Belgium takes over the EU Council Presidency, agreeing with the European Parliament on hotly debated legislation designed to reverse the rapid rise in packaging waste, limits on CO2 emissions from trucks and rules for carbon removal certification. There are only 8 weeks left until this happens. .
advertisementThe Green Deal is the cornerstone of the European Commission’s political plan under the leadership of former German defense minister Ursula von der Leyen, whose term of office is one year. For many, progress on new climate, energy and environment legislation will make or break the outgoing EU executive, but time is quickly running out to enact some important legislation.
The company weathered the coronavirus pandemic with former vice president Frans Timmermans sometimes angrily rejecting calls from industry to freeze legislation on issues ranging from plastic waste to car pollution. The then-head of the Green Deal told the European Parliament’s Environment Committee in April 2020, at the height of the first lockdown, that a sustained economic recovery would be built by propping up the polluting industries for which the bill was written. He said it was a “fantasy” to imagine he could do it. It was already on the wall.
Subsequently, the energy crisis triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 prompted the EU to double down on the deployment of renewable energy infrastructure, including through emergency legislation relaxing planning permits for wind farm deployments. .
However, in the final months of the von der Leyen Commission’s five-year term, there have been signs of a kind of environmental fatigue in Brussels, with some regions moving ahead with the EU It has become clear that he is determined to make this the deciding factor in the election. In recent months, the European People’s Party (EPP) in particular has opposed many of the remaining environmental policy bills. Watered-down rewilding legislation aimed at reversing seemingly inexorable ecosystem destruction, with the EU signing up to the UN’s Global Biodiversity Framework to protect 30% of the world’s land and sea habitats Less than a year later, it passed Congress by a narrow margin.
This is the background to which Belgium, which assumed the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union this month, has to reach compromises with European Parliament negotiators on three policy files on climate and the environment. Realistically, this means the worst haggling and horse-trading is over by the end of February. The fear is that if the EU (and, incidentally, Belgium, which holds national and local elections at the same time) fails to do this before going into full campaign mode, parts of the Green Deal law could be left at its mercy. This means that there is a possibility that it will be done. New members of Congress with different policy priorities.
Belgian program
Belgium has only named a few environmental policy files that it explicitly aims to abolish, rather than simply advance, during its presidential term. These include the Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF), which will assess how forests and expected technological fixes such as direct air capture and seabed storage count towards reducing Europe’s carbon emissions. It stipulates what should be done. His CO2 emission standards for heavy vehicles such as trucks and buses will also be updated. And after an intergovernmental agreement brokered by Spain on 18 December, we will introduce new packaging and packaging aimed at reducing the mountain of waste paper, boxes and containers (181 kg per person per year) and mountain climbing. Packaging waste regulations can be added to the list. Many end up in incinerators or landfills. The bill is one of the most intensely lobbied Green Deal bills to date, with business groups even targeting policymakers with billboards around Brussels. .
It is now up to Belgium to represent the government in final negotiations with the European Parliament, which will be held behind closed doors in a forum known as the “trilogue” and mediated by the European Commission. Lawmakers need to agree on waste reduction targets and how to achieve them through measures such as limits on fast food packaging, recycling targets and reuse requirements, and mandatory deposit refunds. As always, national priorities continue to influence negotiations. The potential exemption for wine bottles has also led Belgium and the Czech Republic to require similar carve-outs for brewers. Still, Belgian Environment Minister Alain Maron said the intergovernmental agreement signed in December provided a good basis for negotiations with the European Parliament, and thanked his colleagues for encouraging him to “close this file in the coming months.” I thanked them.
In a typical six-month EU Council presidency, legislative deliberations continue until the last moment. However, with EU elections scheduled for June 6-9 and Parliament due to hold its last plenary session before the summer in late April, an interim agreement between MEPs and the government is The agreement must be concluded by early March at the latest. It will be officially approved in Strasbourg. This would avoid what the European Environment Bureau (EEB), an umbrella group for environmental NGOs, described before Christmas as the “imminent risk that a less progressive parliament will be formed before the bill is adopted”.
Other green files include proposals to halve pesticide use across Europe, rejected by the current parliament, to a proposal to outlaw false “green claims” for products and services that claim to be environmentally and climate-friendly. , there are many. – Belgium is aiming to conclude an intergovernmental agreement with a view to the Council of the EU entering into consultations with members of the European Parliament after the summer. These talks could continue until the end of June.
The Office of the President has already scheduled a three-part meeting on packaging waste regulation for February 5th and March 4th. This means they plan to take the negotiations to the Telegraph. Early February is the latest point at which the agreement text could be translated into all 24 official EU languages in time for adoption at the final session of the European Parliament in April. Even if a deal is reached on March 4, it would technically still be possible to put it to a vote, but allowing for the necessary bureaucratic shenanigans would be a “less elegant” solution, one presidential source said. told Euronews.
Belgium also wants to secure negotiating powers from EU governments on new EU rules on genetically modified crops, but a tripartite agreement will be a tall order as MEPs have not yet adopted a position. (Parliament’s Environment Committee is expected to adopt a draft report on the 11th January). Proposed regulations on new genomic technologies, tabled in September, are seen as broad deregulation that would classify many crops produced using high-precision gene-editing techniques on par with traditionally bred strains. The event was greeted with alarm by several groups.
EEB Director of Nature, Health and Environment Faustin Bas-Defosse told Euronews that Belgium would only “move forward” on certain files, such as the Air Quality Directive, rather than pressing for a deal. “I’m concerned,” he said. In the list of “10 Green Tests” https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMifmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmV1cm9uZXdzLmNvbS9ncmVlbi8yMDI0LzAxLzA1L2JlbGdpdW0taW4tZWlnaHQtd2Vlay1zcHJpbnQtdG8tY2xvc2UtZGVhbHMtb24tZW1pc3Npb25zLXBhY2thZ2luZy13YXN0ZS1sZWdpc2xhdGlvbtIBAA?oc=5 In the run-up to the presidential inauguration, announced in late December, the NGO umbrella group called for the closure of as many Green Deal files as possible. The current forecast, based on recent opinion polls, is that there is a significant risk that the next parliament will be more conservative, with the Restoration Act likely to be rejected outright, Bas-Defosse said.
“Also, now that the President of the European Commission has submitted a proposal to review the conservation status of wolves, the Belgian Presidency will demonstrate the EU’s global leadership in tackling the natural crisis by rejecting the Commission’s proposal. “This would reduce the protected status of wolves under the Bern Convention,” Bas-Defosse said.