OPINION
Ursula von
der Leyen’s Green Deal is doomed
The
Commission’s political constraints will ensure it gets watered down.
By DAVID
ADLER AND PAWEL WARGAN 10/16/19, 4:00 AM CET Updated 10/16/19, 10:50 AM CET
Ursula von
der Leyen at the European Parliament in Strasbourg | Patrick Seeger/EFE via EPA
This summer
— with record heat waves crashing over Europe — climate activists appeared to
find an unlikely champion: the conservative German politician Ursula von der
Leyen.
Shortly
before she was confirmed as the next president of the European Commission, the
former defense minister pledged to introduce a “European Green Deal” within 100
days of taking office, laying out a holistic vision for a just transition that
will aim to cut carbon emissions and reverse the planet’s ecological breakdown,
while ensuring social justice.
Claudia
Kemfert, a leading climate researcher in Berlin, called the proposals
“groundbreaking.” Forbes declared that those calling for a Green New Deal on
the other side of the Atlantic “have all been beat by a conservative German
politician.”
Alas, the
European Union — in its institutional structure, as in its political process —
does not permit a holistic approach. Von der Leyen’s Green Deal was doomed from
the start.
The
European Commission, which originates EU policy, splits and chops proposals and
distributes them among siloed teams of experts, who then draft the legislation.
Social policy is divorced from trade policy, just like finance is divorced from
greenhouse gas reduction targets. In the best case, ambitious proposals end up
in the hands of officials who are sympathetic to the cause. In the worst, they
reside with commissioners who are determined to see them fail.
The
Commission’s structural and political constraints are likely to produce a set
of watered-down, piecemeal solutions.
Von der
Leyen’s Green Deal is a case in point. Though she tapped the center-left Dutch
politician Frans Timmermans as her commissioner for a "European Green
Deal,” she handed the “Economy that Works for People” portfolio to Valdis
Dombrovskis, a former Latvian prime minister and the chief architect of the
country’s austerity program. There's little reason to believe the center-right
politician will be eager to embrace the environmental ambition needed to see
the Green Deal through.
At the
commissioner hearings last week, Timmermans downplayed the split. “You can't go
it alone; you can't achieve all this alone. Under Ursula von der Leyen's
leadership, we will work together,” he said. But sources close to him suggest
that he was riled by the decision — not just because it neutered core aspects
of his portfolio, but also because it signified a major power shift within the
Commission.
Von der
Leyen’s mission letters to Timmermans and Dombrovskis are revealing: While the
Dutchman is in charge of soft issues like a new 2030 emission reduction target,
zero-pollution ambition and the circular economy, Dombrovskis’ portfolio
includes most of the hard, financing-related aspects of the green transition.
Dombrovskis
is tasked with transforming the European Investment Bank into a climate bank.
He will oversee a new financing strategy based on the issuance of green bonds.
And he will coordinate the work on von der Leyen’s Sustainable Europe
Investment Plan, which promises to “unlock” €1 trillion of investments over the
next decade. The bread and butter of the Green Deal, then, will need to pass by
Dombrovskis’ desk before it sees the light of day.
And then
there’s the next Commission’s political structure. Timmermans coordinates the
work of five directorates general (DGs), but most of these are led by
center-right commissioners. At the same time, Dombrovskis heads no fewer than
four DGs, most of them led by center-left figures.
In other
words, von der Leyen ensured a political balance between the center left and
the center right, while reinforcing the latter’s supervision of portfolios
essential for realizing the Green Deal. Jobs, cohesion, reforms and, crucially,
economy — these all fall within Dombrovskis’ remit, not Timmermans’.
Sources suggest
that von der Leyen’s last-minute move to promote Dombrovskis was an attempt to
seize control of the Green Deal for the center right, while ensuring that the
responsibility for its success or failure remains with Timmermans, the public
face of the Commission’s environmental ambitions.
Timmermans’
S&D allies in the Parliament are already voicing concerns. “We require
clarification on how exactly you foresee Mr. Dombrovskis' collaboration with
other relevant commissioners in order to deliver on the ambitious and
progressive cross-sectorial set of policies you have entrusted him with,
including within the scope of the Green New Deal,” S&D group leader Iratxe
Garcia-Perez wrote in a letter to von der Leyen.
Urgency is
mounting. Even if the Commission could realize its current plans for a Green
Deal, it would still be only the first step of the many that will be needed to
tackle Europe’s twin crises of austerity, and climate and environmental
breakdown.
The record
doesn’t bode well. The Commission’s structural and political constraints are
likely to produce a set of watered-down, piecemeal solutions. Meanwhile, the
clock on climate and environmental breakdown keeps ticking away.
Pawel
Wargan and David Adler are the coordinators of the Green New Deal for Europe
and members of the Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM25) governing board.
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