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Annalena Baerbock will have a lot of explaining to do at today’s informal meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels: All eyes are on Germany, diplomats said in the run-up to the meeting. Is German support for Ukraine wavering? Some member states are alarmed after the letter from Minister Christian Lindner with the question marks over Germany’s bilateral aid for 2025.
Furthermore, the frozen Russian assets are not intended as an alternative to bilateral support, but as a supplement. There is also concern in the capitals about the regional elections in eastern Germany, where opponents of support for Ukraine could win. A critical situation on which, according to diplomats, their colleagues are hoping for reassuring words from Baerbock.
The double meeting of foreign and defense ministers was originally scheduled to take place in Budapest, but was moved to Brussels by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in protest against Viktor Orbán’s “peace mission”. Some foreign ministers are likely to miss the cultural framework program of the Gymnich format in the country holding the EU Council Presidency.
In addition to the situation in Ukraine and possible new opportunities for Volodymyr Zelenskyi’s peace plan, the Middle East conflict is also on the agenda. For Borrell, today’s informal meeting is one of the last opportunities before the end of his mandate to make his mark. His successor, Kaja Kallas, is already warming up in Brussels’ European Quarter and was spotted yesterday lunchtime looking for a suitable restaurant for her core team.
The Commission is still in its summer break. The Council was preparing for the informal meeting of foreign ministers. No one in Brussels had expected an initiative on European asylum and migration policy – especially in light of the attack in Solingen.
Some of Friedrich Merz’s demands: Germany’s borders should be more strictly controlled and the right of residence should be changed. The German government should declare a “national emergency” in Brussels in order to be able to unilaterally turn back refugees at the borders. A corresponding paper from the CDU flanked the offensive.
Similar attacks have already taken place in Belgium and France, EU diplomats said. In themselves, they were no reason to shake up the EU rules. Moreover, the EU had only just launched the reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). It contains everything that is needed to curb illegal migration.
The EU Commission also refers to the guidelines for the new legislative period. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promises to expand the Frontex border protection agency and triple the number of border guards to 30,000. She also announces a “new approach to returns” of unrecognized asylum seekers. A legal framework is planned to ensure faster procedures.
However, it is unclear when and how these plans will be implemented. The next EU Commission is not expected to take up its work until November, and new laws will take years. Even the EU’s new asylum and migration pact will not come fully into force until 2026 – too late for the current crisis.
Of course, every EU country could take action more quickly, says CDU MEP Lena Düpont, who helped negotiate the pact. “However, we have always communicated that the effect will be medium-term.” The Social Democrats and Greens are also asking for patience. The EU should not allow itself to be driven by German domestic politics.
However, Merz is not alone. Back in May, 15 EU countries sent a letter to Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson calling for tougher action against irregular migration. Spain is struggling with a particularly high volume of boat refugees on the Canary Islands, while Denmark is promoting its model of sealing itself off.
The topic is therefore topical and Brussels is bracing itself for a tough debate on migration. However, Merz’s initiative is likely to have a difficult time. On the one hand, the opposition leader is evidently relying on Germany going it alone – he wants to declare a “national emergency” that would allow Germany to proceed according to its own laws, regardless of EU law. On the other hand, it is unclear exactly what he is aiming for.
Article 72 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which is often quoted in Berlin, merely stipulates that the member states are responsible for “the maintenance of law and order and the safeguarding of internal security”. However, it does not specify which measures are involved in detail.
Daniel Thym, lawyer and expert in migration law, points out that all previous attempts by member states to invoke this exception clause have failed at the European Court of Justice, often due to a lack of sufficient justification. Even if Germany provides this, there is a “litigation risk” with this approach, says Thym.
Article 78, in turn, refers to an “emergency situation” that can be triggered by a “sudden influx of third-country nationals”. However, the Council is to decide on the “provisional measures” that are then due on a proposal from the Commission. This would not be a carte blanche for Germany to go it alone.
On the other hand, EU law already offers options for responding to a crisis. For example, the Schengen Borders Code has only just been updated, and “temporary travel restrictions at the external borders of the EU” are now possible in the event of an “emergency”. This mainly relates to Covid and other health crises. However, serious threats to public order and internal security are also mentioned.
The Dublin Regulation, which Merz criticized, also offers options for action. For example, the suspected IS terrorist arrested in Solingen could have been transferred to Bulgaria, where he entered the EU. The fact that this did not happen was apparently a failure on the part of the German authorities – and not a flaw in the EU rules. Germany should take a good look at itself, according to Brussels.
Finally, Merz was also rebuffed on the demand to deport rejected asylum seekers to Syria. “So far, the conditions (in Syria) have not yet been met”, said a Commission spokesperson. He was also cautious about border controls. These are “the last option” and must be “strictly limited” in time.
In Berlin government circles, it is pointed out that much of the Merz catalog cannot be implemented. This applies not only to the aforementioned national emergency situation, for which an EU Council decision would be required. Everything else is incompatible with EU law. Otherwise, Hungary would have done much more on its own long ago.
Migration expert Thym also urges caution. He is critical of the proposal to detain all offenders who are obliged to leave the country. The new provisions in the Return Directive, which is still being negotiated in Brussels, stipulate that custody to leave the country can only be considered if the countries of origin take back their nationals.
Germany does not maintain diplomatic relations with the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Even if the Return Directive is tightened up once again, both the Federal Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights consider detention on departure to be a deprivation of liberty. Such a measure must be justified.
In contrast, the proposal to reduce social benefits to an absolute minimum for foreigners who are required to leave the country is likely to have a better chance of being implemented – at least under certain conditions. “In the past, the social courts have declared benefit cuts to be legal if they are linked to the misconduct of rejected asylum seekers”, says Thym.
The socialists are making no secret of the bad mood within the party. The members of the Parti socialiste (PS), one of the four parties that make up the left-wing alliance Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP), are meeting today and until Saturday in the town of Blois. An uncomfortable meeting is looming in the tranquil region of the Loire castles.
And at first glance at least, this has nothing to do with his own party, but with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the highly controversial leader of the far-left party La France Insoumise (LFI), which is also part of the left-wing alliance. LFI announced on Monday that it would seek the impeachment of President Macron because he refuses to accept a left-wing government. However, the announcement was made without consultation with the other members of the NFP. In addition to the Socialists and LFI, these are the Communists and the Greens.
A dispute is now raging that has the potential to permanently divide France’s left. This not only affects the left-wing alliance as a whole, but also the socialist party, in which supporters and opponents of Mélenchon are increasingly opposed to each other. Party members are now speaking out publicly. The national secretary of the PS, Sébastien Vincini, said in an interview: “It’s time to break with Jean-Luc Mélenchon.”
Last Tuesday, the leadership of the PS had already met at the initiative of the two wings of the party, which stand for a more pragmatic policy. Together, the two tendencies make up half of the party. Hélène Geoffroy, mayor of the town of Vaulx-en-Velin, is the leader of one of these two currents. As an internal opponent of PS leader Olivier Faure, she believes that “the party is on the brink of collapse“.
In a long message on X, Geoffroy calls for “the resumption of talks with the President of the Republic” in order to “still look for solutions for a socialist (or) social democratic prime minister”. This position is also supported by other party celebrities, including the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo.
And then there is MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, whose good result in the European elections came as a surprise. Glucksmann, who advocates a social democratic left, has had a frosty relationship with PS leader Faure since the European elections. He has apparently also had enough of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and President Macron: a few days ago, he called for “turning the page on Macron and Mélenchon”. Raphaël Glucksmann will be present in Blois.
The divisions within the Socialists are part of the French president’s political calculations. As a former member of the Socialist Party (from 2006 to 2009) and former economy minister under President François Hollande, Macron is well aware of the tensions within the PS.
Since the evening of the parliamentary elections, he has been looking for a way to split the left-wing alliance that makes up the majority of MPs in the National Assembly. His aim is to form a coalition government that ranges from the moderate left to the right. The announcement by La France Insoumise to initiate impeachment proceedings comes at the right time for the presidential camp.
“The desire to impeach the President of the Republic in complete ignorance of our institutions reveals the anarchy into which the LFI wants to plunge France. The Nouveau Front Populaire shows once again that it is incapable of governing our country”, wrote Gérald Darmanin, who is still Minister of the Interior, on X.
The head of the LFI is increasingly being accused within the NFP of putting his personal agenda above that of the alliance. One left-wing MP, who wishes to remain anonymous, is concerned: “The increase in these provocations worries me, because I wonder how much longer this will go on,” he told Table.Briefings. “This proposal is there to tighten the rubber band to see who lets go and takes responsibility for tearing the Union apart.”
The transition to battery-powered electromobility is the most important political measure for the climate problem of transport – especially because it can be implemented much faster than a broader mobility transition, which is also necessary. However, contrary to the global trend, Germany’s demand for electric cars is not growing as quickly as expected.
This creates problems for local manufacturers, who earn most of their money with large combustion engines. By 2025 at the latest, when new fleet limits come into force across the EU, they could face fines in the billions – unless they can significantly increase their EV sales. However, after the abrupt end of the purchase premium and in light of the current budget debate, the prospects for this currently seem poor.
Yet there is a completely budget-neutral way to give electromobility in Germany – and, in turn, climate action in the transport sector – a new boost: The update to the EU Renewable Energy Directive for transport (RED) must be transposed into national law by next spring. The lead Ministry of the Environment is currently working on a draft, which is expected to be presented in the coming weeks. This is an opportunity to promote both climate protection and e-mobility.
However, the RED must be fundamentally reorganized in its German legal implementation to achieve this.
The RED specifies how much renewable energy must be used in transportation. In Germany, this has so far been regulated via the GHG quota system. Since 2015, it has obliged oil companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a certain amount. If oil companies do not meet the quota themselves, they can compensate for this by paying money to providers of more eco-friendly energy sources – for example, charging electricity providers, who generally use green electricity, or the biofuel industry. The costs are an incentive for green innovations. To this end, the GHG quota system provides a budget-neutral framework.
That sounds good in theory, but a large proportion of the compensation payments end up going to suppliers of biofuels that are not green at all. Contrary to what is often claimed, more than half of these fuels still come directly from the farmland. Several studies confirm that, in many cases, they are even more harmful to the climate than fossil fuels. Because their official carbon footprint is incomplete, the quota system still classifies them as low-GHG.
The use of biogenic fuels from arable land could even increase in the future. A significant proportion of the limited land available in Germany is already being used for fuel production.
Meanwhile, there are many assurances that biofuels come largely from residues, so-called “advanced biofuels.” However, in 2022, almost half of them came from Asian palm oil mill residues, although the EU actually no longer wanted to promote palm oil (no data is yet available for 2023). On top of this, there is a scandalous fraud system in which oil from China is simply reclassified as waste.
This means the German GHG quota system does not live up to its political claim. The existing compliance options neither deliver proper climate action nor promote green innovations. Those bearing the brunt – apart from the climate – are the consumers who finance the system at the filling station.
In the current situation, it would be absolutely wrong to generally increase the mandatory share for renewables in transportation, as the automotive industry recently proposed. This would only support non-green biofuels with even more money.
Electromobility is the means of choice for climate action. To better promote it, RED must be consistently restructured in its German legal implementation. Fuels from farmland must be excluded from the GHG quota, and waste and residual materials must be strictly limited. This is legally possible. The emissions balance must finally be calculated in an honest manner. Imaginary reductions of 90 percent would then no longer be recognized.
Charging electricity must become the central commodity on the GHG quota market – for example, by giving it a higher weighting in the quota system or increasing the minimum purchase quantity. This is the only way to improve the charging station business model and make the GHG quota payment to EV owners more reliable. Both are important incentives for electromobility.
The argument that all options are needed does not count here: The targets for renewables in transport can be met without fuels from farmland. Anyone who wants to use biofuels in their cars could still do so. However, given the limited budget available for climate action, why should this be subsidized by the state when electromobility for cars and trucks can be promoted instead?
Biofuel fraud must be consistently prevented. The latest example of fraud in upstream emission reductions shows how difficult it is to verify climate action using certificates. The controlling authorities must send a clear signal to the market: Fuel and GHG reduction volumes must no longer be recognized in Germany if there is no opportunity for on-site audits of the producing plants in other countries.
RED in transport enables climate action innovations and the promotion of electromobility without requiring additional money from the federal budget. Therefore, all federal ministries should have a common interest in making the RED a genuine transformation instrument.
Nikolas von Wysiecki is deputy head of transport policy at environmental organization NABU.
Annalena Baerbock will have a lot of explaining to do at today’s informal meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels: All eyes are on Germany, diplomats said in the run-up to the meeting. Is German support for Ukraine wavering? Some member states are alarmed after the letter from Minister Christian Lindner with the question marks over Germany’s bilateral aid for 2025.
Furthermore, the frozen Russian assets are not intended as an alternative to bilateral support, but as a supplement. There is also concern in the capitals about the regional elections in eastern Germany, where opponents of support for Ukraine could win. A critical situation on which, according to diplomats, their colleagues are hoping for reassuring words from Baerbock.
The double meeting of foreign and defense ministers was originally scheduled to take place in Budapest, but was moved to Brussels by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in protest against Viktor Orbán’s “peace mission”. Some foreign ministers are likely to miss the cultural framework program of the Gymnich format in the country holding the EU Council Presidency.
In addition to the situation in Ukraine and possible new opportunities for Volodymyr Zelenskyi’s peace plan, the Middle East conflict is also on the agenda. For Borrell, today’s informal meeting is one of the last opportunities before the end of his mandate to make his mark. His successor, Kaja Kallas, is already warming up in Brussels’ European Quarter and was spotted yesterday lunchtime looking for a suitable restaurant for her core team.
The Commission is still in its summer break. The Council was preparing for the informal meeting of foreign ministers. No one in Brussels had expected an initiative on European asylum and migration policy – especially in light of the attack in Solingen.
Some of Friedrich Merz’s demands: Germany’s borders should be more strictly controlled and the right of residence should be changed. The German government should declare a “national emergency” in Brussels in order to be able to unilaterally turn back refugees at the borders. A corresponding paper from the CDU flanked the offensive.
Similar attacks have already taken place in Belgium and France, EU diplomats said. In themselves, they were no reason to shake up the EU rules. Moreover, the EU had only just launched the reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). It contains everything that is needed to curb illegal migration.
The EU Commission also refers to the guidelines for the new legislative period. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promises to expand the Frontex border protection agency and triple the number of border guards to 30,000. She also announces a “new approach to returns” of unrecognized asylum seekers. A legal framework is planned to ensure faster procedures.
However, it is unclear when and how these plans will be implemented. The next EU Commission is not expected to take up its work until November, and new laws will take years. Even the EU’s new asylum and migration pact will not come fully into force until 2026 – too late for the current crisis.
Of course, every EU country could take action more quickly, says CDU MEP Lena Düpont, who helped negotiate the pact. “However, we have always communicated that the effect will be medium-term.” The Social Democrats and Greens are also asking for patience. The EU should not allow itself to be driven by German domestic politics.
However, Merz is not alone. Back in May, 15 EU countries sent a letter to Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson calling for tougher action against irregular migration. Spain is struggling with a particularly high volume of boat refugees on the Canary Islands, while Denmark is promoting its model of sealing itself off.
The topic is therefore topical and Brussels is bracing itself for a tough debate on migration. However, Merz’s initiative is likely to have a difficult time. On the one hand, the opposition leader is evidently relying on Germany going it alone – he wants to declare a “national emergency” that would allow Germany to proceed according to its own laws, regardless of EU law. On the other hand, it is unclear exactly what he is aiming for.
Article 72 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which is often quoted in Berlin, merely stipulates that the member states are responsible for “the maintenance of law and order and the safeguarding of internal security”. However, it does not specify which measures are involved in detail.
Daniel Thym, lawyer and expert in migration law, points out that all previous attempts by member states to invoke this exception clause have failed at the European Court of Justice, often due to a lack of sufficient justification. Even if Germany provides this, there is a “litigation risk” with this approach, says Thym.
Article 78, in turn, refers to an “emergency situation” that can be triggered by a “sudden influx of third-country nationals”. However, the Council is to decide on the “provisional measures” that are then due on a proposal from the Commission. This would not be a carte blanche for Germany to go it alone.
On the other hand, EU law already offers options for responding to a crisis. For example, the Schengen Borders Code has only just been updated, and “temporary travel restrictions at the external borders of the EU” are now possible in the event of an “emergency”. This mainly relates to Covid and other health crises. However, serious threats to public order and internal security are also mentioned.
The Dublin Regulation, which Merz criticized, also offers options for action. For example, the suspected IS terrorist arrested in Solingen could have been transferred to Bulgaria, where he entered the EU. The fact that this did not happen was apparently a failure on the part of the German authorities – and not a flaw in the EU rules. Germany should take a good look at itself, according to Brussels.
Finally, Merz was also rebuffed on the demand to deport rejected asylum seekers to Syria. “So far, the conditions (in Syria) have not yet been met”, said a Commission spokesperson. He was also cautious about border controls. These are “the last option” and must be “strictly limited” in time.
In Berlin government circles, it is pointed out that much of the Merz catalog cannot be implemented. This applies not only to the aforementioned national emergency situation, for which an EU Council decision would be required. Everything else is incompatible with EU law. Otherwise, Hungary would have done much more on its own long ago.
Migration expert Thym also urges caution. He is critical of the proposal to detain all offenders who are obliged to leave the country. The new provisions in the Return Directive, which is still being negotiated in Brussels, stipulate that custody to leave the country can only be considered if the countries of origin take back their nationals.
Germany does not maintain diplomatic relations with the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Even if the Return Directive is tightened up once again, both the Federal Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights consider detention on departure to be a deprivation of liberty. Such a measure must be justified.
In contrast, the proposal to reduce social benefits to an absolute minimum for foreigners who are required to leave the country is likely to have a better chance of being implemented – at least under certain conditions. “In the past, the social courts have declared benefit cuts to be legal if they are linked to the misconduct of rejected asylum seekers”, says Thym.
The socialists are making no secret of the bad mood within the party. The members of the Parti socialiste (PS), one of the four parties that make up the left-wing alliance Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP), are meeting today and until Saturday in the town of Blois. An uncomfortable meeting is looming in the tranquil region of the Loire castles.
And at first glance at least, this has nothing to do with his own party, but with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the highly controversial leader of the far-left party La France Insoumise (LFI), which is also part of the left-wing alliance. LFI announced on Monday that it would seek the impeachment of President Macron because he refuses to accept a left-wing government. However, the announcement was made without consultation with the other members of the NFP. In addition to the Socialists and LFI, these are the Communists and the Greens.
A dispute is now raging that has the potential to permanently divide France’s left. This not only affects the left-wing alliance as a whole, but also the socialist party, in which supporters and opponents of Mélenchon are increasingly opposed to each other. Party members are now speaking out publicly. The national secretary of the PS, Sébastien Vincini, said in an interview: “It’s time to break with Jean-Luc Mélenchon.”
Last Tuesday, the leadership of the PS had already met at the initiative of the two wings of the party, which stand for a more pragmatic policy. Together, the two tendencies make up half of the party. Hélène Geoffroy, mayor of the town of Vaulx-en-Velin, is the leader of one of these two currents. As an internal opponent of PS leader Olivier Faure, she believes that “the party is on the brink of collapse“.
In a long message on X, Geoffroy calls for “the resumption of talks with the President of the Republic” in order to “still look for solutions for a socialist (or) social democratic prime minister”. This position is also supported by other party celebrities, including the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo.
And then there is MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, whose good result in the European elections came as a surprise. Glucksmann, who advocates a social democratic left, has had a frosty relationship with PS leader Faure since the European elections. He has apparently also had enough of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and President Macron: a few days ago, he called for “turning the page on Macron and Mélenchon”. Raphaël Glucksmann will be present in Blois.
The divisions within the Socialists are part of the French president’s political calculations. As a former member of the Socialist Party (from 2006 to 2009) and former economy minister under President François Hollande, Macron is well aware of the tensions within the PS.
Since the evening of the parliamentary elections, he has been looking for a way to split the left-wing alliance that makes up the majority of MPs in the National Assembly. His aim is to form a coalition government that ranges from the moderate left to the right. The announcement by La France Insoumise to initiate impeachment proceedings comes at the right time for the presidential camp.
“The desire to impeach the President of the Republic in complete ignorance of our institutions reveals the anarchy into which the LFI wants to plunge France. The Nouveau Front Populaire shows once again that it is incapable of governing our country”, wrote Gérald Darmanin, who is still Minister of the Interior, on X.
The head of the LFI is increasingly being accused within the NFP of putting his personal agenda above that of the alliance. One left-wing MP, who wishes to remain anonymous, is concerned: “The increase in these provocations worries me, because I wonder how much longer this will go on,” he told Table.Briefings. “This proposal is there to tighten the rubber band to see who lets go and takes responsibility for tearing the Union apart.”
The transition to battery-powered electromobility is the most important political measure for the climate problem of transport – especially because it can be implemented much faster than a broader mobility transition, which is also necessary. However, contrary to the global trend, Germany’s demand for electric cars is not growing as quickly as expected.
This creates problems for local manufacturers, who earn most of their money with large combustion engines. By 2025 at the latest, when new fleet limits come into force across the EU, they could face fines in the billions – unless they can significantly increase their EV sales. However, after the abrupt end of the purchase premium and in light of the current budget debate, the prospects for this currently seem poor.
Yet there is a completely budget-neutral way to give electromobility in Germany – and, in turn, climate action in the transport sector – a new boost: The update to the EU Renewable Energy Directive for transport (RED) must be transposed into national law by next spring. The lead Ministry of the Environment is currently working on a draft, which is expected to be presented in the coming weeks. This is an opportunity to promote both climate protection and e-mobility.
However, the RED must be fundamentally reorganized in its German legal implementation to achieve this.
The RED specifies how much renewable energy must be used in transportation. In Germany, this has so far been regulated via the GHG quota system. Since 2015, it has obliged oil companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a certain amount. If oil companies do not meet the quota themselves, they can compensate for this by paying money to providers of more eco-friendly energy sources – for example, charging electricity providers, who generally use green electricity, or the biofuel industry. The costs are an incentive for green innovations. To this end, the GHG quota system provides a budget-neutral framework.
That sounds good in theory, but a large proportion of the compensation payments end up going to suppliers of biofuels that are not green at all. Contrary to what is often claimed, more than half of these fuels still come directly from the farmland. Several studies confirm that, in many cases, they are even more harmful to the climate than fossil fuels. Because their official carbon footprint is incomplete, the quota system still classifies them as low-GHG.
The use of biogenic fuels from arable land could even increase in the future. A significant proportion of the limited land available in Germany is already being used for fuel production.
Meanwhile, there are many assurances that biofuels come largely from residues, so-called “advanced biofuels.” However, in 2022, almost half of them came from Asian palm oil mill residues, although the EU actually no longer wanted to promote palm oil (no data is yet available for 2023). On top of this, there is a scandalous fraud system in which oil from China is simply reclassified as waste.
This means the German GHG quota system does not live up to its political claim. The existing compliance options neither deliver proper climate action nor promote green innovations. Those bearing the brunt – apart from the climate – are the consumers who finance the system at the filling station.
In the current situation, it would be absolutely wrong to generally increase the mandatory share for renewables in transportation, as the automotive industry recently proposed. This would only support non-green biofuels with even more money.
Electromobility is the means of choice for climate action. To better promote it, RED must be consistently restructured in its German legal implementation. Fuels from farmland must be excluded from the GHG quota, and waste and residual materials must be strictly limited. This is legally possible. The emissions balance must finally be calculated in an honest manner. Imaginary reductions of 90 percent would then no longer be recognized.
Charging electricity must become the central commodity on the GHG quota market – for example, by giving it a higher weighting in the quota system or increasing the minimum purchase quantity. This is the only way to improve the charging station business model and make the GHG quota payment to EV owners more reliable. Both are important incentives for electromobility.
The argument that all options are needed does not count here: The targets for renewables in transport can be met without fuels from farmland. Anyone who wants to use biofuels in their cars could still do so. However, given the limited budget available for climate action, why should this be subsidized by the state when electromobility for cars and trucks can be promoted instead?
Biofuel fraud must be consistently prevented. The latest example of fraud in upstream emission reductions shows how difficult it is to verify climate action using certificates. The controlling authorities must send a clear signal to the market: Fuel and GHG reduction volumes must no longer be recognized in Germany if there is no opportunity for on-site audits of the producing plants in other countries.
RED in transport enables climate action innovations and the promotion of electromobility without requiring additional money from the federal budget. Therefore, all federal ministries should have a common interest in making the RED a genuine transformation instrument.
Nikolas von Wysiecki is deputy head of transport policy at environmental organization NABU.