Greens to back Ursula von der Leyen if she revives climate policies

Green parties took a drubbing in last week’s European parliament election, but they say they still have a shot at reviving some of the bloc’s climate policies put on hold to placate angry farmers and powerful industry groups.

The so-called Green Deal, aimed at transforming Europe’s economy to reach net zero emissions by 2050, was a priority for Ursula von der Leyen in her first term in office. It is now shaping up as the main ask for the Greens in the EU assembly to back her re-election at the helm of the European Commission.

Bas Eickhout, the Greens co-lead candidate in the EU vote, on Wednesday said the group’s priorities in upcoming talks were “the Green Deal and the continuation of the Green Deal”.

“We have presented our vision . . . to make sure that our industry in Europe can be part of the green transition,” he said.

While her centre-right European People’s party (EPP) won most seats in Sunday’s vote, von der Leyen’s parliamentary majority which spans centre-left and liberal groups is uncomfortably narrow, giving the Greens a window of opportunity — unless she opts to veer right and strike a deal with the ultraconservatives led by Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

But Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, has warned von der Leyen against a pact with the hard right — and so have the liberals led by Emmanuel Macron, president of France.

The Greens have indicated they would back von der Leyen. But if she turned towards the far right, said Philippe Lamberts, the Greens’ departing president, “well, that’s the end of the Green Deal, period”.

Von der Leyen launched the Green Deal in 2019 as a response to a wave of environmental sentiment that delivered the Greens their best EU election result, propelling them from 52 seats to 74.

But farmers’ protests, rapid inflation and high energy costs after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine cut off gas, made the Green Deal a target on the campaign trail for rightwing parties to blame for the bloc’s economic woes.

“We were not in favour of the Green Deal because there was too much ideology,” said Nicola Procaccini, co-chair of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Group. “[The Greens] made the mistake of following [this] foolish ideology . . . and I think the citizens contested this.”

The EU election result shows many voters were persuaded by the right, with the Greens securing 53 seats in the 722-strong assembly, back to roughly where they were before 2019.

Europe’s weakened support for climate policies comes even as the continent has warmed twice as fast as the rest of the world in the industrial era.

EU leaders and lawmakers in von der Leyen’s EPP joined in and called for a regulatory “pause” before the election.

In Germany, where the Greens are part of Scholz’s ruling coalition, the party lost nearly half the votes it received in 2019. German conservative voters have been in particular irked by the Greens’ botched attempt to encourage people to swap gas boilers for environmentally friendly heat pumps and their refusal to reverse a decision to close Germany’s last remaining nuclear power stations.

Reflecting on the blow, Ricarda Lang, the Greens’ co-leader and Bundestag member since 2021, said “so much had changed” since the electoral success of 2019. “We had a pandemic, we have the war in Ukraine, we had inflation which was very palpable for people with increased living expenses.”

In France, the Greens also performed worse, returning five MEPs against the 12 they had in the previous term.

But in the Netherlands, a Green-Left coalition narrowly beat the far-right party of Geert Wilders. And in some central and southern European states, their result was better than expected.

Record hot temperatures, devastating fires and floods in Italy, Greece and Slovenia appeared to have influenced voters there who turned to Green parties.

The Greens will for the first time gain three Italian MEPs — with one staffer describing the result as a “miracle” after failing for years to gain traction there.

Eamon Ryan, Ireland’s climate minister and leader of its Green Party, said the result was far from “a wipeout”, given that the group had expected an even more diminished presence of about 40 seats in the EU parliament.

But he acknowledged the success of the right had put the future of the Green Deal at risk. “What we don’t want to see is a slide from the ambition, which is what I fear from the EPP and their tack to the far right.”

About 80 per cent of the legislation that sets the EU on course for an interim target of cutting emissions by 55 per cent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels has already been agreed, according to parliament estimates.

It is the environmental elements of the Green Deal — legislation on chemical pollution, biodiversity and pesticides — that were cut or delayed in the election run-up.

Heather Grabbe, senior fellow at Brussels-based think-tank Bruegel, said the laws that had been adopted could be the “high-water mark . . . because it will be hard to get through more green politics”.

The EPP has said it would support the rollback of a de facto ban on new combustion engine cars due in 2035. Manfred Weber, chair of the EPP group, said the EU had to be more “pragmatic” on green issues. “We have to reality check now”.

Matthias Berninger, senior vice-president for public affairs at the chemicals conglomerate Bayer, welcomed the new approach. “To ensure that Europe meets the ambitious targets we need more carrots and less sticks,” he said.

The message of angry farmers who took to the streets across Europe earlier this year has resonated with the Greens. Mélanie Vogel, co-chair of the European Green Party, said in future the movement needed to show it was not “selling policies for hipsters and rich people” but that the Green Deal was “a solution to the cost of living crisis”.

Additional reporting by Guy Chazan in Berlin and Andy Bounds in Brussels

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