Then, on Wednesday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, an EPP politician, appeared to blame the EU’s new climate legislation — much of which has yet to come into effect — for the bloc’s high energy prices.
He called for a “review of all legal acts including those under the Green Deal” and for “courage to change those rules that might result in prohibitively high energy prices,” attacking, in particular, a carbon fee on fossil fuels used to heat homes and power cars coming into force in 2027. Tusk’s remarks were welcomed by conservative Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala.
Another EPP politician, Romanian Energy Minister Sebastian Burduja, this week said he was working on a “detailed report on the negative effects of Green Deal policies” for Romania, praising the country’s natural gas reserves and coal-fired power capacity.
“What can hold us back is a suffocating bureaucracy and a Green Deal that ignores the realities on the ground,” he said. “That is why what is needed, as EPP leaders have said, is a robust debate about how and whether the EU will continue the Green Deal for the next few years.”
It’s not just Europe’s conservatives, though — centrist-led France is asking the EU to indefinitely delay corporate sustainability rules. Von der Leyen mentioned the same law when promising “far-reaching simplification” in her speech in Davos, Switzerland, this week.
At a press conference on Friday, Commission spokesman Stefan De Keersmaecker told reporters that while “one of the important pillars of the compass is to cut red tape … the commitments that have been taken in the context of the Green Deal remain fully valid.”
But the EU’s new economic doctrine appears to put deregulation before decarbonization, with climate efforts taking a backseat to the Commission’s newfound focus on competitiveness.
“The transition to a decarbonised economy must be competitiveness-friendly and technology neutral,” the draft document reads. “The Compass goal is a Europe where tomorrow’s technologies and clean products are invented, manufactured and marketed, as we stay the course to carbon neutrality.”
