EU chief Ursula von der Leyen handed Ribera, a socialist climate campaigner, a sprawling brief in the new European Commission that will require the juggling of competing pressures from all sides.
The 55-year-old was put in charge of the mighty antitrust apparatus and additionally named as one of von der Leyen's six key lieutenants.
Ribera has "the most influential" portfolio, Simone Tagliapietra, a senior fellow at Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, told AFP.
As competition commissioner she will be responsible for one of a few areas where Brussels has exclusive competence over the EU's 27 member states, and vast powers.
She takes over from Denmark's Margrethe Vestager, who became one of the EU's most recognisable faces over the past five years, sparring with US tech giants and helping to turn the bloc into a regulatory behemoth.
An ally of Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Ribera will also have the title of executive vice president for a clean, just and competitive transition.
This lands her at the heart "of the most important policy challenge of the coming five years", said Tagliapietra.
- 'Broker difficult deals' -
Ribera will handle energy and climate issues, as well as industrial strategy at a time of growing tension within the bloc over how to combine growth and climate ambitions.
"Teresa Ribera has the rare ability to broker difficult deals: on just transition with Spanish coal workers and a fossil fuel phase out with major petrostates. She will need these skills in Brussels," said Linda Kalcher, executive director of Strategic Perspectives think tank.
"She will be under scrutiny from all sides".
Von der Leyen's first term was marked by a landmark "Green Deal" including measures such as a ban on selling new combustion engine cars from 2035.
But the plan has come under fire from the fossil fuel industry and the agricultural sector, as well as from political parties on the right and far right -- which were the big winners in European elections in June.
Leftist and environmental groups fear climate ambitions will be watered down, as the bloc contends with other issues, from Russia's war in Ukraine to competition from China.
Setting a roadmap for her second term, von der Leyen pledged to "stay the course" on the environment -- while reconciling "climate protection with a prosperous economy."
A new "Clean Industrial Deal" has been promised in the first 100 days of her latest tenure.
- Happy and powerful -
Conveying European state aid towards green investments with a continental breadth, and persuading nations to make taxation more climate-friendly by phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, will be among Ribera's main tasks, said Tagliapietra.
Ribera, who has argued the Green Deal can be combined with economic competitiveness, will have to deliver in a commission dominated by the centre-right.
She will have to liaise with other heavyweights with overlapping competences, such as French centrist Stephane Sejourne, who will be in charge of "prosperity and industrial strategy", and Raffaele Fitto, a hard-right ally of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
"The question is how the commissioners will work with each other," said Michael Sicaud-Clyet, climate and energy policy officer at WWF.
Ribera's fellow socialist Jean-Marc Germain, a French EU lawmaker, said he was confident she would have no trouble making her voice heard.
"We have an extremely strong personality; Ribera will be someone very powerful," he said.
For her part, the media-savvy mother-of-two, a pillar of Sanchez's Spanish government currently serving as ecological transition minister, declared herself "very happy" to take up the challenge.
"It's a good opportunity to continue building the European dream," she said of her nomination, which needs to be confirmed by the European parliament.
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