The EU saves the zero emissions plan in 2050 despite Poland

The EU has managed to dodge Poland’s veto and in the early hours of this Friday has agreed on the goal of zero CO2 emissions in 2050. The historic agreement, which makes Europe the first continent to aim for almost total decarbonisation, has been partly marred by doubts about the credibility of the commitment of several governments, most notably the Polish one.

Kaczynski’s Warsaw, whose skepticism towards climate change is well known, has forced to include in the pact a wedge in which he warns that “at this time, he cannot commit to meet the goal.” But significantly, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has not, as he could, prevented the European Council conclusions from setting out for the first time the goal of reducing net emissions by 100% over the next 30 years.

The conclusions of the European Council are the political starting gun for the Green Deal approved by ursula von der Leyen’s European Commission last Wednesday. And so begins the countdown to the revision of all directives, from energy efficiency to renewable energy, which will mark the path towards the 2050 target.

There is no indication that the legislative path will be easy. And resistance will increase as the long-term goal translates into concrete measures to achieve climate neutrality that, as the European Council conclusions acknowledge, “will require overcoming major challenges.” Not only Poland will struggle. Capitals such as Berlin also fear the tightening of the adjustment path, with an increase in the emissions cut in 2030 from 40% to 50% or 55% (as proposed by the Commission) that makes German industry, in particular the automotive industry, tremble.

Environmental organisations, little happy, have celebrated the agreement, from Greenpeace to CAN (Climate Action Network), as “a vital step” towards the 2050 target, although they regret Poland’s reservation and the express reference of the pact to some Member States using nuclear energy as part of their energy mix (a demand raised by the Czech Republic and seconded, among others, by France).

But the success of this Thursday’s summit has been to set in motion the clock of industrial and technological reconversion, although to do so it has had to resort to a formula as striking as approving conclusions unanimously and, at the same time, stressing that one of the signatories is not yet willing to comply with them.

“I think Europe needs creativity to move the European project forward,” said the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, after the conclusions of the summit were approved at one o’clock in the morning. “To guarantee unity and respect at the same time the peculiarities of each country, it takes imagination but without losing the compass,” added Michel who, as former prime minister of Belgium (2014-2019) in a government that united from liberals to independentists has a long experience in seemingly impossible compromises.

Von der Leyen has also been satisfied with the political support for her Green Deal and has announced that she will go ahead with the necessary proposals that “are for the whole of Europe”. The President of the Commission understands that Poland’s reservation is not due to an objection to the final goal of 2050, but because Warsaw “wants to have a more concrete vision of our proposal on the Transition Fund”. Once that plan, which aims to mobilize up to 100,000 million euros in investment, is finalized, Poland could get on a train whose departure, in any case, can no longer stop. From now on, almost all the rules necessary for the Green Deal, except those on taxation, can be adopted by qualified majority, without any country, including Poland, having the right of veto.

The Climate Agreement is also a warning to navigators of the Europe that comes after the departure of the United Kingdom (closer than ever after the landslide victory of Boris Johnson in Thursday’s elections) and after the upcoming replacement in the German Government. Angela Merkel’s era as German chancellor has been characterized by what she defined as “the Method of the Union,” that is, a system that moves the engine of European integration from the European Commission to the European Council.

The change has turned summits into the essential traffic light for launching any Community initiative, even those that could have been approved by codecision between the Council and the European Parliament. The formula has given Berlin the right of prior veto over any measure, particularly during the financial crisis. But after the crisis, this possibility of veto has also begun to be used by other Member States to stop in the European Council plans that, in other forums, they would not have been able to hinder.

The formula used at this latest European summit of the year indicates that the new President of the Council, very close to French President Emmanuel Macron, has no intention of strictly applying Merkel’s “Union method”. Unanimity will always be the goal. But imaginative formulas will allow an escape route so as not to force the 27 to always advance at the pace of the partner who wants to go slower.

The risk of the possible acceleration is that trust between community partners will be further shattered, already badly damaged by the successive crises of the last decade (financial, migration, Brexit). Jean-Claude Juncker’s European Commission has already tried to circumvent the veto of countries such as Hungary or Poland in the reform of asylum policy. And while he approved refugee sharing quotas, he never managed to get them effectively enforced and only managed to widen the dangerous gap with Budapest and Warsaw.

The goal of zero emissions in 2050 also touches, like migration policy, very sensitive fibers of the political life of each country, with tremendous repercussions with aspects as important as mobility, industrial production and even the way of consuming and feeding. The EU has so far managed to set the target despite Warsaw. The challenge now ahead is to move towards it without anyone feeling excluded and without climate regeneration widening the huge differences in wealth and well-being that still exist between the different partners of the Union.

Source: The Country