Renew Europe welcomes the European Commission’s long-awaited publication of the Fit for 2030 climate proposals. This is one of the most important legislative initiatives of this legislature – even decade. The Renew Europe Group now stands ready to start the parliamentary work to scrutinise the proposals, and improve them where necessary. The ultimate aim is to deliver an ambitious, effective, balanced and socially fair legal framework that raises our 2030 climate target in line with the Paris Agreement and places Europe firmly on the track to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 at the latest. For our political group, this is a European strategy for new sustainable growth and jobs, and a catalyst for a just transition with climate neutrality and the well-being of our citizens as key objectives.
Pascal Canfin, Chair of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, says: “Today is a very important step towards our goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2050. These 14 new legislatives texts are a massive overhaul of our climate architecture that will bring about a decisive acceleration in the fight against climate change. We will review the whole EU climate policy and ensure that for each economic sector both a climate ambition and a pathway to achieve the transition. In particular, we will ensure that our climate ambition is not undermined by climate dumping by setting up the first of its kind mechanism ensuring that imports pay the same carbon price than our industry. Now it is time for the European Parliament to start working on the proposals put forward by the European Commission. To me, the objective now is to ensure that all those legislations are up to our climate ambition, and able to transform our society without breaking it socially.”
Nils Torvalds, Renew Europe’s Coordinator of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, says: “This legislative package is our chance to rise to the climate challenge and to ensure that Europe does its share of averting dangerous climate change. The coming decade is crucial for us to succeed. Our job is now to make sure that all the pieces fall into the right place: we need to be both ambitious in our objectives and effective and proportionate in our measures. At the same time, we must find the right division between EU and national policies. It remains important that Member States also take active responsibility.”
Note to editors:
Renew Europe adopted a position paper with five key messages a month ago, and sent a letter to President Ursula von der Leyen and Executive Vice President Frans Timmermans outlining the group’s priorities.