On Wednesday 9 July in Strasbourg, the European Parliament rejected the request for an urgency procedure to speed up the adoption of the MEPs’ position on the proposed 2040 emissions reduction target (see EUROPE 13672/1).
The request, put forward by the Renew Europe, S&D and Greens/EFA groups (see EUROPE 13676/3), was intended to enable a vote to be taken in time for COP30, which will be held from 10 to 21 November in Belém (Brazil). It was also intended to give Parliament greater visibility in the negotiations, at a time when the Danish Presidency of the Council of the EU hopes to conclude an agreement between Member States on 18 September. What’s more, the report was attributed the day before to the far-right group PfE, which is opposed to the 2040 target.
In the run-up to the vote, Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy (Renew Europe, Dutch) called on MEPs not to think about “group politics (...), but (about) future droughts, floods, forest fires, heat waves”. Lena Schilling (Greens/EFA, Austrian) said that “all those who vote against (...) are betraying the promises made to the people of Europe”. Tiemo Wölken (S&D, German) declared that “this (was) an existential crisis”.
But the request was rejected, notably by the EPP, the main political group in the House. “We are not voting today on the ‘Climate Law’ – (Regulation (EU) 2021/1119) – we are voting on the procedure for dealing with this law”, explained Jeroen Lenaers (EPP, Dutch), arguing that the proposal “is not justified today”.
After the vote, Pascal Canfin (Renew Europe, French) told journalists that MEPs were facing “the worst possible scenario”, with a rapporteur from the PfE group and no agreement on the timetable.
He argued that the rapporteur could “take months to deliver the report” and, in the absence of an urgency procedure, “there is no possibility (...) of legally challenging the timetable chosen”.
However, there is still a possibility that the urgency procedure will be used again in September, with a view to adoption in October, but this will depend on prior agreement in the EU Council, as the potential support of the EPP would depend on this.
Peter Liese (EPP, German), who in a press release expressed his commitment to “an orderly but swift procedure” said that his group wanted Parliament to vote “after the EU Council has established its position”.
For the Greens and S&D groups, this is the red line that must not be crossed, argued Pascal Canfin.
Furthermore, in his view, there is no guarantee that the Member States will reach a political agreement at the EU Council on 18 September.
The current parliamentary sequence, the first after the Commission’s proposal, “has not brought any clarity, and has even made things worse”, according to the French MEP. He pointed out that the Member States were “very divided” and that “a large majority of them are not really pushing for an ambitious 2040 target. Even our country, France”.
To hope for a compromise, he added, it would be necessary to work closely with the Danish Presidency to find potential majorities. (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry and Pauline Denys)