The European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) failed to overcome the left/right divide to adopt, on Wednesday 4 March, its guidelines for socio-economic policy in the European Union in 2020 (see EUROPE 12438/12).
Schematically, despite a last-chance meeting on Tuesday evening, the camp formed by the S&D, Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL groups and the one composed of the EPP and Renew Europe groups did not conciliate their positions, each side accusing the other of ideological dogmatism.
On the left, the European right is accused of rejecting any social and ecological reorientation of the economy despite the climate emergency, while on the right, the European left is accused of wanting to torpedo European fiscal rules using the pretext of investments in the sustainable infrastructure needed to enable the EU to achieve the objective of climate neutrality by 2050.
“We had the opportunity to trigger a real change in the conduct of economic policies in Europe to respond to ecological and social challenges. (But) the right is refusing to adapt to the new social and environmental situation. The right prefers the world to fall apart rather than its world to fall apart”, criticised Aurore Lalucq, rapporteur on this issue.
The French President, Emmanuel Macron, told The Economist that the Stability Pact is a rule of the past and that, when it comes to formulating this position, there is no longer anyone within Renaissance (French delegation of the Renew Europe group, editor's note), suggested an expert on the issue, denouncing the “sabotage” carried out by the European right on the day that climate activist Greta Thunberg was speaking in Parliament (see EUROPE 12439/3).
What Mrs Lalucq wants, under the guise of climate justice, is to “get rid of the 3% rule” of GDP for the public deficit, a parliamentary source retorted. According to the source, the S&D group was divided internally, with the Social Democrat coordinator for the ECON committee, Spain’s Jonás Fernández, advocating a more conciliatory attitude. And this source to question the attitude of the Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, “conspicuously silent” on this issue.
Within Renew Europe, it is recognised that the fight against climate change requires budgetary means and that the Stability and Growth Pact must be “in line” with the climate reality. A compromise amendment, advocated by France’s Pascal Canfin and Spain’s Luis Garicano, was also put forward, calling on the European Commission to create ‘climate’ indicators to analyse the discrepancy between the structure of national budgets and their alignment with the provisions of the Paris Agreement.
At the vote in the ECON Committee, the compromise amendments supported by the rapporteur were rejected, while those of the EPP and Renew Europe groups were approved. However, the final text as amended was rejected by the parliamentary committee (32 votes against, 23 votes in favour, 0 abstentions).
Any hope for the European Parliament to send a message to the Spring European Council on the socio-economic policies to be pursued in the EU in 2020 does not seem entirely lost. The Conference of Presidents of the political groups (CoP) could decide on Thursday 5 March to start work on a specific resolution to be adopted at the plenary session starting Monday 9 March in Strasbourg. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)