The European Commissioner-designate for the Environment portfolio, Jessika Roswall, was heard by MEPs on Tuesday 5 November.
Questioned by Agence Europe after the hearing, Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA, Dutch) and Tiemo Wölken (S&D, German) preferred to wait for discussions with their Group before giving their opinion. But the latter added that “obviously, it wasn’t the best audition possible”.
At the back of the room, at the end of the session, one person present said to another that the Commissioner-designate “hadn’t been very brave”.
For three hours, Jessika Roswall danced back and forth between environmental issues and competitiveness, a term repeated in almost every one of her answers, hammering home time after time the point that these aspects were “two sides of the same coin”.
Torn between preserving nature and the imperative of competitiveness enshrined in the mission statement concocted for her by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, Jessika Roswall often failed to answer specific questions.
After the hearing, the Chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Antonio Decaro (S&D, Italian), felt that Ms Roswall had “answered all the questions”. These concerned the priorities of her mission statement, which she had detailed in her written answers to MEPs’ preliminary questions (see EUROPE 13512/10).
The parliamentary committee therefore decided to continue its assessment of the candidate’s performance on Wednesday 6 November.
But the Commissioner-designate for the Environment has also been caught up in the difficult political context of recent months, surrounding the legislation provided for in the ‘European Green Deal’. For example, the former Swedish Minister for European Affairs had to reassure MEPs on several occasions that she would defend the Regulation on nature restoration (see EUROPE 13432/14) and the Regulation on ‘deforestation-free products’ (see EUROPE 13404/5), two texts which Sweden opposed.
In response to the doubts expressed by Pascal Canfin (Renew Europe, French), Jessika Roswall made it clear that she was asking MEPs for their confidence “as a European Commissioner and not as Sweden’s ambassador”. In response to Jonas Sjöstedt (The Left, Swedish), who pointed to Sweden’s “historical responsibility” on environmental issues, Ms Roswall described herself as a former lawyer who “believes that everyone must respect the rules” and who will therefore defend “equal treatment for all Member States” and “will not hesitate to take action” if necessary.
The Swede was also “surprised” that her own country did not recycle as much plastic as she thought.
European strategy for water resilience. Among the objectives assigned to her, the one on water management and resilience was particularly discussed, at a time when the Valencia region in Spain suffered devastating floods at the end of October (see EUROPE 13516/11). “The water infrastructure situation in the EU is not satisfactory”, agreed the Commissioner-designate, in response to a question from Alexandr Vondra (ECR, Czech).
On this subject, Ms Roswall must take up the torch from her predecessor, Virginijus Sinkevičius, who a year ago announced the presentation of a European strategy for water resilience (see EUROPE 13274/18), with multiple objectives: preserving the quality and quantity of water in the EU, tackling pollution, scarcity and the effects of climate change. To achieve this, the Commissioner-designate had already explained that she would encourage significant investment in water infrastructure and clean industrial technologies, in a global approach “from source to sea”.
Adding that she wanted to “focus on nature-based solutions”, Jessika Roswall mentioned the “essential” implementation of nature restoration, in particular “through the creation and preservation of wetlands”. On the subject of water scarcity, she believes that we also need to work on reusing water resources.
Circular Economy Act. This topic is “particularly close to my heart”, said Ms Roswall. Necessary to reduce the EU’s environmental footprint, she says, the Circular Economy Act will require “combining sustainability and competitiveness”.
Jessika Roswall, who is responsible for initiating the Act, wants to set about making the single market for the circular economy a reality. In particular, she identified the relatively low demand for secondary raw materials and circular services as one of the main challenges. She also advocated the creation of a “real waste market”.
The former Minister repeated on several occasions that the circular economy was a “key element of the Clean Industrial Deal”, insisting on simplification and harmonisation, so that “the rules are the same for all businesses”. In her view, the key to the Circular Economy Act is also and above all “in the application of existing legislation”.
Revision of the REACH Regulation. Scheduled for 2025, the revision of the regulation should make it possible to protect the environment and human health, while simplifying life for businesses. “How can we ensure that the second objective does not cancel out the first?”, asked Hélène Fritzon (S&D, Swedish), without receiving any clarification from the Commissioner-designate. Ms Roswall reiterated the need to pursue both objectives, but did not give a timetable for banning PFAS substances from consumer products.
The Commissioner-designate insisted on the need for industry to remain competitive, while chemical substances are sometimes “a necessity”, leaving MEPs wondering what will take precedence.
Revision of the European bioeconomy strategy. Presented in 2018 (see EUROPE 12115/8), this strategy should make it possible to avoid the use of fossil fuels by favouring resources derived from biomass (wood, plants, algae, agricultural residues).
This priority once again illustrated the difficulty of preserving nature while boosting the EU’s competitiveness. The bioeconomy is a “growth sector”, according to the Swede, who, noting that “demand from forest fuels is increasing”, wants to “explore its full potential to see how it can contribute to circularity”.
“What about the sustainable use of forests?”, asked Alexander Bernhuber (EPP, Austrian), while “the Green Deal does not encourage the use of wood, making it more difficult”. The MEP did not receive any further details from Jessika Roswall, who merely confirmed that “resources will have to be used sustainably”.
Michal Wiezik (Renew Europe, Slovakian) also identified the potential antinomy between developing the bioeconomy and preserving the environment, and said that Member States were “dragging their feet” when it came to mapping forests “because they want to promote the bioeconomy”. Faced with these divergences, the MEP asked the question that many of his colleagues on Parliament’s Committee on Environment could have asked: “Will you be a strong Commissioner?”
Jessika Roswall “sees herself as being able to play this role” and assured us that there are rules to be respected, particularly with regard to the restoration of nature, but was unable to say how she would bring these two “sides of the same coin” to life. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)