The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, in Strasbourg on January 18, 2022. JEAN-FRANCOIS BADIAS / AP
A few days before she gave her State of the Union address to MEPs on Wednesday September 13 – the last before the end of her term in office – Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, added on the Community website Executive, a counter that counts the number of days, hours, minutes and even seconds that still separate European citizens from expressing themselves. In Strasbourg, where Angela Merkel’s former minister was due to speak, the countdown is underway for the European elections, which will take place on June 6th and 9th, 2024.
When preparing the exercise, Ursula von der Leyen had in mind the growing criticism in her own conservative camp about one of the pillars of her policy, the “Green Pact”, which is intended to enable the Seven Twenty-Seven to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. In an interview with several newspapers, including Le Monde, on Tuesday September 12, another figure from the Conservatives of the European People’s Party (EPP), the main political group in the European Parliament, said that the President of this parliamentary institution, Roberta Metsola, invited invite yourself to the debate.
While the extreme right could emerge stronger from the June election, the Maltese believe that some adjustments to the “Green Pact” are necessary. “If we want a climate policy that remains ambitious, we have to take medium-sized businesses and citizens into account,” she explains. “There are those who will lose their homes due to climate disasters and those who cannot financially comply with the regulations that are too restrictive for them. We cannot afford to lose this to the populists,” continues Roberta Metsola.
“The Anti-Green Deal”
“I speak as President of Parliament, not on behalf of the EPP,” she wants to make clear, even if her party is now calling for a moratorium on the “Green Deal”. After supporting him, the EPP made a strategic change a year ago, assuming that the war in Ukraine and the return of inflation would change the situation. “Metsola speaks on behalf of the EPP and the extreme right. “This is against the Green Deal,” says Raphaël Glucksmann, MEP (Social Democrat, S&D), adding: “The ideological debate that is currently taking place revolves around the question of whether the Green Deal was a bracket or whether it was ushers in a new era.” of the EU. Landscape [des élections européennes] is thrown. »
Since 2019, 75 legislative proposals relating to the “Green Deal” have been introduced, of which 32 have come into force or are about to come into force and an almost equal number are expected to be completed by the end of the legislative period. End of the heat engine in 2035, introduction of a CO2 tax at the borders, planned expansion of electricity from renewable energies… the issues affect the entire economy and its actors.
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