Every day, the correspondents’ club describes how the same news story is illustrated in other countries.
The European Commission has adopted a series of proposals aimed at adapting the European Union’s policies on climate, energy, transport and taxation. It is the “Green Deal for Europe” which sets itself, in particular, as the objective of achieving carbon neutrality in 2050. Monday September 25, Emmanuel Macron presents the roadmap for ecological planning which should enable France to achieve its objectives in terms of reducing greenhouse gases. In Poland and the Netherlands, as the legislative elections approach, the environmental directives set by Brussels are not received in the same way.
In the Netherlands, Frans Timmermans is the face of the European Green Deal
In the Netherlands, the next parliamentary elections will take place on November 22 and the European Green Deal is expected to be at the center of the election campaign. In any case, this is the ambition of the left and its main representative Frans Timmermans. He left Dutch national politics to become European Commissioner in 2014 and was responsible for the European Green Deal for four years, which greatly contributed to his image in the Netherlands. Frans Timmermans resigned from the European Commission in June and was elected at the end of August as head of the list by two united parties. On the one hand the PvdA, that is to say the Labor Party, his own party, and on the other hand GroenLinks, or “green left”. These two parties have decided to make common cause and as a result, the European Green Deal will take a central role in the campaign. As far as GroenLinks, the green left, is concerned, the subject is an obvious one to remobilize the electorate and for the PvdA Labor Party, it makes good political logic to capitalize on the main point of Frans Timmermans’ record at the European Commission.
In addition, governments were in some way forced into climate action because the Dutch state was condemned in court for not having acted sufficiently, following complaints from Batavian citizen climate groups. We saw a set of strong measures on the cancellation of 18,000 real estate projects, on the reduction of daytime motorway speeds, even before the European Green Deal arrived. Among the very visible measures we can cite the decision to triple the nuclear fleet or to finally stop the exploitation of the Groningen gas field which will close definitively on October 1st.
In Poland, the ruling party speaks of “green communism”
Poland is the most skeptical EU country about the European Green Deal, it has even filed a complaint with the Court of Justice of the European Union, to have certain measures canceled that they consider too restrictive. The president of the PIS, the ruling party, spoke of “green communism” regarding the objectives set by the European Commission. There are two important objectives that Poland would like to see disappear: the end of thermal cars in 2035 and the reduction of greenhouse emissions – Poland still depends 70% on coal to produce its electricity. If Poland has initiated the start of transition, with the construction of its first nuclear power plant, for the PIS, the CO2 reduction objectives would be unattainable by 2050. It is for this reason that the party filed a complaint at the end of August . And as Poland opposed all these measures during the vote in the Council of Europe, it hopes to win this case because it believes that all these restrictions must be validated unanimously.
The legislative elections are scheduled for October 15 in Poland and the PIS opposes everything that Brussels says and plays on it in its meetings. He often compares the European Union to a totalitarian regime led by Germany and France which would like to dominate Poland. The party shows itself to be resistant to the European oppressor, who would like to impose its environmental policies on it. The PIS president maintained that he was opposing Brussels to defend Polish mushroom pickers, a very popular activity in the country. He also wants to keep the farmers’ vote. Very angry on the subject of Ukrainian grain imports, they could also be angry with the PIS for letting the European Union impose new rules on their crops.