Little progress was made between the European Parliament negotiators, the EU Council Presidency and the European Commission at the second ‘trilogue’ on 14 October on the EU’s Comprehensive Environmental Action Programme to 2030 (8th EAP). “Everyone has stuck to their guns” a diplomatic source summarised on Friday 15 October.
Negotiators will therefore have to rely on technical work to try to find elements of language capable of facilitating the third trilogue, scheduled for the evening of 1 December. All hope that it can be conclusive.
The points that remain contentious concern legal issues of principle and the scope of the future action programme.
Legal issues of principle. For the EU Council, the 8th EAP should be an enabling framework; therefore, binding targets and specific dates are problematic (see EUROPE 12808/15).
In order to preserve the power of initiative conferred on it by the Treaty, the European Commission, for its part, remains opposed in principle to the obligation which would be placed on it, at the time of the mid-term review of the programme in 2024, to present a legislative proposal for a list of actions for 2025-2030 (in the form of an annex to the 8th EAP), as requested by the Eu Council (see EUROPE 12786/10). The Parliament proposed that the next Commission should present these actions within 100 days.
Scope. The Parliament is keen to see a reference to the EU ‘taxonomy’ regulation on sustainable investment as well as binding targets for the consumption footprint, the biodiversity spending target, the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies by 2025 and environmentally damaging ones by 2027 and a sustainable economy of wellbeing with indicators (see EUROPE 12758/6) - all of which the EU Council feels go too far.
A long list of issues was established for the technical negotiations. The Commission will play the role of facilitator by proposing formulations to bring the points of view closer together. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)