Post-2030 clarity and green taxes: EU’s new climate heads outline priorities
Teresa Ribera was the last of the European Commission President’s top appointments to go before MEPs yesterday, marking the end of an intense week of Parliamentary hearings.
Despite being in line to become Ursula von der Leyen’s vice president, and having a potentially massive mandate (the clean, just and competitive transition) there was little of any substance in Tuesday’s discussions.
As the Spanish minister for the ecological transition, Ribera spent most of the three-hour session fending off attacks about her role in Valencia’s devastating floods, Spain’s record on solar subsidies, and questions over whether climate change was even something Europe needed to deal with.
On the latter point, Ribera stood firm, insisting the Green Deal and the upcoming Clean Industrial Deal were not part of an ideological agenda. But she gave little away in relation to policies or priorities.
More interesting were the hearings of Ribera’s two more junior partners on the Green Deal: Wopke Hoekstra, who is set to continue as the climate commissioner, and Stéphane Séjourné, who is expected to be in charge of prosperity and the EU’s industrial strategy.
Hoekstra promised to table a legislative proposal to enshrine a net 90% emission reduction target for 2040 in the European Climate Law.
“I will also bring forward proposals for the post-2030 climate policy framework to enable a predictable, fair and cost efficient transition beyond 2030,” he told MEPs during his hearing last week.
Séjourné stressed the need to push on with the Clean Industrial Deal (to be outlined in the first 100 days of the new Commission’s mandate), the Net Zero Industry Act and the Critical Raw Materials Act.
He said he would prioritise carbon intensive and strategic industries, including chemicals, aluminium, steel, autos and green tech, with action plans to be developed for each.
Carmakers
Ribera, Séjourné and Hoekstra were all asked to commit to weakening the EU’s requirement for carmakers to reduce their emissions by 2025 and stop selling petrol and diesel cars altogether by 2035 – targets many automotive companies are expected to miss after a recent slump in EV sales.
All three defended the timelines, with Séjourné saying he has a plan to boost EV sales “over the next few months” to help achieve the targets.
Hoekstra insisted it was “of pivotal importance” that the EU sticks to the rules agreed under the last Commission.
“In terms of business, the reality is that they find we politicians change our minds quite often,” he told Parliament. “They are much better than we are at planning [because] they have long investment horizons – way longer than a political cycle.”
He echoed Michael McGrath’s point from last week’s hearing, saying companies value legal certainty above everything else.
Taxes and carbon markets
Hoekstra put heavy emphasis on the need for global carbon pricing to be “at the heart” of the EU’s global diplomacy, describing the EU ETS as “both the workhorse and the crown jewel of [EU climate] policy”.
He also told MEPs he was “deeply convinced that taxation can support the objectives of a clean transition” and serve as a “key pricing instrument for driving climate goals”.
Hoekstra’s mandate will put him in charge of tax laws in Europe, as well as the climate agenda, and he’s already talked about the need to come down harder on polluting industries like aviation.
“Many of the tax files on the table do have a clear link to climate,” he said during his hearing, pointing to the Energy Taxation Directive and adding that he wants to explore the potential for “further greening our VAT system”.
Procurement
Séjourné said he planned to “overhaul” the EU’s existing procurement rules as a matter of priority, ensuring that sustainability, resilience and workers’ rights were key considerations when awarding public contracts.
