On Thursday 23 January, MEPs on the European Parliament’s Environment Committee welcomed the Polish Minister for the Environment, Paulina Hennig-Kloska, to discuss the priorities of the Polish Presidency of the EU Council with regard to the environment and climate.
Guaranteeing access to healthy food, as well as clean soil, water and air, will be among Poland’s priorities. The Presidency also intends to seek to develop tools to tackle disinformation about the EU’s environmental and climate policies. Poland also intends to complete the negotiations on the various trilogues scheduled, on green claims, detergents, groundwater protection, plastic granules and food waste (see EUROPE 13555/3).
However, statements by the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, at the plenary session of the European Parliament (see EUROPE 13563/1) did not help Ms Hennig-Kloska, who had to respond to MEPs’ concerns. The day before, Mr Tusk had expressed reservations about the ‘European Green Deal’ and its consequences for energy prices that were “too high”, declaring: “If Europe goes bankrupt, who will protect the environment in our place?” Poland is not in favour of revising the ETS 2 emissions trading scheme.
Lena Schilling (Greens/EFA, Austrian) asked the Polish minister: “Are you going to advocate ambitious targets for renewable energy and energy efficiency?”
While he welcomed Poland’s interest in a just transition that would not leave out low-income households, Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy (Renew Europe, Dutch) called on the country to keep its EU Council Presidency programme separate from its “complex national political situation”. To ease the burden on citizens, Tiemo Wölken (S&D, German) asked whether Poland intended to argue “for a larger social climate fund”.
Renew Europe, S&D, Greens/EFA and The Left insisted on the importance of reducing emissions by 90% by 2040, while the Polish minister warned that there was no unanimity on this issue in the EU Council. “Are you committed to defending this 90% target for 2040?” asked Lena Schilling, pushing for an answer.
Doubts about the consequences of administrative simplification were also raised by Tiemö Wolken and Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, in areas where the EPP and the conservative and far-right saw only good news. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)