ROW OVER CLIMATE
Before you start reading The Capitals today, take a look at the UN climate summit, day #2: Few announcements in the end – ‘How dare you’
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BERLIN
Keller’s “Nein” to Weber. Germany’s grand coalition has been facing heavy criticism following the presentation of a long-awaited climate package last week.
“This is not an answer to the climate crisis,’” said Katrin Göring-Eckardt, leader of the Greens in the Bundestag. In her view, the grand coalition has “capitulated and failed”.
Göring-Eckardt is not the only one who questioned the functionality of Angela Merkel’s grand coalition of conservatives and social democrats: On Sunday, former EPP spitzenkandidat and head of the Bavarian conservative CSU, Manfred Weber, said in an interview that a coalition of the conservative CDU/CSU and the Greens would be a model for the future, although it could be “exhausting”. He said that the Greens and conservatives could “solve the social conflicts we have in Germany,” but only if they work together.
Weber did not call for a premature end to the so-called “GroKo” (grand coalition between CDU/CSU and the Social Democratic Party (SPD)), but said that further collaboration with the social democrats, a party which has reached record lows since the last state elections, was currently “not a project for the future”.
Asked for a comment, former Green spitzenkandidat Ska Keller told EURACTIV: “We, the Greens, take decisions based on content. I welcome that Mr Weber calls on his party to engage more in climate protection, but the ‘climate package’ shows quite clearly how little that means”.
However, the question is whether this is also a “nein” to social democrats, who were equally involved in drafting the new climate law. Several centre-left politicians have also called for a coalition split and collaboration with the Greens. “Germany needs a ten-year break from CDU and CSU,” said Karl Lauterbach, who is one of the candidates for SPD leadership, after the presentation of the climate package.
As all major parties exclude a coalition with the right-wing AfD, the Greens have become the kingmaker in German government negotiations. Currently present in nine of sixteen state governments, the party is probably about to enter new coalitions with the SPD and CDU in Brandenburg, as well as in Saxony.
(Florence Schulz, EURACTIV.de)
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In Prague, the government has been sceptical towards ambitious targets on the eve of the UN Climate summit. “I have the feeling that many countries proposing carbon neutrality in 2050 are not even able to fulfil much closer targets,” said Czech Environment Minister Richard Brabec in an interview with EURACTIV.cz’s partner Aktuálně.cz. Brabec and Prime Minister Andrej Babiš are convinced that the enthusiasm from the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris conference has vanished.
“Europe is reducing greenhouse gasses, but in the rest of the world the level is getting higher,” Brabec said. (Aneta Zachová, EURACTIV.cz)
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On the other hand in Greece, the conservative New Democracy government plans a high-level conference in Athens next year to adopt a resolution on the protection of cultural and natural heritage from climate change, Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis said at the UN Climate Summit 2019.
He also said that Greece would adopt a new national policy for energy and the climate (a reviewed National Climate and Energy Plan) by the end of the year, as EURACTIV.gr reported on 8 September. The national policy would include the shutdown of all coal power plants by 2028, as well as the increase of the share of renewable resources to 35% by 2030 – and a total ban on single-use plastics starting in 2021. (Theodore Karaoulanis, EURACTIV.gr)
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