French President Emmanuel Macron’s ideas for boosting the EU’s competitiveness have been met with both concern and positive responses from the EU institutions. In a speech on Thursday 11 May, Mr Macron called for “a European regulatory pause”, particularly on environmental legislation, to reindustrialise France and the EU.
The European Commission admits that the current period is more about implementing the ‘Green Deal’ than presenting new rules. And for the Commission’s spokeswoman, Dana Spinant, the President’s words do not call the Green Deal into question. “There is a consensus among all Member States on the direction, priorities and actions to be taken under the ‘Green Deal’”, she insisted on Friday 12 May.
Renew Europe MEP Christophe Grudler (French) agrees: “President Emmanuel Macron is not calling for the suppression of all European environmental rules! The idea is already to apply the many European rules that we have recently voted on (nearly 60 dossiers in the framework of the European Green Deal!)”, he says.
For his Greens/EFA colleagues, however, the French President’s speech is a threat to climate policy. “Last weekend, the European Conservatives’ congress had taken the first step by announcing a clear refusal of any new environmental legislation in Europe; a position that Emmanuel Macron, the man who told us barely a year ago that his ‘five-year term would be ecological or it wouldn’t be’, aligned himself with”, reacted Marie Toussaint (Greens/EFA, French).
Some of the interest representatives took the French President at his word, such as the business alliance ‘Together for sustainable packaging’, which said Emmanuel Macron’s call should apply to the legislation being negotiated on packaging.
During his speech, the French President also stressed the need, in his opinion, to move forward on the sovereignty fund and, in general, to facilitate investments in green industry: “We need to speed up deployment, because otherwise we run the risk of being the best performer in terms of regulation and the worst performer in terms of funding”. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)