With the European Parliament leaning further to the right following the European elections, it is unlikely that the climate, energy and environment legislation put in place under the Green Deal will be swept aside.
With a new, more right-wing European Parliament following the European elections, speculation is rife regarding the future of the European Green Deal. This set of texts represents Ursula von der Leyen’s European Commission’s ambitious program to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and reverse the decline in biodiversity.
The conservatives and the far right, political groups that have been skeptical or even hostile to the Green Deal, gained seats in many countries, to the detriment of the liberal Renew group and the Greens. This new balance should give rise to an intense debate on the effective implementation of green policies during the next legislature.
For Chris Rosslowe, senior data analyst at the think tank Ember Climate, the loss of 18 of the Greens’ 71 seats in the European Parliament does not necessarily mean a “widespread rejection” of climate action. He attributes this result to the decline of “green wave” of 2019, mainly in France and Germany, and to “a combination of national factors“. But he notes that the polls “consistently show support” to climate action across Europe.
“I am convinced that we will not see a reversal of the Green Deal, particularly the aspects related to the energy transition, which are firmly in the implementation phase“, believes Chris Rosslowe. “Key issues such as the Renewable Energy Directive are already having a measurable impact, last year saw record additions of wind and solar power“.
An EU official, who wished to remain anonymous, observed that the political parties which formed the majorities for the adoption of the Green Deal are still “largely in the same position” than they were in the previous Parliament.
“These parties have not questioned the Paris agreement or the European climate law, which is at the origin of our policies“, explains this source.
An analysis shared by the director of Strategic Perspectives. Linda Kalcher notes that the outgoing majority in the European Parliament can be returned to the new hemicycle and that the three parties concerned, the European People’s Party (EPP), the Social Democrats (S&D) and the Renew liberals have interests in continuing of the Green Deal.
“We clearly see that the European conservative parties and the EPP really want to strengthen industrial competitiveness. They are concerned about threats from China and the United States, which have very aggressive policies and investments“, notes Linda Kalcher.
“We note that industrial employment is a key subject for the unions, who no longer want austerity measures. They think that we must invest here, manufacture here, create quality jobs here, which is essential for the social democrats. And then there is Renew which really wants to be a market leader and which sees that it is in batteries, electric vehicles, electrolysers and wind energy that the growing markets are found.“, she adds.
At their first group meeting since the election on Wednesday (June 12), leading Green MEPs expressed their willingness to join a broad coalition of centrist political parties in return for supporting Ursula von der Leyen in her bid to secure a second term as president of the European Commission, even if it means compromising on some of the most ambitious positions in their manifesto.
Andreas Rasche, a professor at Copenhagen Business School, rejects the idea that the European Union is on the verge of a U-turn on environmental policy.
“We should see a slowdown in green policymaking and less ambitious legislation“, judge Andreas Rasche, pointing out that several laws have already been weakened, such as the new laws on corporate sustainability due diligence and on packaging and packaging waste.
There is also the law on nature restoration, already adopted by Parliament but blocked by a minority of member states. The outgoing Belgian presidency of the Council of the EU has included it on the agenda of the meeting on Monday (June 17) of the 27 ministers responsible for the Environment, in the hope of a last-minute breakthrough before that Hungary takes the reins of the EU in July for the second half of the year.
Same story from the NGO CAN Europe (Climate Action Network). “I think there is a risk that we go too slowly, first of all, and that we still have this mode of deregulation in the discourse“, analyzes Chiara Martinelli, director of the NGO.
Government leaders are expected to adopt the EU’s next five-year strategic agenda at an EU summit on June 27-28, a non-legislative document that is nevertheless intended to guide the policymaking of the next Commission. Andreas Rasche expects the focus to shift from environmental issues to security and competitiveness concerns, in line with the prevailing geopolitical winds and leaks on early versions of the document.
Nevertheless, despite an apparently weaker appetite for further advanced Green Deal actions, the professor judges “unlikely“a large-scale reversal of the raft of climate, energy and environmental legislation already put in place over the past five years, and now awaiting implementation.
The academic, however, underlines the exceptions which could be subject to a “significant pressure“, including the de facto ban on the sale of new gasoline and diesel cars from 2035 and the 2040 target for greenhouse gas emissions. The climate law requires the adoption of a intermediate target on the path to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, but it remains to be seen whether there will be political support for a reduction of at least 90% from 1990 levels, as recommended by the EU scientists and the current Commission.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Dutch Green MEP Bas Eickhout highlighted the symbiosis between pursuing the energy transition and securing the future of Europe’s manufacturing industry. “We also presented our vision of (a) European green industrial strategy, and this is also, voluntarily, a kind of objective that we would like to see“.
The co-leader of the Greens’ election campaign also highlighted a secret weapon that the party obtained in the elections, in the person of the outgoing Environment Commissioner, Virginijus Sinkevičius, who was elected as an MEP.
“We have a powerful MEP here.”, underlines Bas Eickhout when Euronews asked him if his party hoped to direct the new Lithuanian elected official towards the presidency of the parliamentary environment committee. “So we will discuss it“.