Her supporters say she won’t blink first in the Brexit talks, but Michel Barnier’s new deputy will need guile and nerve to hold the EU line against a rejuvenated U.K.
Clara Martínez Alberola takes up the position as the EU Brexit negotiator’s deputy vacated by “Brexit bad cop” Sabine Weyand. She had developed an uncompromising reputation for attention to detail and robust defense against U.K. briefings aimed at destabilizing the EU negotiating position.
But gone are the days of Theresa May’s ministers negotiating while looking over their shoulder at a U.K. parliament (and government) divided over the central questions posed by Brexit — as well as doubts over whether the U.K. departure would actually happen.
Boris Johnson’s thumping 80-seat majority in the House of Commons has brought an end to strategic uncertainty in London and makes his government, potentially, a more formidable negotiating partner. That may test EU unity in new ways, putting more pressure on Barnier’s team.
Just like Weyand, the 56-year-old Martínez Alberola has spent her entire career in the EU institutions and is known for combining cross-sector knowledge and management skills with political smarts — qualities that will be crucial as the two sides begin talks on this most political of trade deals.
“She is very clinical and methodological in her work. She actually seems more German than Spanish,” said Esteban González Pons, an MEP from the center-right European People’s Party who, like Martínez Alberola, is from Valencia.
A long-time friend, who was “born the same day [August 21], in the same hospital,” González Pons said Barnier’s new deputy would be able to juggle the different interests like trade, fisheries, banking or transport.
One fear in Brussels is that under the extreme time pressure to secure a deal in 11 months, the interests of EU countries in different sectors can be prized apart.
“We need somebody like her in Barnier’s cabinet who won’t allow that the Brits divide us,” González Pons said, adding: “In the negotiation game with the British, she will never be the one who blinks first.”
David McAllister, the chair of the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a member of its Brexit steering group, lauded her as “a highly qualified woman” whose expertise was going to be needed in “very complex” negotiations.
Martínez Alberola — who also speaks English, French, Italian and some Portuguese — studied law in Valencia before enrolling at the College of Europe, the training school for Eurocrats. She was one of the first Spaniards to join the EU’s civil service in 1991, only a few years after Madrid’s accession to the bloc.
González Pons says she enjoys gardening, reading, watching the French Open tennis tournament at Roland-Garros and supporting her local Valencia CF football team on TV.
She rose through the ranks as an expert in internal market affairs, enlargement and pharmaceutical issues, before becoming an adviser to former Commission President José Manuel Barroso. In 2014, she was promoted to deputy cabinet chief under Jean-Claude Juncker, Barroso’s successor.
According to Commission insiders, that move was in part thanks to her close ties with Martin Selmayr, Juncker’s then powerful chief of staff.
About four years later, the Spanish Eurocrat was at the center of the highly controversial promotion of the German to the role of Commission secretary-general in February 2018.
In what many regarded as a highly irregular procedure, Selmayr had applied for the job of the deputy secretary-general with just one rival candidate, Martínez Alberola, and who then — it was widely reported — conveniently withdrew her candidature. Minutes after Selmayr had secured the deputy position, it was announced that secretary-general Alexander Italianer was retiring, making Selmayr his successor.
MartínezAlberola, meanwhile, benefitted from the musical chairs by taking over Selmayr’s old job as cabinet chief for Juncker, who told reporters at the time: “Over the two-and-half years that I have been in this job, I have seen that she has knowledge which really exceeds the ordinary.” She has always neither confirmed nor denied that she applied for the deputy secretary-general position.
While Selmayr left his position in July and is now the EU’s representative in Austria, Martínez Alberola will almost inevitably be confronted with suspicions that she is part of the so-called “Selmayr deep state” that outlasts his departure — and may prepare his return to Brussels.
González Pons rejected that idea. “Clara has a long-time career,” he said. “When Selmayr arrived to the Commission, she was already there. She coincided with him, they get along very well I suppose, but she doesn’t owe him her career.”
Click Here: Maori All Blacks Store
Martínez Alberola declined to comment when approached by POLITICO.
As Spain’s most senior official in Brussels, Martínez Alberola has a good connection to the government in Madrid, said one EU diplomat. This is unlikely to make things easier for London in the upcoming negotiations since Spain has particular demands in the talks, including access to British fishing waters, citizens’ rights and the status of Gibraltar.
Another EU diplomat said that Martínez Alberola was already very familiar with Brexit since she had been closely involved in her role as the Commission president’s chief of staff.
The diplomat remarked that the Commission now had “a whole club of senior officials with a lot of experience” on Brexit. They include Stéphanie Riso, a former director in Barnier’s team who is now deputy chief of staff to new Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and Weyand, who is head of the Commission’s trade department.
“We as member states really have a lot of trust in the Commission [on Brexit],” the diplomat said.
Martínez Alberola is married to an Italian lawyer who lives with her in Brussels, but works outside the EU institutions. And in the coming 11 monhts of high-speed, intense negotiations, Martínez Alberola may need grounding from someone outside the EU bubble.
González Pons, though, says she knows how to relax amid the pressure. “Even though she works like a German, she’s that Valencian that every time the sun comes out a bit in Brussels, she leaves her office and can be found on a bench next to the Commission, soaking up the sun,” he said.
Want more analysis from POLITICO? POLITICO Pro is our premium intelligence service for professionals. From financial services to trade, technology, cybersecurity and more, Pro delivers real time intelligence, deep insight and breaking scoops you need to keep one step ahead. Email [email protected] to request a complimentary trial.