On Thursday, the Russian state railroads announced that it intends to restrict rail transports to Poland from April 10, without giving any reasons. However, shipments to the EU are likely to decrease overall in the foreseeable future as yesterday, the 27 member states agreed on a fifth package of sanctions against Russia in response to the Bucha atrocities.
This also includes a ban on berthing ships under the Russian flag and further pressure on the banking sector – among other things, Russia’s second-largest bank, VTB Bank (formerly Vneshtorgbank), is subject to a complete ban on transactions. The import of timber, cement, and seafood into the EU is also to be banned entirely, and further export bans are to be imposed on Russia – including, as announced by the French Council Presidency, a ban on arms exports. However, the main focus is on energy sanctions again – Manuel Berkel analyzes how these fit into the overall structure of the European energy withdrawal from Russia and where new problems loom.
Yesterday, the EU agriculture ministers debated the Commission’s proposed revamp of the LULUCF Regulation. The regulation aims to strengthen natural CO2 sinks because reducing greenhouse gases alone will not be enough to achieve climate targets. Timo Landenberger analyzes the complex challenges the regulation has to meet.
In France, there could be a surprise in the first round of the presidential election on Sunday: Incumbent and favorite Emmanuel Macron is losing ground, not only to far-right Marine Le Pen but also to leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Tanja Kuchenbecker reports on what the current poll numbers mean for the election.
The EU-China summit ended last week – without significant results. The talks were poorly prepared, and Brussels approached Beijing with false expectations, as Finn Mayer-Kuckuk reports.
In today’s Column What’s cooking in Brussels, Claire Stam takes another look at what’s on the menu in Brussels. As Emmanuel Macron is under pressure in France’s first round of elections – so is democratic coexistence in the EU.
On Thursday evening, the permanent representatives of the member states approved the EU Commission’s proposals, which include an import ban on coal, wood, and other goods, as well as numerous other punitive measures. This was announced by the French EU Council Presidency on Twitter.
For the sanctions to enter into force, the necessary legal acts must now be adopted by written procedure and published in the Official Journal of the EU. These steps are considered a formality and are expected to be completed today.
Poland prevented an earlier conclusion of the negotiations. According to diplomats, the country initially did not want to accept that the transitional period for the import ban on Russian coal should be four months at the request of countries like Germany – and not three months, as planned by the Commission. Germany will probably need these 120 days to conclude new supply contracts, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in Berlin this evening. “If it can be done faster, that’s fine.”
The new punitive measures are now intended to increase the pressure on Russia – above all by imposing high economic costs on the country. According to the EU Commission, the coal embargo alone could mean a loss of revenue of around €4 billion per year.
There are to be further restrictions on exports to Russia worth around €10 billion to further weaken the Russian economy. According to the Commission, these include quantum computers and means of transport. Products such as wood and cement worth €5.5 billion will no longer be imported into the EU. Russian companies will also no longer be allowed to participate in public tenders in EU states.
The EU Parliament had previously demanded much more far-reaching import restrictions in Strasbourg. In a resolution adopted yesterday by 513 votes to 22 with 19 abstentions, MEPs demanded, among other things, an immediate “complete embargo” on imports of coal, oil, nuclear fuel, and gas from Russia.
With the resolution, the parliamentarians went even further than the draft that had become known on Wednesday evening. In it, several parliamentary groups had initially agreed only on the embargo of oil and coal. The import ban on gas, on the other hand, should take place “as soon as possible“. The Greens were initially unable to push through their demand for an immediate gas embargo.
The Commission is working on measures against oil imports, according to information from Tuesday. However, Germany, in particular, has reservations about a gas embargo. The German government believes that complete independence from Russian gas will not be possible until the summer of 2024.
Yesterday, however, the Parliament also took a further step towards greater security in gas supply. As expected, the plenary voted in favor of the introduction of minimum filling levels for gas storage facilities and the certification of operators. Its members voted at first reading under the urgent procedure on the Commission’s corresponding draft of March 23.
According to the draft, gas storage facilities in the EU are to reach a minimum filling level of 80 percent by November 2022, rising to 90 percent in subsequent years. The draft now goes back to the industry committee, which will initiate trilogue negotiations with the Commission and Council.
The planned certifications are intended to create a new opportunity to force unreliable storage operators out of business. In publishing a new report yesterday, regulatory agency ACER again commented on Gazprom’s role in the low storage levels that some facilities had as early as October 1 last year: “Booked storage capacity in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Slovakia was significantly higher than the actual capacity used, as storage facilities used or controlled by Gazprom were only slightly full.”
In the midst of the heated discussion about fossil fuels, on the other hand, the fundamental transformation of Europe’s energy supply is apparently threatening to be pushed too far to the sidelines for some. At any rate, an appeal by eleven member states was circulated yesterday. Its title: “Ambitious Fit for 55 and EU energy independence – the smart, necessary, and desirable response to the crisis“. In it, the signatories, including German Economics Minister Robert Habeck, write: “Now is the time to be bold and resolutely proceed with the green transformation. Any postponement or hesitation will only prolong our energy dependence.”
A rapid ramp-up in renewable energies, renewable gases, and energy efficiency is therefore particularly important. Not mentioned is nuclear energy, which is propagated by France, which is not one of the signatories. The eleven states also see renewables as a contribution to lowering electricity prices. At present, some member states are trying to protect their citizens primarily through government intervention in the markets, which is effective in the short term.
The Group of Eleven, on the other hand, insists that the common internal market minimizes price shocks. Emissions trading also ultimately serves to achieve the transformation in a cost-efficient manner. The paper was initiated by Denmark, and the signatories also include Spain, Austria, Finland, and the Netherlands. However, even the Fit for 55 vanguard cannot rely on renewables alone. Yesterday, the Dutch government pointed out that it wants to increase its natural gas production in the North Sea.
“In an ideal world, we would not develop new gas fields in the North Sea. But the situation makes this necessary,” Energy Minister Rob Jetten told the German newspaper Handelsblatt. Unfortunately, no agreement had yet been reached with the German partners on this issue. The traffic light coalition has so far ruled out new exploration projects for gas and oil in the North Sea.
The government in Finland said it would invest up to €850 million to end dependence on Russian energy. Yesterday, Helsinki announced the acquisition of an LNG terminal to be shared with Estonia. by Leonie Düngefeld, dpa, rtr
Reducing greenhouse gases alone will not achieve the goal of climate neutrality in the EU in 2050. In addition to transport and industry, there will also be residual emissions in agriculture and forestry. At the same time, however, the so-called LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry) sectors have great potential for capturing and storing climate-damaging carbon from the air. Strengthening natural CO2 sinks such as forests, peatlands or grasslands plays an important role in achieving the EU’s climate targets, which is why the Commission has also launched a recast of the LULUCF Regulation as part of its Fit for 55 package.
However, the complex challenges that the regulations must meet became clear on Thursday at the meeting of EU agriculture ministers in Luxembourg. For example, Spain’s Agriculture Minister Luis Planas Puchades already described the target value for the reduction performance in the LULUCF sector as “not realistic”. The Commission’s draft envisages a net reduction of 310 million metric tons of CO2 equivalents by 2030. This is about 15 percent more than the current target of 268 million metric tons per year, which will still apply until 2025. The new figure is to be distributed among the member states in the form of binding targets from 2026.
Accordingly, Germany is to achieve a greenhouse gas reduction of a good 30 million metric tons in the forestry and land use sector by 2030. While the German Farmers’ Association had already described the target as unattainable and referred to increasing climate damage and age structure effects of the forests, several environmental associations demanded a significant increase in the EU-wide target in a joint position paper in February. It would be possible to almost double the target. However, according to the Commission, the sink rate of European forests and soils actually declined by about 20 percent between 2013 and 2018.
The restoration and expansion of the sinks is possible, but requires immediate decisive action, according to the Brussels authority. This includes, for example, the rewetting of peatlands, reforestation, the designation of nature reserves, or the set-aside of agricultural land. However, the EU Commission has postponed the presentation of a corresponding renaturation law as a result of the current debate on food security.
The German government supports the plan to increase the climate protection contribution of the LULUCF sector. However, the strong fluctuations in this sector showed “that the formulation of absolute, annualized target values is fraught with difficulties,” Germany’s deputy permanent representative Susanne Szech-Koundouros said at the council meeting on Thursday.
Natural disturbances such as bad weather events, droughts, or pest infestations can cause a significant increase in emissions while limiting the potential sink capacity. This is not sufficiently taken into account in the Commission’s proposal, criticize some other states, including Portugal. They said the disruptions are not due to policy or management. Member states should be supported in these cases, not penalized, said Portuguese Agriculture Minister Maria do Céu Antunes.
Likewise, too little consideration would be given to the different geological and climatic conditions in the various countries. Instead, the Commission’s draft provides for simplification of compliance regulations and harmonization of reporting. While some countries welcomed the move toward greater comparability, others voiced clear criticism: “The Commission assumes that the absorption capacity is the same everywhere in Europe. But in Spain in particular, the potential CO2 absorption is severely limited compared to other countries due to the climate,” Planas Puchades said.
Charlie McConalogue from Ireland expressed similar concerns. Much of the country’s emissions are due to agriculture. “But because of the high proportion of peat soils and the age structure of our forests, we have very limited ability to meet our annual targets,” he said in Ireland.
From 2031, the Commission wants to combine all areas of land use, forestry, and agriculture, including livestock, in a new pillar (Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use – AFOLU). All greenhouse gas emissions from these sectors, including methane, are then to be offset against sink payments. Germany criticizes the plan and fears a dilution of the reduction targets. The Commission envisages climate neutrality for the new AFOLU sector until 2035, after which negative emissions are to be provided.
The Ukraine war had given incumbent Emmanuel Macron a poll high, but this effect begins to fade. Ahead of Sunday’s first round, Macron is still polling between 25 and 28 percent, while far-right Marine Le Pen is polling between 21 and 23 percent. At one point, the lead was 15 points.
The two candidates have the best chances of going into the runoff election on April 24. But a third candidate also has realistic chances: Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The 70-year-old left-wing politician recently reached 16.5 percent, and he has recently made strong gains in the polls. The daily newspaper “Le Monde” believes Mélenchon can pull off a surprise. The other candidates are trailing behind, with far-right politician Éric Zemmour and conservative Valérie Pécresse coming in at around ten percent.
Mélenchon’s last campaign event in Marseille attracted 35,000 supporters. For some days now, fears have been voiced that the leader of the La France Insoumise (Unsubmissive France) movement could even win a runoff against Le Pen if Macron fails to mobilize voters. Macron is under attack from both the far left and the far right.
The last voting stations will close at 8 PM on Sunday, followed by forecasts. The election is not only about the economy and society in France but also about Europe: Both Le Pen and Mélenchon no longer want to leave the EU, but they view Brussels skeptically and speak of a Europe of nations. Le Pen feels empowered by the recent election victories of Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia, says Tara Varma of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Mélenchon is also campaigning against Germany and against capitalism. In economic policy, he is similar to Le Pen: He also focuses on purchasing power and calls for state intervention in energy prices and a higher minimum wage. He wants to lower the retirement age from 62 to 60, while Macron wants to raise it to 65. He also favors an exit from NATO.
Mélenchon himself describes himself as a “sagacious turtle” who is slowly but surely reaching the finish line. He believes himself to be very close to victory in the final days before the first ballot. What speaks for his election chances is that he is the most promising candidate in the left camp. Many voters could decide in his favor to avoid throwing away their vote on the hopeless candidates from the Greens or the Socialists. This argument is often heard, especially among young voters.
Mélenchon was born in Morocco and came to France as a child. He studied philosophy, was a teacher and journalist, and then joined the Socialists. From 2000 to 2002, he was Minister for Vocational Education, as well as a Member of the European Parliament and a Member of the French Parliament and Senator.
He founded his first left-wing movement in 2008. Mélenchon is already running for the third time. In 2012, he reached eleven percent in the first round of the presidential election; in 2017, he already achieved 19 percent. He wants to draft a new constitution for France, a sixth republic. He considers the concentration of power on the president too dangerous. During his election campaign, like Le Pen and Zemmour, he was criticized for his ties to Russia. He denied this and condemned the Russian attack. But this seems to have been forgotten again shortly before the election.
Should Mélenchon fail to score enough votes and Macron and Le Pen enter the runoff, as expected, it could be a close call for the incumbent president. If this happens, Le Pen could probably draw on most of Zemmour’s voters, including some of Valérie Pécresse’s voters. Macron’s potential for additional voters, on the other hand, is limited; he can hope for votes from Pécresse and the weak Socialists and Greens.
Mélenchon could tip the balance and call for a vote for Le Pen to form an anti-Macron front. In any case, some of his voters are expected to defect to Le Pen. According to polls, Le Pen is likely to win up to 47 percent of votes in the second round, 13 percent more than in 2017. She appears confident of victory and less exhausted than in 2017. A TV debate between the top two candidates is planned between the two rounds of voting. In the last election debates, Le Pen had squandered a lot five years ago: While Macron came across as confident and well-informed, she appeared aggressive and lacked credibility.
But since then, she has changed her tactics, avoiding anything extreme and instead focusing on closeness to the people. Macron, on the other hand, is criticized for seeming too distant and refusing to debate with other candidates before the first round of voting. His proposal for retirement at age 65 is also not exactly generating enthusiasm. Moreover, his meeting with 35,000 people at the Défense near Paris was not well received, during which he praised his own policies of the past five years for two and a half hours.
Should Macron run against Le Pen again, he will have to sharpen his knives, according to French media. He has already begun to discredit her election program as unaffordable. Above all, however, he would have to demonize Le Pen, who began to soften her policies years ago.
At his election event, Macron warned of an “extremist danger” that is greater than it was a few years ago. He can only hope that Zemmour will join Le Pen for the runoff. Then he could put them together in the extreme right corner.
Last week’s EU-China summit ended without any tangible results. In public perception, the buck was mostly passed to Beijing. This is because Chinese foreign policy has stubbornly refused to join international sanctions against Russia. But there are reasons for China’s passiveness in the Ukraine war, two leading experts stressed at a Table.Media event on Thursday. The topic of our Table.Live Briefing event was “Assessing the EU-China Summit Confirmation”.
Expecting a sudden turn away from Russia was unrealistic from the very beginning, says Alicia García-Herrero. She is a China expert at Bruegel, a renowned Brussels-based think tank, and an advisor to the Asian Development Bank (ADB). “I was surprised from the beginning about the attempt to convince China to be a mediator.” The country had never acted as a mediator in any major international conflict before.
Also, actors in Brussels surely must have been aware of how hard it would be for China to turn away from Russia. ” Thus, the problem lies not so much with China but with a misperception of China’s position,” García-Herrero believes. China is working toward the creation of a new political world order. García-Herrero asks pointedly, “If China abandons Russia, who else will stand by China’s side? Without Russia, how can China work toward the change in the international order it seeks?” It is simply the lack of allies that leaves China no choice but to stand with Russia. Expecting it to side with the United States and the EU was naïve from the start.
However, the EU not only misjudged the Chinese sensitivities. It also gave China no real chance to come to terms with the Europeans. “The summit was poorly prepared,” says Matthias Stepan, Head of Beijing Representative Office at Stiftung Mercator. When its own leaders are involved, China disdains diplomatic surprises. Yet the EU had made the Ukraine invasion a major topic at the online summit on short notice that day. “This was supposed to be a summit about economics,” García-Herrero affirmed. The date for the online meeting had been set before the start of the Ukraine war.
According to Stepan, the abrupt change of the summit’s agenda had already significantly lowered the chances of success. It had deprived diplomats and other officials at the working level of the chance to broker a compromise in advance. Normally, a large team of experts from both sides would spend months leading up to such a summit fine-tuning their drafts. This had not been the case this time.
In fact, shortly before the summit, Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis had still cited unresolved economic issues to be the main focus. “That could have been an opportunity to resume dialogue,” Stepan said. Since the CAI investment agreement has already been shelved a year ago, there is indeed a considerable need for exchange here as well. This makes it all the more disappointing that no agreements were reached once again.
García-Herrero and Stepan also stress the importance of continuing cooperation between the EU and China. Despite “a watershed moment” the EU needs to maintain a functioning relationship with China. What has worked so far does not necessarily have to end now, Stepan says. “These are two completely different political systems, and yet cooperation was possible.”
In the past, the foundation for successful dialogue was mutual benefit. Trade had brought more prosperity for both sides – and this was the common ground for compromise. That is why it is all the more important to keep trade going, the policy experts believe. This makes the current global trend toward autarky and protectionism all the more detrimental and leads to ever greater alienation.
But the Chinese side also needs to learn to better understand the EU. “China has to realize that the EU is a foreign policy player,” Stepan says. Beijing had long only tolerated Brussels as a pro forma interlocutor and turned to Berlin or Paris for concrete issues. But geopolitical developments ultimately turn the slower and cumbersome EU into a crucial interlocutor in Europe.
On Thursday, the Russian state railroads announced that it intends to restrict rail transports to Poland from April 10, without giving any reasons. However, shipments to the EU are likely to decrease overall in the foreseeable future as yesterday, the 27 member states agreed on a fifth package of sanctions against Russia in response to the Bucha atrocities.
This also includes a ban on berthing ships under the Russian flag and further pressure on the banking sector – among other things, Russia’s second-largest bank, VTB Bank (formerly Vneshtorgbank), is subject to a complete ban on transactions. The import of timber, cement, and seafood into the EU is also to be banned entirely, and further export bans are to be imposed on Russia – including, as announced by the French Council Presidency, a ban on arms exports. However, the main focus is on energy sanctions again – Manuel Berkel analyzes how these fit into the overall structure of the European energy withdrawal from Russia and where new problems loom.
Yesterday, the EU agriculture ministers debated the Commission’s proposed revamp of the LULUCF Regulation. The regulation aims to strengthen natural CO2 sinks because reducing greenhouse gases alone will not be enough to achieve climate targets. Timo Landenberger analyzes the complex challenges the regulation has to meet.
In France, there could be a surprise in the first round of the presidential election on Sunday: Incumbent and favorite Emmanuel Macron is losing ground, not only to far-right Marine Le Pen but also to leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Tanja Kuchenbecker reports on what the current poll numbers mean for the election.
The EU-China summit ended last week – without significant results. The talks were poorly prepared, and Brussels approached Beijing with false expectations, as Finn Mayer-Kuckuk reports.
In today’s Column What’s cooking in Brussels, Claire Stam takes another look at what’s on the menu in Brussels. As Emmanuel Macron is under pressure in France’s first round of elections – so is democratic coexistence in the EU.
On Thursday evening, the permanent representatives of the member states approved the EU Commission’s proposals, which include an import ban on coal, wood, and other goods, as well as numerous other punitive measures. This was announced by the French EU Council Presidency on Twitter.
For the sanctions to enter into force, the necessary legal acts must now be adopted by written procedure and published in the Official Journal of the EU. These steps are considered a formality and are expected to be completed today.
Poland prevented an earlier conclusion of the negotiations. According to diplomats, the country initially did not want to accept that the transitional period for the import ban on Russian coal should be four months at the request of countries like Germany – and not three months, as planned by the Commission. Germany will probably need these 120 days to conclude new supply contracts, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in Berlin this evening. “If it can be done faster, that’s fine.”
The new punitive measures are now intended to increase the pressure on Russia – above all by imposing high economic costs on the country. According to the EU Commission, the coal embargo alone could mean a loss of revenue of around €4 billion per year.
There are to be further restrictions on exports to Russia worth around €10 billion to further weaken the Russian economy. According to the Commission, these include quantum computers and means of transport. Products such as wood and cement worth €5.5 billion will no longer be imported into the EU. Russian companies will also no longer be allowed to participate in public tenders in EU states.
The EU Parliament had previously demanded much more far-reaching import restrictions in Strasbourg. In a resolution adopted yesterday by 513 votes to 22 with 19 abstentions, MEPs demanded, among other things, an immediate “complete embargo” on imports of coal, oil, nuclear fuel, and gas from Russia.
With the resolution, the parliamentarians went even further than the draft that had become known on Wednesday evening. In it, several parliamentary groups had initially agreed only on the embargo of oil and coal. The import ban on gas, on the other hand, should take place “as soon as possible“. The Greens were initially unable to push through their demand for an immediate gas embargo.
The Commission is working on measures against oil imports, according to information from Tuesday. However, Germany, in particular, has reservations about a gas embargo. The German government believes that complete independence from Russian gas will not be possible until the summer of 2024.
Yesterday, however, the Parliament also took a further step towards greater security in gas supply. As expected, the plenary voted in favor of the introduction of minimum filling levels for gas storage facilities and the certification of operators. Its members voted at first reading under the urgent procedure on the Commission’s corresponding draft of March 23.
According to the draft, gas storage facilities in the EU are to reach a minimum filling level of 80 percent by November 2022, rising to 90 percent in subsequent years. The draft now goes back to the industry committee, which will initiate trilogue negotiations with the Commission and Council.
The planned certifications are intended to create a new opportunity to force unreliable storage operators out of business. In publishing a new report yesterday, regulatory agency ACER again commented on Gazprom’s role in the low storage levels that some facilities had as early as October 1 last year: “Booked storage capacity in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Slovakia was significantly higher than the actual capacity used, as storage facilities used or controlled by Gazprom were only slightly full.”
In the midst of the heated discussion about fossil fuels, on the other hand, the fundamental transformation of Europe’s energy supply is apparently threatening to be pushed too far to the sidelines for some. At any rate, an appeal by eleven member states was circulated yesterday. Its title: “Ambitious Fit for 55 and EU energy independence – the smart, necessary, and desirable response to the crisis“. In it, the signatories, including German Economics Minister Robert Habeck, write: “Now is the time to be bold and resolutely proceed with the green transformation. Any postponement or hesitation will only prolong our energy dependence.”
A rapid ramp-up in renewable energies, renewable gases, and energy efficiency is therefore particularly important. Not mentioned is nuclear energy, which is propagated by France, which is not one of the signatories. The eleven states also see renewables as a contribution to lowering electricity prices. At present, some member states are trying to protect their citizens primarily through government intervention in the markets, which is effective in the short term.
The Group of Eleven, on the other hand, insists that the common internal market minimizes price shocks. Emissions trading also ultimately serves to achieve the transformation in a cost-efficient manner. The paper was initiated by Denmark, and the signatories also include Spain, Austria, Finland, and the Netherlands. However, even the Fit for 55 vanguard cannot rely on renewables alone. Yesterday, the Dutch government pointed out that it wants to increase its natural gas production in the North Sea.
“In an ideal world, we would not develop new gas fields in the North Sea. But the situation makes this necessary,” Energy Minister Rob Jetten told the German newspaper Handelsblatt. Unfortunately, no agreement had yet been reached with the German partners on this issue. The traffic light coalition has so far ruled out new exploration projects for gas and oil in the North Sea.
The government in Finland said it would invest up to €850 million to end dependence on Russian energy. Yesterday, Helsinki announced the acquisition of an LNG terminal to be shared with Estonia. by Leonie Düngefeld, dpa, rtr
Reducing greenhouse gases alone will not achieve the goal of climate neutrality in the EU in 2050. In addition to transport and industry, there will also be residual emissions in agriculture and forestry. At the same time, however, the so-called LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry) sectors have great potential for capturing and storing climate-damaging carbon from the air. Strengthening natural CO2 sinks such as forests, peatlands or grasslands plays an important role in achieving the EU’s climate targets, which is why the Commission has also launched a recast of the LULUCF Regulation as part of its Fit for 55 package.
However, the complex challenges that the regulations must meet became clear on Thursday at the meeting of EU agriculture ministers in Luxembourg. For example, Spain’s Agriculture Minister Luis Planas Puchades already described the target value for the reduction performance in the LULUCF sector as “not realistic”. The Commission’s draft envisages a net reduction of 310 million metric tons of CO2 equivalents by 2030. This is about 15 percent more than the current target of 268 million metric tons per year, which will still apply until 2025. The new figure is to be distributed among the member states in the form of binding targets from 2026.
Accordingly, Germany is to achieve a greenhouse gas reduction of a good 30 million metric tons in the forestry and land use sector by 2030. While the German Farmers’ Association had already described the target as unattainable and referred to increasing climate damage and age structure effects of the forests, several environmental associations demanded a significant increase in the EU-wide target in a joint position paper in February. It would be possible to almost double the target. However, according to the Commission, the sink rate of European forests and soils actually declined by about 20 percent between 2013 and 2018.
The restoration and expansion of the sinks is possible, but requires immediate decisive action, according to the Brussels authority. This includes, for example, the rewetting of peatlands, reforestation, the designation of nature reserves, or the set-aside of agricultural land. However, the EU Commission has postponed the presentation of a corresponding renaturation law as a result of the current debate on food security.
The German government supports the plan to increase the climate protection contribution of the LULUCF sector. However, the strong fluctuations in this sector showed “that the formulation of absolute, annualized target values is fraught with difficulties,” Germany’s deputy permanent representative Susanne Szech-Koundouros said at the council meeting on Thursday.
Natural disturbances such as bad weather events, droughts, or pest infestations can cause a significant increase in emissions while limiting the potential sink capacity. This is not sufficiently taken into account in the Commission’s proposal, criticize some other states, including Portugal. They said the disruptions are not due to policy or management. Member states should be supported in these cases, not penalized, said Portuguese Agriculture Minister Maria do Céu Antunes.
Likewise, too little consideration would be given to the different geological and climatic conditions in the various countries. Instead, the Commission’s draft provides for simplification of compliance regulations and harmonization of reporting. While some countries welcomed the move toward greater comparability, others voiced clear criticism: “The Commission assumes that the absorption capacity is the same everywhere in Europe. But in Spain in particular, the potential CO2 absorption is severely limited compared to other countries due to the climate,” Planas Puchades said.
Charlie McConalogue from Ireland expressed similar concerns. Much of the country’s emissions are due to agriculture. “But because of the high proportion of peat soils and the age structure of our forests, we have very limited ability to meet our annual targets,” he said in Ireland.
From 2031, the Commission wants to combine all areas of land use, forestry, and agriculture, including livestock, in a new pillar (Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use – AFOLU). All greenhouse gas emissions from these sectors, including methane, are then to be offset against sink payments. Germany criticizes the plan and fears a dilution of the reduction targets. The Commission envisages climate neutrality for the new AFOLU sector until 2035, after which negative emissions are to be provided.
The Ukraine war had given incumbent Emmanuel Macron a poll high, but this effect begins to fade. Ahead of Sunday’s first round, Macron is still polling between 25 and 28 percent, while far-right Marine Le Pen is polling between 21 and 23 percent. At one point, the lead was 15 points.
The two candidates have the best chances of going into the runoff election on April 24. But a third candidate also has realistic chances: Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The 70-year-old left-wing politician recently reached 16.5 percent, and he has recently made strong gains in the polls. The daily newspaper “Le Monde” believes Mélenchon can pull off a surprise. The other candidates are trailing behind, with far-right politician Éric Zemmour and conservative Valérie Pécresse coming in at around ten percent.
Mélenchon’s last campaign event in Marseille attracted 35,000 supporters. For some days now, fears have been voiced that the leader of the La France Insoumise (Unsubmissive France) movement could even win a runoff against Le Pen if Macron fails to mobilize voters. Macron is under attack from both the far left and the far right.
The last voting stations will close at 8 PM on Sunday, followed by forecasts. The election is not only about the economy and society in France but also about Europe: Both Le Pen and Mélenchon no longer want to leave the EU, but they view Brussels skeptically and speak of a Europe of nations. Le Pen feels empowered by the recent election victories of Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia, says Tara Varma of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Mélenchon is also campaigning against Germany and against capitalism. In economic policy, he is similar to Le Pen: He also focuses on purchasing power and calls for state intervention in energy prices and a higher minimum wage. He wants to lower the retirement age from 62 to 60, while Macron wants to raise it to 65. He also favors an exit from NATO.
Mélenchon himself describes himself as a “sagacious turtle” who is slowly but surely reaching the finish line. He believes himself to be very close to victory in the final days before the first ballot. What speaks for his election chances is that he is the most promising candidate in the left camp. Many voters could decide in his favor to avoid throwing away their vote on the hopeless candidates from the Greens or the Socialists. This argument is often heard, especially among young voters.
Mélenchon was born in Morocco and came to France as a child. He studied philosophy, was a teacher and journalist, and then joined the Socialists. From 2000 to 2002, he was Minister for Vocational Education, as well as a Member of the European Parliament and a Member of the French Parliament and Senator.
He founded his first left-wing movement in 2008. Mélenchon is already running for the third time. In 2012, he reached eleven percent in the first round of the presidential election; in 2017, he already achieved 19 percent. He wants to draft a new constitution for France, a sixth republic. He considers the concentration of power on the president too dangerous. During his election campaign, like Le Pen and Zemmour, he was criticized for his ties to Russia. He denied this and condemned the Russian attack. But this seems to have been forgotten again shortly before the election.
Should Mélenchon fail to score enough votes and Macron and Le Pen enter the runoff, as expected, it could be a close call for the incumbent president. If this happens, Le Pen could probably draw on most of Zemmour’s voters, including some of Valérie Pécresse’s voters. Macron’s potential for additional voters, on the other hand, is limited; he can hope for votes from Pécresse and the weak Socialists and Greens.
Mélenchon could tip the balance and call for a vote for Le Pen to form an anti-Macron front. In any case, some of his voters are expected to defect to Le Pen. According to polls, Le Pen is likely to win up to 47 percent of votes in the second round, 13 percent more than in 2017. She appears confident of victory and less exhausted than in 2017. A TV debate between the top two candidates is planned between the two rounds of voting. In the last election debates, Le Pen had squandered a lot five years ago: While Macron came across as confident and well-informed, she appeared aggressive and lacked credibility.
But since then, she has changed her tactics, avoiding anything extreme and instead focusing on closeness to the people. Macron, on the other hand, is criticized for seeming too distant and refusing to debate with other candidates before the first round of voting. His proposal for retirement at age 65 is also not exactly generating enthusiasm. Moreover, his meeting with 35,000 people at the Défense near Paris was not well received, during which he praised his own policies of the past five years for two and a half hours.
Should Macron run against Le Pen again, he will have to sharpen his knives, according to French media. He has already begun to discredit her election program as unaffordable. Above all, however, he would have to demonize Le Pen, who began to soften her policies years ago.
At his election event, Macron warned of an “extremist danger” that is greater than it was a few years ago. He can only hope that Zemmour will join Le Pen for the runoff. Then he could put them together in the extreme right corner.
Last week’s EU-China summit ended without any tangible results. In public perception, the buck was mostly passed to Beijing. This is because Chinese foreign policy has stubbornly refused to join international sanctions against Russia. But there are reasons for China’s passiveness in the Ukraine war, two leading experts stressed at a Table.Media event on Thursday. The topic of our Table.Live Briefing event was “Assessing the EU-China Summit Confirmation”.
Expecting a sudden turn away from Russia was unrealistic from the very beginning, says Alicia García-Herrero. She is a China expert at Bruegel, a renowned Brussels-based think tank, and an advisor to the Asian Development Bank (ADB). “I was surprised from the beginning about the attempt to convince China to be a mediator.” The country had never acted as a mediator in any major international conflict before.
Also, actors in Brussels surely must have been aware of how hard it would be for China to turn away from Russia. ” Thus, the problem lies not so much with China but with a misperception of China’s position,” García-Herrero believes. China is working toward the creation of a new political world order. García-Herrero asks pointedly, “If China abandons Russia, who else will stand by China’s side? Without Russia, how can China work toward the change in the international order it seeks?” It is simply the lack of allies that leaves China no choice but to stand with Russia. Expecting it to side with the United States and the EU was naïve from the start.
However, the EU not only misjudged the Chinese sensitivities. It also gave China no real chance to come to terms with the Europeans. “The summit was poorly prepared,” says Matthias Stepan, Head of Beijing Representative Office at Stiftung Mercator. When its own leaders are involved, China disdains diplomatic surprises. Yet the EU had made the Ukraine invasion a major topic at the online summit on short notice that day. “This was supposed to be a summit about economics,” García-Herrero affirmed. The date for the online meeting had been set before the start of the Ukraine war.
According to Stepan, the abrupt change of the summit’s agenda had already significantly lowered the chances of success. It had deprived diplomats and other officials at the working level of the chance to broker a compromise in advance. Normally, a large team of experts from both sides would spend months leading up to such a summit fine-tuning their drafts. This had not been the case this time.
In fact, shortly before the summit, Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis had still cited unresolved economic issues to be the main focus. “That could have been an opportunity to resume dialogue,” Stepan said. Since the CAI investment agreement has already been shelved a year ago, there is indeed a considerable need for exchange here as well. This makes it all the more disappointing that no agreements were reached once again.
García-Herrero and Stepan also stress the importance of continuing cooperation between the EU and China. Despite “a watershed moment” the EU needs to maintain a functioning relationship with China. What has worked so far does not necessarily have to end now, Stepan says. “These are two completely different political systems, and yet cooperation was possible.”
In the past, the foundation for successful dialogue was mutual benefit. Trade had brought more prosperity for both sides – and this was the common ground for compromise. That is why it is all the more important to keep trade going, the policy experts believe. This makes the current global trend toward autarky and protectionism all the more detrimental and leads to ever greater alienation.
But the Chinese side also needs to learn to better understand the EU. “China has to realize that the EU is a foreign policy player,” Stepan says. Beijing had long only tolerated Brussels as a pro forma interlocutor and turned to Berlin or Paris for concrete issues. But geopolitical developments ultimately turn the slower and cumbersome EU into a crucial interlocutor in Europe.
