Patrick Costello sees a centre-right/far-right dilution of environmental policies as a call to action for the left
On 9th December, a deal was reached by EU ministers that cuts environmental reporting obligations for over 80% of Europe’s companies. In itself, it is bad enough; it looks much worse when zooming in on how this legislative sausage was made.
In February, the von der Leyen (VDL) Commission launched the first of a series of so-called ‘omnibus’ proposals. It bundled together amendments to a group of environmental laws under the banner of simplifying environmental ‘burdens’. In fact, the proposal did much more than that, concealing a set of amendments which amounted to significant changes to environmental law. By issuing the proposal in this way, the Commission avoided the normal checks and balances; there was no public consultation and no impact assessment of the proposal. To add insult to injury, the decision on the proposal was forced through the Commission under an urgent procedure that gave departments 24 hours over a weekend to assess the text. The European Ombudsman pronounced that the shortcomings of the approach amounted to maladministration, and a letter from over 100 legal experts highlighted the risk that the European Court could rule the proposal illegal.
Worse was to follow. When the proposal reached the Parliament, Jürgen Warborn, the Swedish centre-right MEP assigned to the file, reached compromise amendments on it with the other political groups in the VDL coalition (Socialists, Liberals and Greens) but the compromise was then blocked in the plenary in a secret vote by a majority consisting of all three far-right political groups with a large portion of the centre right EPP group. In response, the EPP returned to the plenary in November and forced through their original proposal with the support of all three far-right groups. This was the first time since last year’s elections that the EPP had made a majority with the far-right on a significant piece of legislation, shattering the ‘cordon sanitaire’.
In endorsing the deal on 9 December, EU ministers were therefore endorsing both the Commission’s maladministration and the new right/far-right coalition in the Parliament in the interests of slashing environmental standards.
If this were a one-off, it would be manageable bad news. But the Commission has now adopted 8 of these ‘omnibus’ proposals aimed at further dismantling European law, including in the areas of digital, agricultural and chemicals policy. Plans for next year include further packages on taxation, digital (including data protection), energy products and citizens’ rights. Under the guise of increasing Europe’s competitiveness (and without a shred of evidence that it will do that), this looks more and more like a slash-and-burn strategy aimed at dismantling the European social and environmental model to appease European and American corporate interests.
Teresa Ribera, the Socialist Vice-President of the Commission, has come out publicly to slam the approach: “It’s a kind of Trumpist approach against being stable, reliable and predictable. It weakens our standards. It lowers the credibility of the single market, it enlarges inequalities and distortions.” Such a frontal attack is unprecedented for a Commission that has always relied on collective responsibility. It is a sign of just how unhappy parts of the Commission are with top-down decisions forced through without consultation, and which will ultimately rely on the far-right in Parliament to smash any opposition.
Round 1 of this fight has been won hands down by President von der Leyen and the centre-right/far-right majority in Parliament. Whether they win the next rounds will depend, legally, on whether the European Court of Justice allows this approach to European lawmaking and, politically, on whether the Socialists, Liberals and Greens are prepared to play hardball and threaten seriously to take a no-confidence vote to Parliament, which would likely achieve a majority with the support of the political fringes, unless there is a change of direction.