredited by Citizen Lab.
