Fit for 55 votes in ENVI + Sustainability reporting requirements + Élisabeth Borne • Europe.Table

Fit for 55 votes in ENVI: many clear, some narrow majorities in the end
Sustainability reporting requirements pose challenges for SMEs
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Élisabeth Borne – the reasonable choice

Dear reader,

ETS 2, CBAM, LULUCF Regulation, and the ETS expansion in the aviation sector: These are just some of the items in the Fit for 55 package voted on yesterday by the EU Parliament’s Environment Committee (ENVI). ETS 2, in particular, had caused discord for months, but now, the MEPs proved their ability to compromise. Lukas Scheid and Timo Landenberger summarize the results and initial reactions.

The trilogue negotiations on the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive are expected to be completed by the end of the month. It is already clear that the CSRD will bring about major changes in reporting requirements. Due to new criteria, the number of companies that have to publish sustainability data will increase from about 11,000 to about 50,000. A huge challenge, especially for small and medium-sized companies, as Leonie Düngefeld analyzes.

For the spontaneous among you: The Europe.Table team, together with the Jacques Delors Centre, invites you to the Europe.Decisions digital conference today. In 150 minutes, 30 experts will provide insights into the most pressing issues of our time: How should Europe react to the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine? How can we cushion the energy price crisis? These and other questions are on the agenda this morning starting at 10 a.m. You can sign up here.

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Sarah Schaefer

Feature

Fit for 55 votes in ENVI: many clear, some narrow majorities in the end

For a long time, it didn’t look as if the EU Parliament’s negotiators would find a common denominator on the crucial Green Deal legislative proposals. However, yesterday’s vote in the Environment Committee shows how capable MEPs are of compromise when it counts. Some of the compromises, however, could be short-lived.

In the end, it’s the result that counts. And for the introduction of a second emissions trading scheme for road transport and heating of buildings (ETS 2), an overwhelming majority of 61 voted in favor, 22 against and 5 abstentions in the EU Parliament’s Environment Committee (ENVI) on Tuesday. It is the part of the ETS revision that has caused rifts among negotiators, within political groups and member states for months.

The German government is likely to breathe a sigh of relief, as it looked for a while as if its own party colleagues in Brussels might cause this part of the climate protection package to fail. The German government is also counting on an EU-wide introduction due to its own fuel emissions trading law, which imposes a CO2 price on combustibles and fuels. However, the final compromise, which envisages the introduction of ETS 2 for commercial activities from 2025 and for private activities from 2029 at the earliest – provided that the Commission submits a new legislative proposal after a renewed review – is viewed with enormous criticism in Berlin.

And even the rapporteur mainly responsible for the ETS reform only reluctantly joined the compromise to exclude the private use of combustibles and fuels for heating and driving for the time being. This was due to opposition from the Social Democrats and Greens, as well as many liberals and part of his own group, according to Peter Liese (EPP, CDU). “A step-by-step approach is ultimately better than killing this important instrument outright, as the Social Democrats, Greens, and right-wingers had requested at the beginning of the process.”

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