On the occasion of the vote in the European Parliament's Environment Committee (ENVI) on the Social Climate Fund, Henrike Hahn, Member of the European Parliament (The Greens/EFA), Deputy speaker of the German Delegation, Industrial Policy Spokesperson of the European Group and rapporteur for the opinion on the Social Climate Fund in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs comments:

"The agreement of the Council and the European Parliament on the EU Social Climate Fund is a good news per se. It will be introduced a year before the new emissions trading system (ETSII) and it is intended to fight against energy and mobility poverty in Europe. However, the 88 billion euros for the Social Climate Fund are around 40% less than requested by the European Commission.

This will not be enough money to create a fair and socially acceptable balance in Europe. It's a little bit like a drop in the ocean - nevertheless, with the Social Climate Fund the EU also spells out very clearly that climate protection must always be implemented in a socially just manner.

It is disappointing that the Member States as a whole have not recognized the urgency of a very ambitious European Social Climate Fund. Higher CO2 prices will be noticeable for the people in Europe and climate policy in Europe must go hand in hand with well-financed strong social policy - there is still plenty of room for improvement.

Since the rest of the revenue from CO2 pricing in the transport and building sectors is not lost but goes to the budgets of the member states, national governments must now ensure that the remaining funds are used efficiently for strong social policy measures and that the costs of the transformation will be covered in the future. This was also explicitly a part in the present compromise.

We have a long way to go to tackle energy and mobility poverty in Europe. We need long-term solutions and structural investments - and the current agreement on the Social Climate Fund can only be the beginning."

For further questions I am gladly at your disposal.