Rebellion has been stirring in every corner of Europe against the European Green Deal, the legislative package designed to enable the European Union (EU) to comply with the Paris Agreement and limit the consequences of global warming. Polls have found that people are fed up with the restrictions associated with the environmental transition, and the far-right has been taking advantage of this discontent. Farmers have taken to the streets to voice their exasperation with regulatory "norms coming from Brussels."
Against this backdrop of a political minefield, on February 6, European Union (EU) Commission President Ursula von der Leyen eventually decided to present a 90% CO2 emissions reduction target for the EU by 2040, compared to 1990 emissions levels. This target clarifies the path that the EU's 27 member-states must take if they are to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, having already committed to a 55% reduction in emissions by 2030. In this respect, this target is decisive for the future of Europe's green transition.
By putting this new milestone on the agenda well ahead of the European elections, scheduled for June 6-9, von der Leyen has aimed to encourage everyone to decide whether or not to continue with the European Green Deal. After all, the Commission's proposal has no binding force, and its ambitions could be scaled back in the wake of the elections. For it to be set in stone, the Commission would need to put forward a legislative proposal following the June vote, and the 27 member states and new MEPs would need to adopt it.
Given the growing resistance to the Green Deal, the fate of Europe's green transition is partly at stake in the European elections. "If there is no longer any democratic support for the Green Deal, it will come to an end. This is one of the major issues at stake in the election," said Pascal Canfin, chair of the European Parliament's environment committee.
For von der Leyen, who is expected to run for a second term and who has made the European Green Deal into a hallmark of her policy since she arrived in Brussels at the end of 2019, it will be hard to back down. Yet there have been more and more calls for a "regulatory pause" in the capitals and among the major political parties.
Since July 14, 2021, and the Commission's presentation of the bills that should enable the 27 EU member-states to reach their 2030 target – Act 1 of the Green Deal – European leaders have taken decisions as far-reaching as ending the use of combustion engines in new cars from 2035, reforming the carbon market, implementing a carbon tax at the EU's borders, adopting ambitious renewable energy targets and combating imports of products produced through deforestation. More than 50 pieces of EU legislation on these issues have already been adopted, and a dozen more are in the pipeline.
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