The European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) voted on Monday 12 and Tuesday 13 October to exclude fossil fuel-related investments from future national recovery and resilience plans.
On Monday, MEPs adopted a compromise amendment from the Renew Europe, S&D, Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL groups stating that “the recovery and resilience plans shall not finance activities that lead to a lock-in of assets that undermine the achievement of the EU’s climate and environment objectives”.
“In particular, [these plans] shall not include investments related to the production, processing, distribution, transport, storage or combustion of fossil fuels”, the amendment goes on to specify.
MEPs then confirmed their position on Tuesday by adopting by a large majority (62 votes in favour, 15 against and three abstentions) the whole of the amended report for opinion on the proposal for a European regulation establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the budgetary instrument at the heart of the European Recovery Plan (see EUROPE 12578/3).
The author of the report, ENVI Committee Chair Pascal Canfin (Renew Europe, France), welcomed the vote, which “paves the way for a truly green recovery”.
Welcoming the MEPs’ decision, Esther Bollendorff, a member of the NGO CAN Europe, called on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) and the Committee on Budgets (BUDG) to follow ENVI’s position in their votes scheduled for November. The ECON and BUDG committees are the two committees responsible for this dossier.
Nuclear. In these votes, ENVI Committee members, on the other hand, narrowly rejected (35 votes in favour, 36 against and seven abstentions) the amendment tabled by the S&D, Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL groups calling for national recovery and resilience plans not to support activities related to nuclear power plants.
Finally, ENVI MEPs want at least 37% of the total budget of the Recovery and Resilience Facility to be devoted to climate action, with 10% for biodiversity, for a total of at least 40% (not 47%, as some biodiversity investments may overlap with climate investments). (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)