When Ursula von der Leyen’s European Commission started five years ago, the so-called Green Deal and policies to combat the climate crisis were a top priority. The EU put itself at the forefront of the environmental agenda. Now, when a new community Executive prepares to take office, with new commissioners and new structures, although with the German Von der Leyen again as president, the signs that these issues are no longer a total priority worry environmentalists, legislators and specialists. The proposal this week to postpone the pioneering law against global deforestation for one year after enormous pressure from inside and outside the community club, especially from conservative sectors, is one of those signals.
The decision to delay the regulation against deforestation, which seeks to close the European market to products such as wood, coffee or cocoa that come from deforested lands or contribute to deforesting the Amazon and other valuable forests, still needs the approval of the States members and the European Parliament. But it is already taken for granted. The measure joins others that call into question the credibility of the European Union with its climate commitments, laments a senior community source. Like reducing wolf protection, a measure that environmental advocates warn sets a precedent for other endangered species; the dilution of the biodiversity law, which barely received the green light; that the pesticide reduction law has been put on hold; or the relaxation of the environmental requirements of the CAP, after the rural protests in several countries, which scared the Union in the months before the European elections. Without forgetting the change in language: the Commission no longer speaks of “green transition” but of “clean transition”.
Von der Leyen, whom some saw as a climate evangelist in her early days at the head of the Community Executive, when she arrived as an unknown, has insisted that there will be no setback in environmental policies. In fact, he has appointed the Spanish Teresa Ribera, Minister of Ecological Transition, socialist counterweight and one of the most recognized green voices in the community, as the first executive vice president of the Clean, Fair and Competitive Transition – the second most powerful position in the community Executive. European climate policy. However, the main focus of the new Commission has changed from the Green Deal to competitiveness policy and how to ensure that EU industry competes with the United States and China and is not left behind; yes, with a “clean and fair” transition.
Hence, the concern over the decision to postpone the law against global deforestation for one year, which was also approved by an immense majority of the Member States and the European Parliament in 2023 and was due to come into force next December. “It is a real setback and a very worrying measure by Von der Leyen,” insists Anaïs Berthie, of ClientEarth, an organization of lawyers who sue in 60 countries against companies and governments to hold them accountable for their environmental commitments. “It also shows that the president does not resist pressure from part of the industry, from certain member states and from her own political party to go back on the commitments made,” criticizes the expert.
The Commission assures that the postponement of the law against deforestation is a “balanced” solution and shows the commitment to making the regulation work and that the 12 months of margin will serve to guarantee its application. Several lobbies Producers, as well as countries such as Brazil, Nigeria, Mexico and Indonesia, had demanded that the EU delay and modify the regulation, which they claimed did not take into account national legislation and, in addition, harmed small producers. These voices were also joined by those of the United States, Australia and several member states, such as Germany. This summer, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who governs in coalition with the Greens, asked Von der Leyen for a postponement.
Socialists and Democrats (S&D) MEP Kathleen van Brempt highlights that the delay creates an “unfair” environment for companies that had made efforts to comply. “The problem is not only the signal that this delay sends, which is admitting that things have been done wrong and now they must be corrected, but also that there is room to retouch it, to dilute it,” warns a European source, involved in green issues in the EU institutions. “Will there be more setbacks?” asks the source.
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delicate balance
The new community Executive, which must now receive approval from the European Parliament after several review hearings of its commissioners, and which is expected to start on December 1, has several environmental portfolios. Ribera’s is the main one, but the vice president for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy, Stéphane Sejourné, also has a part. And there are others, such as Climate or the Environment, Water Resilience and Circular Economy. Some European sources believe that dividing work dilutes the effect, but others say it is a sign that the green transition occupies a prominent position in the new structure. That is the opinion of French liberal MEP Pascal Canfin. “It shows that we are now in the next phase of the Green Deal: the deployment of a clean economy.” And he asserts: “The Green Deal is still alive.”
However, one of the key variables about the path of the green agenda is that the European landscape and political ecosystem have changed. In the European Parliament there is a much larger presence of the extreme right – where some parties speak of “climate madness” – and of a traditional right, that of the European People’s Party (EPP), increasingly leaning towards that extreme and which is tending to ally itself with the ultras, who have also focused on the green agenda and claim that too many things have been done too quickly and that the price is too expensive. This, together with a more conservative Commission and, above all, a European Council with a greater presence of right-wing and extreme-right governments, provide a less favorable perspective for environmental ambition in the next five years.
Everything, in a breeding ground with two wars, Russia’s against Ukraine and Israel’s in Gaza and Lebanon, the increase in the cost of living and, in that light, the increase in populism that blames everything on the green agenda or even the 2030 Agenda of the UN development goals. The European Commission estimates that an additional investment of 620 billion euros per year is needed until 2030 (3.7% of the EU’s GDP) to achieve climate objectives. Meanwhile, damage caused by floods, droughts, fires, heat waves or diseases related to global warming will cause, according to the Community Executive, a drop of at least 7% in the EU’s GDP until the end of the century.
“There is a great risk that we will see a reduction in conditions in everything related to the green transition,” insists Pär Holmgren, meteorologist and Swedish MEP of the Greens, the political family that, although it has lost weight this term, was key precisely for the re-election of the German conservative for a second term. “Now we have a much, much more conservative Parliament, much more populist and nationalist. And we know that far-right groups now have much more power than they did during the last term in office, they generally try to oppose anything that looks clean, is clean, or anything that comes from us that is green,” he adds.
None of the MEPs or specialists consulted want to venture what other laws that, like the one on deforestation, were already taken for granted, could fall, be postponed or diluted. But now another big fight is being played: pressure is increasing to review the rule that, starting in 2035, will prohibit the sale of combustion vehicles in the EU.
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