The way to the moon is quite long. About 380,000 kilometers to be exact. Given this distance, it is not surprising that the EU The “lunar mission” she postulates, the European Green Deal, is still a long way from reaching the goal. But what's even more worrying is that there are some indications that the rocket is already on its way back before it has even really taken off.
At the end of 2019, the newly crowned EU President Ursula von der Leyen presented her “Green Deal” as a “Man on the Moon moment”. She announced an overall package for economic development and climate protection. Its goal was and is to make the continent climate-neutral by 2050 and to strengthen the European economy in international competition. Good idea!
Transformation in all areas
This requires profound changes in almost every policy area. Mobility, agriculture, energy supply, nutrition, circular economy, resource use and industrial policy. Financial policy also urgently needs to be put on a more sustainable footing. Transformation in many areas. A lot to do.
The basis for the Green Deal is the “Fit for 55” package, a key legislative package that includes a long series of proposals to revise and update EU legislation. The aim of the initiative is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the EU by at least 55 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. Given the large number of reforms, it was clear from the start: the Green Deal will not be a project for one legislative period, but rather a long-haul flight.
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European elections 2024
Stopover June 2024: Europe elects a new parliament. The balance of power will shift. Whether or at what pace the journey to the moon will continue is anyone's guess. While there was still something like a spirit of optimism in 2019, the political situation in Europe has darkened. The pandemic and the various geopolitical tensions have left their mark. Populism is popular in the election campaign: “The only thing to blame for the death of farmers is the high environmental regulations. Renaturation threatens our home. A speed limit doesn’t help, and cheap meat is a basic right.” Slogans like these fall on fertile ground in many places. This can already be seen in the changing majority relationships in various national parliaments.
From Italy to Holland, the trend has recently gone significantly to the right wing. This is not a good sign for the elections in Europe and the future of the Green Deal. Because parties like the AfD in Germany, VOX In Spain or Italy, neo-fascists have not attracted attention as climate or environmental activists in the past. On the contrary. The AfD's climate policy ideas, for example, are even more extreme than those of other right-wing extremist parties in Europe. The party believes global warming is a natural process. It rejects climate protection laws, CO2 taxes, EU emissions trading, energy transition, energy efficiency and renewable energies. Instead, the electricity supply should largely come from nuclear power plants. However, one would probably turn a blind eye to the necessary uranium deliveries from Russia.
Tough times for the Green Deal
It is to be feared that such voices will become even louder. Tough times for the Green Deal. In any case, various legislative proposals have suffered severe setbacks in recent months. With the blessing from Berlin, for example, the set-aside, i.e. the provision of agricultural land for nature conservation, was suspended. A few thousand farmers with tractors on the streets were enough to overturn regulations that had already been negotiated and aimed at sustainability and to disguise the whole thing as “cutting bureaucracy”.
Green Deal on track?
Despite all these setbacks, the course is right. At least that’s what the experts at the “European Climate Neutrality Observation”, a think tank focused on climate issues, see. The legal framework is correct, but there is a lack of implementation. What is missing is the money for investments. In order for the Green Deal to work and the goal of climate neutrality to be achieved by 2050, annual investments must be more than doubled.
Restructuring harmful subsidies would be a good start. Instead of pumping billions into activities that are harmful to nature and the climate, public money could be redirected. A WWF report shows that a great deal could be achieved simply by consistently redirecting existing funds to the relevant economic sectors in order to close financing gaps in order to achieve urgently needed EU goals for nature and species protection.
It remains to be seen whether the flight to the moon will still work. In the coming legislative period, issues such as migration, security, defense and competitiveness will be at the forefront. A report by former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta suggests which direction things are going. A new deal for competitiveness, the “New European Competitiveness Deal”, is emerging. This doesn't have to be the end of Ursula von der Leyen's lunar mission. The Green Deal can survive as a driver of European competitiveness. The label under which the reforms are ultimately developed and implemented has no bearing on the future of our planet. The main thing is that it happens.
The competition never sleeps
Enrico Letta's strategy paper is also a response to economic developments in other parts of the world. Even outside Europe, it has long been understood that sustainability and better competitiveness are not opposites. The USA are pumping billions into their “Inflation Reduction Act” to support high-tech companies. And people are not idle on the other side of the world either. China now generates 40 percent of its gross domestic product with electric cars, solar systems and other products from the cleantech industry.
Europe has some catching up to do. For far too long people have clung to combustion engines and stuck to subsidies that are harmful to the environment and the climate. The exit from fossil fuels is being delayed and the expansion of renewables is blocked in many places. Instead, many European politicians still dream of air taxis and nuclear fusion. It's time to wake up.
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