The European Union is facing pressure from environmentalists and lawmakers to attach conditions to state aid packages to protect climate goals, as countries pump cash into ailing firms and polluting sectors during the coronavirus pandemic. The EU agreed on Thursday to build a trillion-euro recovery fund to revive economies ravaged by the pandemic and has so far signed off on state aid worth 1.8 trillion euros ($1.94 trillion).
So far, the Commission, the bloc’s executive, has not attached ‘green strings’ to its approvals of aid from national budgets, as the health crisis takes priority. Green advocates say they want guarantees that any upcoming state aid will uphold the bloc’s climate ambitions. “We cannot afford to make the same mistake we did after the financial crisis of 2009 and use public money to invest in the economy, without taking into consideration Green Deal objectives,” Pascal Canfin, a French EU lawmaker who chairs European parliament’s environment committee, told Reuters.
In a letter sent to the Commission on Thursday, seen by Reuters, green groups including WWF, Greenpeace and Transport & Environment called for “strict sustainability conditions” on state aid approvals. High-carbon industries should only get support if they set climate targets, pledge to spend more on low-carbon assets, or shut down polluting ones, they said. “We are dismayed that the Commission so far appears to be unwilling to fully utilise the single most powerful instrument it has at its disposal to steer the direction of the recovery: its state aid vetting powers,” the letter said.
Source: Reuters
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