Welcome to Better Europe’s weekly update on EU Affairs.
PARLIAMENT ADOPTS ENERGY PERFORMANCE OF BUILDINGS DIRECTIVE
As the final, final, really final Council negotiations on the due diligence rules are taking place today, one would forget that many other agreements that were said to be at risk are actually endorsed without much of a fuss, at least in the Parliament. Along with the Nature Restoration Law a few weeks ago, the Parliament’s plenary this week endorsed the final agreement on another key piece of environmental legislation, the revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. The new legislation sets rules for renovation targets of buildings, both on the public and private side. It also introduces a phase-out of fossil fuel heater subsidies as soon as next year, ending another major dependence on fossil fuel in our daily lives which hopefully will not be contested afterwards as happened with the combustion engine car. Passing the EPBD through Parliament’s plenary with a small majority of 370 MEPs is certainly an achievement by Irish Green rapporteur Ciarán Cuffe and fellow Irishman and EPP shadow-rapporteur Seán Kelly. Let’s hope Member States choose their battles wisely and that the Green-EPP Irish bromance can hold in Council, which still has to endorse the trilogue agreement in the coming months.
MEPS WANT TO BAN CLAIMS BASED ON CARBON OFFSETS, BUT DO THEY REALLY?
Also in this week’s plenary, MEPs adopted their report on the proposed Green Claims Directive, with an uncontested, cross-party support. The report proposes to tighten the rules on scientific evidence used to substantiate explicit environmental claims. The evidence must be independent, robust, peer-reviewed and verifiable, if it’s up the Parliament. MEPs also ban claims that are solely based on carbon offsetting. However, if companies have reduced their emissions as much as possible, they can make claims based on carbon removal schemes for their residual emissions only, and only for climate-related claims. While companies must have their use of carbon credits certified by the recent EU regulation on carbon removals certification framework, the use of other, non-EU certified schemes may also be allowed if duly justified. Although the Parliament has adopted its position, the negotiations with Member States will take place with the new Parliament after the elections, and it remains to be seen how much of the ambition displayed this week will survive.
FINANCE MINISTERS SHY AWAY FROM ASKING NEXT COMMISSION TO SET UP EU SUPERVISION
Finance Ministers are moving ahead with their ABC for financial markets. Meeting at the monthly ECOFIN Council last Monday, the frustration of a group of Member States led by France is mounting to a level where some countries might decide to go ahead with further integration of cross-border supervision on their own. Although the formal statement tries to pacify the situation by asking the next Commission to examine “a broad range of options to enhance supervisory convergence”, it is clear that two blocks are emerging in favour and against direct EU-level supervision of financial institutions along the lines of what was introduced for banks. Compared to earlier drafts, the position adopted this week focuses on the positive message of promoting markets instead of complaining about the overreliance on bank funding. But most importantly, it moves away from earlier French-inspired drafting which contained a direct call for “the centralisation of certain supervisory powers in relevant areas such as regulatory reporting, sectors and/or for relevant entities”. Even the rather uncontested call for harmonisation of national insolvency frameworks is being watered down to “targeted convergence”. For more inspiration about barriers to EU financial markets integration, we recommend the visionary report by Professor Claudio Segre, published in… 1966.