Only eleven months after the Commission’s presentation, the Council has adopted its negotiating position on the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA). The Slovenian Presidency could hardly save itself from praise from Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, and the representatives of the 27 member states. The meeting of the Competitiveness Council was crowned by numerous congratulations to the Slovenian Minister for Economic Development and Technology, Zdravko Počivalšek, who celebrated his 64th birthday. Jasmin Kohl analyses the demands with which the European capitals are going into the trialogue negotiations.
The decision on the EU taxonomy is highly controversial – especially with regard to the question of whether nuclear power should be classified as sustainable, the positions within the member states diverge widely. Now the traffic light coalition partners want to seek talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, who is strongly promoting the inclusion of nuclear power. A compromise would not be easy, says Green Party European politician Sven Giegold – and at the same time expresses understanding for France’s position. In the financial industry, on the other hand, voices are growing that fear for the credibility of the EU taxonomy. Read the details in Till Hoppe’s analysis.
The Ministry of Transport in the hands of the FDP – that is a bitter disappointment for many Greens. Christian Domke-Seidel took a closer look at what the traffic light coalition is planning for the transport sector apart from personnel issues – and asked experts for their assessment of the coalition agreement. Their verdict: With this agreement, Germany is likely to miss the European climate targets in the transport sector. “If I take what is written there in black and white, then it is not a blueprint for achieving the 2030 climate protection targets,” says Christian Hochfeld, Director of Agora Verkehrswende.
It is a success for the Portuguese and Slovenian Presidencies: barely eleven months after the Commission’s proposal, the Council yesterday adopted its negotiating position on the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA). The legislative proposals, which are intended to regulate the market power of big-tech companies, create fair conditions for competition online, and safeguard fundamental rights on the internet, have a signal effect beyond the European Union. Although the member states in the Competitiveness Council adopted the General Guidelines (DMA, DSA) yesterday, many of them wanted to make improvements.
With regards to the DMA, which is intended to limit the market power of large gatekeeper platforms, Article 6.1k causes disagreement. It provides for fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory access conditions to app stores for business users. In a protocol declaration, Denmark, Italy, Portugal, and Spain called for the scope of application to be extended beyond app stores and to include search engines and social networks. This is to prevent an imbalance between so-called gatekeepers and commercial users. Germany finds this proposal sensible. The issue is now to be taken up further in the trialogue negotiations with the European Parliament and the Commission.
The Parliament’s position suggests that the extension will prevail in the trialogue because it goes even further: MEPs want to include all central platform services in the scope of application. Opponents of the extension, including Ireland and the Slovenian Council Presidency, complained that the scope of application could not simply be extended because there was no impact assessment.
Germany also submitted a protocol declaration with proposals for improvements, which were presented by Claudia Dörr-Voß, State Secretary for Economic Affairs and Energy. Among other things, the national competition authorities should be effectively involved in the enforcement of the DMA and should continue to be able to apply national competition law. Dörr-Voß described a veto right, which the parliamentary position (Europe.Table reported) provides for the Commission in this context and which could weaken the competence of the national competition authorities, as a red line. The scope of the Digital Markets Act should also be limited to the largest gatekeepers, and it must be better defined what an “active user” is.
“The Digital Markets Act provides important new impetus for fair competition in the EU,” said Bitkom CEO Bernhard Rohleder, praising the Council’s position. However, he said that it only insufficiently takes into account the effects that the new rules will have on European platforms, start-ups, and cybersecurity issues. “Innovation incentives for newly emerging platforms and digital companies urgently need to be expanded in the interest of Europe’s competitiveness,” Rohleder warns.
On the Digital Services Act, which is to revise the basic rules for service providers and platforms on the internet, the member states stressed the importance of maintaining the country of origin principle. The bureaucratic burden for SMEs should also not be increased. State Secretary Dörr-Voß described the DSA as a “milestone” and confirmed that it was the aim of all those involved to conclude both legal acts as quickly as possible, ideally as early as spring 2022 under the French Council Presidency.
However, Germany also sees a need for improvement in many aspects of the DSA and has, therefore, like the other member states, submitted a protocol declaration. Among other things, the Federal Government demands that the DSA must be prevented from undermining the high standards of protection in the German protection of children and young people from harmful media.
Deletion obligations and deletion deadlines for illegal content on very large online platforms (Europe.Table reported) are to become more ambitious and legally binding. Reporting obligations of hosting service providers to law enforcement and judicial authorities (Article 15a) are to be supplemented by an opening clause. The role of national supervisory authorities in enforcing the DSA is to be strengthened and proactive due diligence obligations for online marketplace providers are to be introduced.
“The Council is making cosmetic improvements to the Commission’s proposal,” says Alexandra Geese, shadow rapporteur for the DSA for the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament’s Internal Market Committee. The Council’s position does not go far enough on many points, such as the rules for recommendation systems and algorithms. Users would not be protected from “disproportionate profiling”.
The EU Commission is taking more time to decide how to classify investments in natural gas and nuclear power. The authority will in all likelihood not present the delegated act next week, according to reports in Brussels. Previously it had been said that the Commission could present the highly controversial text as early as December 1st.
However, that would have been seen as an unfriendly act by the prospective traffic light coalition partners in Berlin. Olaf Scholz is due to be elected chancellor on December 7th, and the Greens in particular are firmly opposed to giving nuclear power the sustainability seal of approval via the EU taxonomy. On natural gas, on the other hand, the new coalition is more open.
On the other side of the spectrum of opinion is France, which is lobbying fiercely for the inclusion of nuclear power. The traffic light coalition now wants to seek talks with President Emmanuel Macron to find a compromise. “We will try to find a solution together with Paris,” Green Party European politician Sven Giegold tells Europe.Table.
Giegold, who was part of his party’s negotiating team, shows understanding for the French position: “France needs the certainty that it can continue to finance the construction of new nuclear power plants if it decides to do so against our conviction.” Therefore, he said, it must be clarified that state financing aid for new reactors would not be deemed incompatible with European state aid law by the Commission. Berlin, in turn, said it was important that the integrity of sustainable financial markets was not damaged. “Reconciling this is not easy, but it is possible with the appropriate political will.”
There are also growing voices in the financial industry that reject the inclusion of nuclear power and gas in the classification. This could “severely damage the credibility of the EU taxonomy,” says Victor van Hoorn, executive director of the European Sustainable Investment Forum (Eurosif). According to its own information, the association represents more than 400 institutional investors through its national member organizations, who manage assets worth a good eight trillion euros.
How the Commission will decide is still unclear. There are many indications that it will classify natural gas as a “transitional activity” under the taxonomy. The handling of nuclear power is also highly controversial within the authority, even if the scales have tipped in favor of the proponents in recent weeks. Most recently, it had become apparent that it would declare the construction and operation of nuclear power plants as a green investment, and uranium mining as an “enabling” technology.
Van Hoorn cautions that the classification must be based on scientific criteria and calls for the discussion to be objectified. “I don’t believe that the taxonomy will decisively influence the decisions on how member states want to organize their energy supply.”
The classification also says nothing about whether an investment decision is good or not. “Investors will always make their investment decisions based on multiple criteria.” Therefore, he said, funding will not immediately dry up if a sector is not classified as sustainable. But the nuclear and gas industries – like others – fear rising financing costs if they are not considered.
The Brussels authority proposes that in the future every political advertisement must be clearly labeled as such. In addition, it should contain information about who pays how much for it.
Techniques for targeting and amplifying political advertising are to be made public. In addition, the Commission wants to prohibit the use of sensitive personal data without the explicit consent of the data subjects.
“Elections must not be a competition of opaque and dirty methods,” said Commission Vice-President Vera Jourova when presenting her plans in Brussels on Thursday. She cited the anti-EU Brexit campaign as a negative example, but also the Cambridge Analytica affair.
The storm on Capitol Hill in Washington in January and whistleblower Frances Haugen’s revelations about Facebook also prompted her proposal, Jourova said. It is about protecting the European and national elections in the EU, she said.
The European Parliament has welcomed the proposals in principle, but wants to go further in detail. “Disinformation and incitement flourish in social media. Online political advertising is an attempt to manipulate our democratic discourse,” said Green MEP Daniel Freund.
The Commission’s initiative creates the urgently needed binding transparency as to who finances advertisements and for how much money. That is an important first step. However, it should also be made clear which party benefits from each advertisement.
“Aggressive microtargeting currently makes hate messages much cheaper than positive messages,” Freund said. “Transparency about price per view could show the price advantage of targeted hate and make it possible to mandate equal prices to take away the advantage of hate.”
The SPD MEP Tiemo Wölken also demands improvements. He said it was incomprehensible that the Commission had not completely banned the personalization of political advertising. “Such a ban is the only way to stop the misuse of our personal data and to effectively protect democratic discourse online.”
According to Wölken, the Commission’s proposal falls far short of what is necessary. During the parliamentary consultations, he wants to campaign for the draft to be tightened up in this respect.
The negotiations to form a coalition government following the federal election in Germany have brought forward an aim for an accelerated and Paris Agreement compatible phaseout of coal “ideally” by 2030, eight years earlier than originally planned. While the inclusion of “ideally” is less concrete than as originally envisioned by the Greens, the realities of coal endgame in Europe are evidently clear to the new German government.
The new date sees Germany join 16 other European countries ditching coal or committing to do so by 2030. More than half of European coal plants have been closed, while the remainder are set to do so by the end of the decade. The European Union’s largest member state ramping up its coal phaseout marks a significant step in the transition of the wider bloc away from coal. Germany is a top EU consumer of fossil fuel, accounting for the second-highest consumption of hard coal and the highest consumption of lignite coal in 2020.
Germany could lead the way for the other EU member states that have so far proven reluctant to ditch coal, pointing to the Germans as an excusing example of ‘best practice’. Weaving a phase-out fable on the dangers of lagging behind, it would demonstrate that the rising economic, environmental, and political pressures make such a fate inevitable. Increasing carbon prices have made hanging onto coal a pricey prospect, while the political appetite of citizens grows ever hungrier for action on climate change.
A sped-up German coal phaseout by 2030 matches the responsibilities of the Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5°C, alongside allaying the fears of Germans on the frontline of coal’s last stand in the country. Citizens of North-Rhine Westphalia have seen the Garzweiler coal mine swallow up villages and encroach on farmlands over the past few decades. The newly incumbent Minister-President Hendrik Wüst of the Christian Democrats has now voiced his intention for the most populous German state to phase out coal in line with the 2030 target.
In a clear departure from his predecessor Armin Laschet’s affinity for coal, Wüst’s comments come as a milestone for the persistent efforts of civil society in the region to safeguard the homes and livelihoods of citizens from destructive coal mine expansions. Wüst’s call for clarity from the incoming federal government on the expansion of renewables and the security of coal alternatives further normalizes the 2030 phaseout date for the rest of the country.
Riccardo Nigro, EEB Campaign Coordinator on Coal Combustion and Mines said: “Coal endgame is inevitable and accelerating throughout Europe due to economic, environmental, and policy reasons. The new German government has the possibility to set a new tone across Europe, align Germany to a Paris-compatible coal phase-out plan, and stop the shameful destruction of villages that RWE is bringing forward to dig unneeded coal in Garzweiler.”
Coal came under the spotlight like never before at this year’s COP26. The Glasgow climate pact resulting from the conference saw the greatest disputes during its negotiations arise over coal, with a last-minute watering down of ‘coal phaseout’ to ‘coal phasedown’ at the behest of China and India. Despite this weakening of language, the pact marks the first time such a resolution has made its way into a UN climate text and is indicative of a global shift, slowly but surely, away from coal.
EU coal phaseout laggards risk falling even further behind the coal kicking curve. The climate summit produced a Global Coal to Clean Power Transition Statement, signed by a coalition of 190 countries and organizations agreeing to phase out coal, by 2030 for major economies and 2040 for the rest of the world. Announced to much fanfare, the infamously coal-addicted Poland was a surprise signatory. It quickly rectified its position however, reaffirming that its phaseout deadline remained 2049 as it did not consider itself to be a major economy.
Elsewhere, the other member states falling short of 2030 include Croatia, which has set a deadline of 2033, while the coal phaseouts of Slovenia and the Czech Republic are under discussion, the latter having indicated a vague “pre-2038” exit.
As the German coalition enters government, the pressure for earlier coal exits continues to mount on both the EU and global front. It will be but a matter of time before EU laggards have to heed the phaseout fable.
This article was adapted from one originally published on the EEB’s META news channel.
Only eleven months after the Commission’s presentation, the Council has adopted its negotiating position on the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA). The Slovenian Presidency could hardly save itself from praise from Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, and the representatives of the 27 member states. The meeting of the Competitiveness Council was crowned by numerous congratulations to the Slovenian Minister for Economic Development and Technology, Zdravko Počivalšek, who celebrated his 64th birthday. Jasmin Kohl analyses the demands with which the European capitals are going into the trialogue negotiations.
The decision on the EU taxonomy is highly controversial – especially with regard to the question of whether nuclear power should be classified as sustainable, the positions within the member states diverge widely. Now the traffic light coalition partners want to seek talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, who is strongly promoting the inclusion of nuclear power. A compromise would not be easy, says Green Party European politician Sven Giegold – and at the same time expresses understanding for France’s position. In the financial industry, on the other hand, voices are growing that fear for the credibility of the EU taxonomy. Read the details in Till Hoppe’s analysis.
The Ministry of Transport in the hands of the FDP – that is a bitter disappointment for many Greens. Christian Domke-Seidel took a closer look at what the traffic light coalition is planning for the transport sector apart from personnel issues – and asked experts for their assessment of the coalition agreement. Their verdict: With this agreement, Germany is likely to miss the European climate targets in the transport sector. “If I take what is written there in black and white, then it is not a blueprint for achieving the 2030 climate protection targets,” says Christian Hochfeld, Director of Agora Verkehrswende.
It is a success for the Portuguese and Slovenian Presidencies: barely eleven months after the Commission’s proposal, the Council yesterday adopted its negotiating position on the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA). The legislative proposals, which are intended to regulate the market power of big-tech companies, create fair conditions for competition online, and safeguard fundamental rights on the internet, have a signal effect beyond the European Union. Although the member states in the Competitiveness Council adopted the General Guidelines (DMA, DSA) yesterday, many of them wanted to make improvements.
With regards to the DMA, which is intended to limit the market power of large gatekeeper platforms, Article 6.1k causes disagreement. It provides for fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory access conditions to app stores for business users. In a protocol declaration, Denmark, Italy, Portugal, and Spain called for the scope of application to be extended beyond app stores and to include search engines and social networks. This is to prevent an imbalance between so-called gatekeepers and commercial users. Germany finds this proposal sensible. The issue is now to be taken up further in the trialogue negotiations with the European Parliament and the Commission.
The Parliament’s position suggests that the extension will prevail in the trialogue because it goes even further: MEPs want to include all central platform services in the scope of application. Opponents of the extension, including Ireland and the Slovenian Council Presidency, complained that the scope of application could not simply be extended because there was no impact assessment.
Germany also submitted a protocol declaration with proposals for improvements, which were presented by Claudia Dörr-Voß, State Secretary for Economic Affairs and Energy. Among other things, the national competition authorities should be effectively involved in the enforcement of the DMA and should continue to be able to apply national competition law. Dörr-Voß described a veto right, which the parliamentary position (Europe.Table reported) provides for the Commission in this context and which could weaken the competence of the national competition authorities, as a red line. The scope of the Digital Markets Act should also be limited to the largest gatekeepers, and it must be better defined what an “active user” is.
“The Digital Markets Act provides important new impetus for fair competition in the EU,” said Bitkom CEO Bernhard Rohleder, praising the Council’s position. However, he said that it only insufficiently takes into account the effects that the new rules will have on European platforms, start-ups, and cybersecurity issues. “Innovation incentives for newly emerging platforms and digital companies urgently need to be expanded in the interest of Europe’s competitiveness,” Rohleder warns.
On the Digital Services Act, which is to revise the basic rules for service providers and platforms on the internet, the member states stressed the importance of maintaining the country of origin principle. The bureaucratic burden for SMEs should also not be increased. State Secretary Dörr-Voß described the DSA as a “milestone” and confirmed that it was the aim of all those involved to conclude both legal acts as quickly as possible, ideally as early as spring 2022 under the French Council Presidency.
However, Germany also sees a need for improvement in many aspects of the DSA and has, therefore, like the other member states, submitted a protocol declaration. Among other things, the Federal Government demands that the DSA must be prevented from undermining the high standards of protection in the German protection of children and young people from harmful media.
Deletion obligations and deletion deadlines for illegal content on very large online platforms (Europe.Table reported) are to become more ambitious and legally binding. Reporting obligations of hosting service providers to law enforcement and judicial authorities (Article 15a) are to be supplemented by an opening clause. The role of national supervisory authorities in enforcing the DSA is to be strengthened and proactive due diligence obligations for online marketplace providers are to be introduced.
“The Council is making cosmetic improvements to the Commission’s proposal,” says Alexandra Geese, shadow rapporteur for the DSA for the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament’s Internal Market Committee. The Council’s position does not go far enough on many points, such as the rules for recommendation systems and algorithms. Users would not be protected from “disproportionate profiling”.
The EU Commission is taking more time to decide how to classify investments in natural gas and nuclear power. The authority will in all likelihood not present the delegated act next week, according to reports in Brussels. Previously it had been said that the Commission could present the highly controversial text as early as December 1st.
However, that would have been seen as an unfriendly act by the prospective traffic light coalition partners in Berlin. Olaf Scholz is due to be elected chancellor on December 7th, and the Greens in particular are firmly opposed to giving nuclear power the sustainability seal of approval via the EU taxonomy. On natural gas, on the other hand, the new coalition is more open.
On the other side of the spectrum of opinion is France, which is lobbying fiercely for the inclusion of nuclear power. The traffic light coalition now wants to seek talks with President Emmanuel Macron to find a compromise. “We will try to find a solution together with Paris,” Green Party European politician Sven Giegold tells Europe.Table.
Giegold, who was part of his party’s negotiating team, shows understanding for the French position: “France needs the certainty that it can continue to finance the construction of new nuclear power plants if it decides to do so against our conviction.” Therefore, he said, it must be clarified that state financing aid for new reactors would not be deemed incompatible with European state aid law by the Commission. Berlin, in turn, said it was important that the integrity of sustainable financial markets was not damaged. “Reconciling this is not easy, but it is possible with the appropriate political will.”
There are also growing voices in the financial industry that reject the inclusion of nuclear power and gas in the classification. This could “severely damage the credibility of the EU taxonomy,” says Victor van Hoorn, executive director of the European Sustainable Investment Forum (Eurosif). According to its own information, the association represents more than 400 institutional investors through its national member organizations, who manage assets worth a good eight trillion euros.
How the Commission will decide is still unclear. There are many indications that it will classify natural gas as a “transitional activity” under the taxonomy. The handling of nuclear power is also highly controversial within the authority, even if the scales have tipped in favor of the proponents in recent weeks. Most recently, it had become apparent that it would declare the construction and operation of nuclear power plants as a green investment, and uranium mining as an “enabling” technology.
Van Hoorn cautions that the classification must be based on scientific criteria and calls for the discussion to be objectified. “I don’t believe that the taxonomy will decisively influence the decisions on how member states want to organize their energy supply.”
The classification also says nothing about whether an investment decision is good or not. “Investors will always make their investment decisions based on multiple criteria.” Therefore, he said, funding will not immediately dry up if a sector is not classified as sustainable. But the nuclear and gas industries – like others – fear rising financing costs if they are not considered.
The Brussels authority proposes that in the future every political advertisement must be clearly labeled as such. In addition, it should contain information about who pays how much for it.
Techniques for targeting and amplifying political advertising are to be made public. In addition, the Commission wants to prohibit the use of sensitive personal data without the explicit consent of the data subjects.
“Elections must not be a competition of opaque and dirty methods,” said Commission Vice-President Vera Jourova when presenting her plans in Brussels on Thursday. She cited the anti-EU Brexit campaign as a negative example, but also the Cambridge Analytica affair.
The storm on Capitol Hill in Washington in January and whistleblower Frances Haugen’s revelations about Facebook also prompted her proposal, Jourova said. It is about protecting the European and national elections in the EU, she said.
The European Parliament has welcomed the proposals in principle, but wants to go further in detail. “Disinformation and incitement flourish in social media. Online political advertising is an attempt to manipulate our democratic discourse,” said Green MEP Daniel Freund.
The Commission’s initiative creates the urgently needed binding transparency as to who finances advertisements and for how much money. That is an important first step. However, it should also be made clear which party benefits from each advertisement.
“Aggressive microtargeting currently makes hate messages much cheaper than positive messages,” Freund said. “Transparency about price per view could show the price advantage of targeted hate and make it possible to mandate equal prices to take away the advantage of hate.”
The SPD MEP Tiemo Wölken also demands improvements. He said it was incomprehensible that the Commission had not completely banned the personalization of political advertising. “Such a ban is the only way to stop the misuse of our personal data and to effectively protect democratic discourse online.”
According to Wölken, the Commission’s proposal falls far short of what is necessary. During the parliamentary consultations, he wants to campaign for the draft to be tightened up in this respect.
The negotiations to form a coalition government following the federal election in Germany have brought forward an aim for an accelerated and Paris Agreement compatible phaseout of coal “ideally” by 2030, eight years earlier than originally planned. While the inclusion of “ideally” is less concrete than as originally envisioned by the Greens, the realities of coal endgame in Europe are evidently clear to the new German government.
The new date sees Germany join 16 other European countries ditching coal or committing to do so by 2030. More than half of European coal plants have been closed, while the remainder are set to do so by the end of the decade. The European Union’s largest member state ramping up its coal phaseout marks a significant step in the transition of the wider bloc away from coal. Germany is a top EU consumer of fossil fuel, accounting for the second-highest consumption of hard coal and the highest consumption of lignite coal in 2020.
Germany could lead the way for the other EU member states that have so far proven reluctant to ditch coal, pointing to the Germans as an excusing example of ‘best practice’. Weaving a phase-out fable on the dangers of lagging behind, it would demonstrate that the rising economic, environmental, and political pressures make such a fate inevitable. Increasing carbon prices have made hanging onto coal a pricey prospect, while the political appetite of citizens grows ever hungrier for action on climate change.
A sped-up German coal phaseout by 2030 matches the responsibilities of the Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5°C, alongside allaying the fears of Germans on the frontline of coal’s last stand in the country. Citizens of North-Rhine Westphalia have seen the Garzweiler coal mine swallow up villages and encroach on farmlands over the past few decades. The newly incumbent Minister-President Hendrik Wüst of the Christian Democrats has now voiced his intention for the most populous German state to phase out coal in line with the 2030 target.
In a clear departure from his predecessor Armin Laschet’s affinity for coal, Wüst’s comments come as a milestone for the persistent efforts of civil society in the region to safeguard the homes and livelihoods of citizens from destructive coal mine expansions. Wüst’s call for clarity from the incoming federal government on the expansion of renewables and the security of coal alternatives further normalizes the 2030 phaseout date for the rest of the country.
Riccardo Nigro, EEB Campaign Coordinator on Coal Combustion and Mines said: “Coal endgame is inevitable and accelerating throughout Europe due to economic, environmental, and policy reasons. The new German government has the possibility to set a new tone across Europe, align Germany to a Paris-compatible coal phase-out plan, and stop the shameful destruction of villages that RWE is bringing forward to dig unneeded coal in Garzweiler.”
Coal came under the spotlight like never before at this year’s COP26. The Glasgow climate pact resulting from the conference saw the greatest disputes during its negotiations arise over coal, with a last-minute watering down of ‘coal phaseout’ to ‘coal phasedown’ at the behest of China and India. Despite this weakening of language, the pact marks the first time such a resolution has made its way into a UN climate text and is indicative of a global shift, slowly but surely, away from coal.
EU coal phaseout laggards risk falling even further behind the coal kicking curve. The climate summit produced a Global Coal to Clean Power Transition Statement, signed by a coalition of 190 countries and organizations agreeing to phase out coal, by 2030 for major economies and 2040 for the rest of the world. Announced to much fanfare, the infamously coal-addicted Poland was a surprise signatory. It quickly rectified its position however, reaffirming that its phaseout deadline remained 2049 as it did not consider itself to be a major economy.
Elsewhere, the other member states falling short of 2030 include Croatia, which has set a deadline of 2033, while the coal phaseouts of Slovenia and the Czech Republic are under discussion, the latter having indicated a vague “pre-2038” exit.
As the German coalition enters government, the pressure for earlier coal exits continues to mount on both the EU and global front. It will be but a matter of time before EU laggards have to heed the phaseout fable.
This article was adapted from one originally published on the EEB’s META news channel.
