“We regret that protecting nature was not front and centre” of Ursula von der Leyen’s policies and speech, said Steve Trent, founder of the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), on Thursday 18 July, following the re-election of the President of the European Commission for a further term (see EUROPE 13456/1).
Greenpeace Europe, Can Europe, the WWF and the EJF have more or less all said the same thing: the ‘Green Deal’ has not disappeared from Ursula von der Leyen’s programme, but it does lack ambition on the subject. “Big promises, little coherence”, is how it was summed up by Greenpeace Europe.
Jorgo Riss, director of the NGO, deplored the contradictions in a programme that “bears the imprint of big business interests”. The ‘Green Deal’ is now invariably linked to the economic notion of competitiveness in the European Commission’s priorities agenda for the coming years. This has prompted Chiara Martinelli, Director of the Climate Action Network Europe (CAN Europe), to say that “we see a big risk of the competitiveness and deregulation agenda overshadowing ambitious climate action”. For its part, the WWF notes that “industry demands are often at odds with environmental standards that protect people’s health and safety”.
The WWF does, however, welcome the commitment of the President of the European Commission to enforce the ‘Green Deal’ measures, given that “for decades, Member States' implementation of EU environmental laws has been lacking”. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)