Henrike Hahn, Member of the European Parliament (The Greens/EFA), industrial policy spokesperson of the German Delegation and rapporteur for the opinion on establishing a Social Climate Fund in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON), comments on today's surprising vote on the Parliament's position on the Fit for 55 package:

“There is hope again for a real European Climate Protection.

After the conservatives and the liberal political groups together with the far right watered down the Commission proposal to reform the Emission Trading System we as Greens/EFA voted against it. A majority of the parliament voted in favour to send back the proposal to the ENVI committee.

Any delay in climate protection is dangerous and we would have preferred a strong final position by the European Parliament in favour of ambitious climate protection.

But the outcome of today means that there is yet another opportunity to find a solid pro-European majority in the European Parliament for a really ambitious ETS reform to achieve at least the 1,5 degree Paris climate goals.

As a consequence of this unforeseen development the European Parliament voted to postpone the final vote on the related Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) as well as the Social Climate Fund (SCF).

For us, the Greens, a green transformation of the economy must be fully in line with the legally binding targets and we must make sure that it is socially just, by leaving no one behind.

Now, the fight for real climate protection goes on!"

Background Information

Surprising outcome on the ETS today. The file was rejected by the plenary (265 in favour, 340 against and 34 abstentions).

Most of RE and EPP voted in favour, Left, S&D and us voted against. A large part of ECR (and probably ID) also voted against.

However, Rapporteur Liese used the EP Rule of Procedure - 59.4 to ask for the file to be sent back to ENVI for reconsideration (which basically means that ENVI has to start again and it has to go back to plenary for a vote).

This decision has implication for the Social Climate  Fund (no final vote today) and for CBAM (postponement of the vote).

Our group voted against the final text because our red line on phasing out free allowances has been crossed.

 

My team and I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.