Several members of the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) sought to find out more about the intentions of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union regarding the ‘Climate Law’ on Monday 25 January, during an exchange of views on the Presidency’s climate and environmental priorities with the Portuguese Minister responsible, João Pedro Matos Fernandes.
Although the Presidency has already clearly expressed its desire to reach an agreement on this issue before the end of its term of office (see EUROPE 12631/9), it is unclear how it intends to proceed in order to reconcile the positions of the Parliament and the EU Council, stressed Antoni Comín I Oliveres (Non-attached Member, Spain).
Describing the task ahead of Lisbon as “delicate”, given the distance between the positions of the institutions on some important points of the ‘Climate Law’ (see EUROPE 12614/15), the MEP nevertheless stated his belief that the Presidency is not showing all its cards.
“How will you ensure that we have solved all of the most important political things in the climate law for us to have an influence on the ‘Fit for 55’ package?”, asked Michael Bloss (Greens/EFA, Germany), for his part.
In particular, he fears that the EU could find itself in the situation where the European Commission would present its ‘Fit for 55’ package of initiatives in June (aiming to put the EU on track to achieve a net reduction in emissions of at least 55% by 2030) while the co-legislators are still negotiating an agreement on the ‘Climate Law’.
According to Mr Bloss, such a scenario would be tantamount to “ignoring” the Parliament’s position, since it is championing a 60% reduction in EU emissions by 2030, “which cannot be supported in the view of democracy”.
Mick Wallace (GUE/NGL, Ireland), took the same tack in pointing out that if one was to go by the EU communication, the outcome of discussions on the 2030 target was predetermined.
Mr Pedro Matos Fernandes attempted to be reassuring by reiterating the commitment and confidence of the Portuguese Presidency in concluding an agreement within its term of office.
Responding to a question from Nils Torvalds (Renew Europe, Finland), he also pointed out that the Parliament’s idea of defining a budget for the EU’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions divided the Member States.
According to a recent document from the Presidency, detailed in our previous edition (see EUROPE 12643/13), Lisbon is leaving little room for compromise on the key points of the ‘Climate Law’ at this stage. The GHG budget, in particular, is deemed “not acceptable”.
Ship emissions
Finally, despite a request for clarification from Jytte Guteland (S&D, Sweden), the Minister did not give any details about a possible launch of inter-institutional negotiations (‘trilogues’) on the revision of the ‘MRV Regulation’ for maritime transport emissions. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)