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The Social Democrats do not have it easy at the moment, not even in the European Parliament. On Thursday, they had to watch as Manfred Weber’s EPP simply ignored their angry warnings and adopted amendments to the deforestation law, with the help of the liberals and partly with the votes of the far right. As if the S&D Group had not threatened to break the alliance the day before.
The Christian Democrats thus demonstrated how little consideration they intend to show for their supposed partner. All the Social Democrats could do, like SPD MEP Bernd Lange, was to complain about the “sad spectacle” of a vote plagued by technical problems. The EPP had once again relied on the votes of the AfD and had “offended” the pro-European alliance, said the head of the SPD group, René Repasi.
The Social Democrats are now faced with a choice: Will they adapt to the new balance of power in Parliament? Or do they break off cooperation and pursue fundamental opposition? The damage would be enormous. The parties involved still have some time to find a face-saving solution to the conflict over the new Commission. The deadline could be next Wednesday: In the late afternoon, the group chairmen will meet for their regular meeting, on the agenda (so far) is the pending evaluation of the Commissioners-designate.
The EU Parliament approved significant changes to the EU regulation on deforestation-free supply chains on Thursday: The implementation deadline will be postponed by one year so that larger companies will have to comply with the rules from the end of 2025 and smaller ones from mid-2026. For products such as cocoa, coffee and soy, it must then be ensured that they do not originate from areas that were deforested after 2020. Some EU member states, trading partners and affected companies had been pushing hard for the deadline to be postponed.
In addition, the law, which had already been adopted by the Commission, Parliament and Council and entered into force in 2023, will have to be reopened in trilogue negotiations. Several of the amendments received a majority from the EPP, the extreme right-wing parties and some Renew MEPs, including from the FDP. The amendments were tabled last week by German MEP Christine Schneider (CDU).
Following an informal agreement with the Renew Group led by Pascal Canfin and under pressure from other political groups, the EPP withdrew six of 15 amendments on Thursday morning. These would have gone much further, exempting traders from the rules and postponing the deadline by two years. In return, Renew had undertaken to adopt the amended law and not to recommend a vote for its MEPs.
The changes mainly involve an addition to the country benchmarking, on the basis of which the Commission must classify producer countries into three different categories by mid-2025, depending on the risk of deforestation: “low”, “normal” and “high” risk. On this basis, certain control quotas will then apply to the product groups concerned. The EPP has now introduced a fourth category for “no-risk” countries. These are to be subject to significantly less stringent requirements.
“We don’t want to punish those who have already done their homework,” said Schneider at a press conference. For countries that can demonstrate sustainable forest management, additional verification and documentation is unnecessary.
Social Democrats and Greens voted against all amendments. Both groups had warned against such a zero-risk category: the EPP knew that this category “is highly controversial among the EU member states”, said Delara Burkhardt, who helped negotiate the law for the S&D Group. This is because the EU member states are also divided into different risk categories and the internal market is fragmented. Burkhardt therefore believes it is impossible for new negotiations with the Council to be concluded by the end of the year. This could mean that the EUDR would ultimately enter into force in its current form on Dec. 30, 2024.
Anna Cavazzini, Chairwoman of the Internal Market Committee (IMCO), called on the EU Commission to withdraw the proposal for a postponement. With this, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would have “opened Pandora’s box”.
Cavazzini warned that exemptions for EU member states in the zero-risk category would “backfire and make the regulation incompatible with the WTO“. They would make it possible to cut down old mixed forests in the respective region and compensate for this by planting monocultures. “This is disastrous for biodiversity,” she said.
Christine Schneider, on the other hand, expressed optimism that the trilogue negotiations could be concluded by Christmas. She received applause from the European trade association EuroCommerce, among others, which particularly welcomed the postponement. “This time is needed to eliminate remaining uncertainties in implementation, reduce complexity and prepare suppliers in our supply chains,” the association said.
The fact that the majorities for some amendments were only achieved with the help of right-wing votes – including the AfD – does not seem to be a cause for concern for Schneider. “We are all elected members of this Parliament,” she said.
The Republicans’ little-noticed campaign slogan for foreign policy was “Peace through strength” and was recycled from Ronald Reagan’s campaign. At first glance, it reflects Donald Trump’s “America First” ideology. At second glance, however, Trump’s fantasies of strength are repeatedly mixed with isolationist tendencies. For example, when he spoke during the election campaign about keeping the USA out of military conflicts. Added to this is Trump’s aversion to multilateral institutions.
This ambiguity is also reflected in the personnel decisions for his cabinet, primarily the future Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his designated Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. As a senator in Florida, Rubio is part of Trump’s “Florida mafia”: experienced in foreign policy and well connected internationally thanks to his appearances at the Munich Security Conference. In the past, he believed in alliances such as NATO and in US military superiority.
In contrast to ex-Fox News presenter Hegseth, a proven NATO critic. In his book “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free”, the 44-year-old veteran of the Minnesota Army National Guard passes a harsh judgment on the Europeans. They are “outdated, outgunned, invaded, and impotent” and deserve no further support from the USA.
Trump’s new National Security Advisor Mike Waltz from Florida, who as a member of the US House of Representatives is also part of the “Florida mafia”, is also no fan of NATO. With regard to Ukraine, Waltz declared during the election campaign that “the era of blank checks is over”.
When asked who could influence the new Trump administration, the name “Project 2025” was often mentioned. The 900-page blueprint for taking office contains radical steps in the area of security and foreign policy: Withdrawal of the USA from NATO and multilateral institutions and a reduction of US troops in Europe. So far, however, Trump has publicly stated that he neither knows nor supports the paper by the arch-conservative Heritage Foundation. Which says nothing at first, but shows Trump’s unpredictability.
Trump has not distanced himself from the think tank American First Policy Institute (AFPI), which was founded in 2021 and brings together a large number of former employees, including his former adviser Kellyanne Conway and ex-Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf. According to Politico, AFPI has been working in the background but is considered a “first partner” when it comes to providing plans and personnel for Trump’s second term.
The central figures are Brooke Rollins, Director of the AFPI, and Trump’s former domestic policy advisor Linda McMahon, Chair of the AFPI Advisory Board and also Vice-Chair of Trump’s transition team. “The America First Agenda” is less radical in terms of security policy than “Project 2025”. It does not fundamentally question the value of NATO for the USA, but demands more commitment from the Europeans.
Under the chapter “American Leadership in the World”, the agenda makes a clear threat. Ties will only be maintained with those nations that “maintain or even strengthen” their two percent NATO commitment. And it will be examined whether they “share America’s vision of fighting Communist China”. Trump had already made similar comments two years ago. Inherent in both agendas is a tendency towards isolationism, although this has a long tradition in US history.
For Marco Overhaus from the America Research Group at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, the outcome of the election means that “we as Europeans must radically rethink transatlantic relations, with a much smaller American contribution“. For example, Trump will try to reach an agreement with Putin on ending the war in Ukraine, over the heads of Ukraine and the Europeans. According to Overhaus, Trump wants “the European part of NATO to follow his understanding of American interests in the future”. Ukraine will be the first test case for this.
The “America First Agenda” in particular is now trying to build a bridge between the extreme positions of the MAGA wing (“Make America Great Again”) around “Project 2025” and the moderate Republicans. The new Secretary of State Rubio is seen as a hardliner towards China and Iran. At the same time, he has worked with the Democrats in the Senate in the past on a law to prevent President Trump from withdrawing from NATO.
However, political scientist Overhaus points out that not only Rubio, but also the new National Security Advisor Waltz have changed over the last few years: from traditional Republicans to advocates of radical positions of the MAGA movement. Political scientist Overhaus expects “no significant resistance to Trump’s agenda” from either Waltz or Rubio. Even a withdrawal from NATO can no longer be ruled out.
The Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Ottmar Edenhofer, presented his proposals in Baku on Thursday on how carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from the atmosphere can become marketable and, above all, profitable. He proposes so-called “clean-up” certificates which, in addition to the conventional CO2 levy of the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), include the promise to remove the emitted CO2 from the atmosphere at a later date. Edenhofer explained his ideas at COP29.
Accordingly, companies covered by the ETS would have a choice. They can either buy regular emission allowances or clean-up certificates, which come with a carbon debt. For the latter, they would deposit collateral with a central body – Edenhofer proposes the establishment of a central carbon bank – which they would only receive back if they ensure that the CO2 emitted is removed from the atmosphere at a later date. A removal certificate would not allow any additional emissions above the ETS emissions cap, but would replace a regular emissions allowance on a one-to-one basis.
According to Edenhofer, this would have several advantages:
Clean-up certificates are interesting for companies that assume that CDR costs in the future will be lower than the current costs of reducing emissions, explains Edenhofer. Risk costs for CDR projects would fall and investments in CDR could increase.
The hope of the approach is that private capital would finance the CDR ramp-up. This is because public funds alone can hardly finance the CO2 removals that are necessary in Europe to achieve the climate targets. In the LULUCF sector, the EU expects a potential of up to 472 megatons of CO2 equivalents. This corresponds to 13% of the EU’s total emissions in 2019. For technological CO2 removals, the EU assumes up to 606 megatons of CO2e; this corresponds to 17% of EU emissions in 2019.
These reductions are needed to compensate for residual emissions, for example from industry or agriculture, even after Europe’s planned climate neutrality in 2050. With estimated costs of up to 400 euros per ton of CO2, countries would have to invest several hundred billion euros a year in carbon sinks.
Discussions on this are ongoing at EU level. Both Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra and the Director General for Climate Policy Kurt Vandenberghe have already emphasized the importance of including CO2 removals in emissions trading.
The Social Democrats do not have it easy at the moment, not even in the European Parliament. On Thursday, they had to watch as Manfred Weber’s EPP simply ignored their angry warnings and adopted amendments to the deforestation law, with the help of the liberals and partly with the votes of the far right. As if the S&D Group had not threatened to break the alliance the day before.
The Christian Democrats thus demonstrated how little consideration they intend to show for their supposed partner. All the Social Democrats could do, like SPD MEP Bernd Lange, was to complain about the “sad spectacle” of a vote plagued by technical problems. The EPP had once again relied on the votes of the AfD and had “offended” the pro-European alliance, said the head of the SPD group, René Repasi.
The Social Democrats are now faced with a choice: Will they adapt to the new balance of power in Parliament? Or do they break off cooperation and pursue fundamental opposition? The damage would be enormous. The parties involved still have some time to find a face-saving solution to the conflict over the new Commission. The deadline could be next Wednesday: In the late afternoon, the group chairmen will meet for their regular meeting, on the agenda (so far) is the pending evaluation of the Commissioners-designate.
The EU Parliament approved significant changes to the EU regulation on deforestation-free supply chains on Thursday: The implementation deadline will be postponed by one year so that larger companies will have to comply with the rules from the end of 2025 and smaller ones from mid-2026. For products such as cocoa, coffee and soy, it must then be ensured that they do not originate from areas that were deforested after 2020. Some EU member states, trading partners and affected companies had been pushing hard for the deadline to be postponed.
In addition, the law, which had already been adopted by the Commission, Parliament and Council and entered into force in 2023, will have to be reopened in trilogue negotiations. Several of the amendments received a majority from the EPP, the extreme right-wing parties and some Renew MEPs, including from the FDP. The amendments were tabled last week by German MEP Christine Schneider (CDU).
Following an informal agreement with the Renew Group led by Pascal Canfin and under pressure from other political groups, the EPP withdrew six of 15 amendments on Thursday morning. These would have gone much further, exempting traders from the rules and postponing the deadline by two years. In return, Renew had undertaken to adopt the amended law and not to recommend a vote for its MEPs.
The changes mainly involve an addition to the country benchmarking, on the basis of which the Commission must classify producer countries into three different categories by mid-2025, depending on the risk of deforestation: “low”, “normal” and “high” risk. On this basis, certain control quotas will then apply to the product groups concerned. The EPP has now introduced a fourth category for “no-risk” countries. These are to be subject to significantly less stringent requirements.
“We don’t want to punish those who have already done their homework,” said Schneider at a press conference. For countries that can demonstrate sustainable forest management, additional verification and documentation is unnecessary.
Social Democrats and Greens voted against all amendments. Both groups had warned against such a zero-risk category: the EPP knew that this category “is highly controversial among the EU member states”, said Delara Burkhardt, who helped negotiate the law for the S&D Group. This is because the EU member states are also divided into different risk categories and the internal market is fragmented. Burkhardt therefore believes it is impossible for new negotiations with the Council to be concluded by the end of the year. This could mean that the EUDR would ultimately enter into force in its current form on Dec. 30, 2024.
Anna Cavazzini, Chairwoman of the Internal Market Committee (IMCO), called on the EU Commission to withdraw the proposal for a postponement. With this, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would have “opened Pandora’s box”.
Cavazzini warned that exemptions for EU member states in the zero-risk category would “backfire and make the regulation incompatible with the WTO“. They would make it possible to cut down old mixed forests in the respective region and compensate for this by planting monocultures. “This is disastrous for biodiversity,” she said.
Christine Schneider, on the other hand, expressed optimism that the trilogue negotiations could be concluded by Christmas. She received applause from the European trade association EuroCommerce, among others, which particularly welcomed the postponement. “This time is needed to eliminate remaining uncertainties in implementation, reduce complexity and prepare suppliers in our supply chains,” the association said.
The fact that the majorities for some amendments were only achieved with the help of right-wing votes – including the AfD – does not seem to be a cause for concern for Schneider. “We are all elected members of this Parliament,” she said.
The Republicans’ little-noticed campaign slogan for foreign policy was “Peace through strength” and was recycled from Ronald Reagan’s campaign. At first glance, it reflects Donald Trump’s “America First” ideology. At second glance, however, Trump’s fantasies of strength are repeatedly mixed with isolationist tendencies. For example, when he spoke during the election campaign about keeping the USA out of military conflicts. Added to this is Trump’s aversion to multilateral institutions.
This ambiguity is also reflected in the personnel decisions for his cabinet, primarily the future Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his designated Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. As a senator in Florida, Rubio is part of Trump’s “Florida mafia”: experienced in foreign policy and well connected internationally thanks to his appearances at the Munich Security Conference. In the past, he believed in alliances such as NATO and in US military superiority.
In contrast to ex-Fox News presenter Hegseth, a proven NATO critic. In his book “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free”, the 44-year-old veteran of the Minnesota Army National Guard passes a harsh judgment on the Europeans. They are “outdated, outgunned, invaded, and impotent” and deserve no further support from the USA.
Trump’s new National Security Advisor Mike Waltz from Florida, who as a member of the US House of Representatives is also part of the “Florida mafia”, is also no fan of NATO. With regard to Ukraine, Waltz declared during the election campaign that “the era of blank checks is over”.
When asked who could influence the new Trump administration, the name “Project 2025” was often mentioned. The 900-page blueprint for taking office contains radical steps in the area of security and foreign policy: Withdrawal of the USA from NATO and multilateral institutions and a reduction of US troops in Europe. So far, however, Trump has publicly stated that he neither knows nor supports the paper by the arch-conservative Heritage Foundation. Which says nothing at first, but shows Trump’s unpredictability.
Trump has not distanced himself from the think tank American First Policy Institute (AFPI), which was founded in 2021 and brings together a large number of former employees, including his former adviser Kellyanne Conway and ex-Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf. According to Politico, AFPI has been working in the background but is considered a “first partner” when it comes to providing plans and personnel for Trump’s second term.
The central figures are Brooke Rollins, Director of the AFPI, and Trump’s former domestic policy advisor Linda McMahon, Chair of the AFPI Advisory Board and also Vice-Chair of Trump’s transition team. “The America First Agenda” is less radical in terms of security policy than “Project 2025”. It does not fundamentally question the value of NATO for the USA, but demands more commitment from the Europeans.
Under the chapter “American Leadership in the World”, the agenda makes a clear threat. Ties will only be maintained with those nations that “maintain or even strengthen” their two percent NATO commitment. And it will be examined whether they “share America’s vision of fighting Communist China”. Trump had already made similar comments two years ago. Inherent in both agendas is a tendency towards isolationism, although this has a long tradition in US history.
For Marco Overhaus from the America Research Group at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, the outcome of the election means that “we as Europeans must radically rethink transatlantic relations, with a much smaller American contribution“. For example, Trump will try to reach an agreement with Putin on ending the war in Ukraine, over the heads of Ukraine and the Europeans. According to Overhaus, Trump wants “the European part of NATO to follow his understanding of American interests in the future”. Ukraine will be the first test case for this.
The “America First Agenda” in particular is now trying to build a bridge between the extreme positions of the MAGA wing (“Make America Great Again”) around “Project 2025” and the moderate Republicans. The new Secretary of State Rubio is seen as a hardliner towards China and Iran. At the same time, he has worked with the Democrats in the Senate in the past on a law to prevent President Trump from withdrawing from NATO.
However, political scientist Overhaus points out that not only Rubio, but also the new National Security Advisor Waltz have changed over the last few years: from traditional Republicans to advocates of radical positions of the MAGA movement. Political scientist Overhaus expects “no significant resistance to Trump’s agenda” from either Waltz or Rubio. Even a withdrawal from NATO can no longer be ruled out.
The Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Ottmar Edenhofer, presented his proposals in Baku on Thursday on how carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from the atmosphere can become marketable and, above all, profitable. He proposes so-called “clean-up” certificates which, in addition to the conventional CO2 levy of the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), include the promise to remove the emitted CO2 from the atmosphere at a later date. Edenhofer explained his ideas at COP29.
Accordingly, companies covered by the ETS would have a choice. They can either buy regular emission allowances or clean-up certificates, which come with a carbon debt. For the latter, they would deposit collateral with a central body – Edenhofer proposes the establishment of a central carbon bank – which they would only receive back if they ensure that the CO2 emitted is removed from the atmosphere at a later date. A removal certificate would not allow any additional emissions above the ETS emissions cap, but would replace a regular emissions allowance on a one-to-one basis.
According to Edenhofer, this would have several advantages:
Clean-up certificates are interesting for companies that assume that CDR costs in the future will be lower than the current costs of reducing emissions, explains Edenhofer. Risk costs for CDR projects would fall and investments in CDR could increase.
The hope of the approach is that private capital would finance the CDR ramp-up. This is because public funds alone can hardly finance the CO2 removals that are necessary in Europe to achieve the climate targets. In the LULUCF sector, the EU expects a potential of up to 472 megatons of CO2 equivalents. This corresponds to 13% of the EU’s total emissions in 2019. For technological CO2 removals, the EU assumes up to 606 megatons of CO2e; this corresponds to 17% of EU emissions in 2019.
These reductions are needed to compensate for residual emissions, for example from industry or agriculture, even after Europe’s planned climate neutrality in 2050. With estimated costs of up to 400 euros per ton of CO2, countries would have to invest several hundred billion euros a year in carbon sinks.
Discussions on this are ongoing at EU level. Both Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra and the Director General for Climate Policy Kurt Vandenberghe have already emphasized the importance of including CO2 removals in emissions trading.