Mediaboss Marketing

In late June, the Council of the European Union gave the green light to the first European Climate Law, following the adoption of the legislation by the European Parliament a few days earlier. The law is designed to reduce greenhouse emissions by 55 per cent (compared to 1990 levels) by 2030 and reach climate neutrality in the next 30 years. The EU is gradually turning into a climate champion, and this step converts its moral commitment into a legal obligation. The law provides European citizens and businesses with certainty and clarity about the path for the green transformation.

While MEPs from opposing sides of the political spectrum rejected some of the provisions of the law, 26 member states voted in favour of it at the Council of the EU. The only exception was Bulgaria. The countrys caretaker government, which has been in place since mid-May, explained the abstention with a brief, vague comment: the final compromise does not reflect sufficiently our national position. Subsequently, the Bulgarian Ministry of Environment and Water specified that the adopted text does not take into consideration several requests from the Bulgarian government, such as the inclusion of natural gas as transition fuel until 2030; recognition of the technology neutrality approach in the transition; or a proposal for a smoother reduction of coal subsidies, which currently sustain Bulgarian coal mining and processing.

The Bulgarian government has acted too late to oppose or affect the EUs legal framework for tackling climate change. The abstention runs counter to both the expectations of Bulgarian citizens and the unions long-running efforts to transform Europe into the first climate-neutral continent.

Successive Bulgarian governments and leaders have been reluctant to commit to a clear path for the green transition within a set timeframe

Since early 2021, the Sofia office of the European Council on Foreign Relations has conducted extensive research into the ways in which Bulgarian businesses and citizens view the EUs green recovery and climate policy efforts. According to a public opinion poll commissioned by ECFR, 80 per cent of Bulgarians support the 55 per cent emissions-reduction target and only 3 per cent oppose it. The survey shows that Bulgarians are strongly supportive of climate-oriented policies, but their concerns are not reflected in the programmes of the political parties. In Bulgaria, 85 per cent of respondents believe that global warming and its consequences are a problem of paramount importance, while just 3 per cent are climate change sceptics 4 percentage points lower than the EU average. Despite their concerns, three-quarters of Bulgarians do not feel informed about or satisfied with the governments position on climate issues. These polling numbers are confirmed by recent Eurobarometer findings. The Eurobarometer study reveals that only 10 per cent of Bulgarian respondents regard their national governments climate actions as sufficient, compared to the EU average of 20 per cent.

Generally, Bulgaria is among the least advanced EU countries in terms of the public debate and executive decisions within the framework of the European Green Deal. Climate change and the commitment to net zero still receive too little attention from Bulgarian politicians and scientists. Lately, the Bulgarian public debate on the European Green Deal has concentrated on the amount, timing, and allocation of EU funds Bulgaria will receive from the blocs planned financing mechanisms. The main rationale for the new EU policy achieving carbon neutrality and resource-saving or recycling has been absent from the national discussion. Successive Bulgarian governments and leaders have been reluctant to commit to a clear path for the green transition within a set timeframe.

The political debate in the country does not reflect the urgency of the issue and, instead of producing forward-looking solutions, is mainly focused on populist slogans on issues such as the danger of high unemployment in the energy sector. This is particularly apparent in the region of Stara Zagora, where a coal mine and two thermal power plants are located. One cannot expect much support for the climate agenda from residents of this area, as political actors have prevented a reasoned debate on the potential closure of the plants.

Moreover, Bulgarias abstention on the European Climate Law not only isolates the country within the EU once again but also reveals two familiar shortfalls in Bulgarian diplomacy. Firstly, the abstention on such an important and unprecedented law shows the Bulgarian civil services lack of expertise and negotiation skill. It had years to negotiate a solution to Bulgarias grievances, while equipping the economy for a low-carbon future. Secondly, the reaction to the abstention in the union resembles the response to the Bulgarian veto of the start of EU accession talks with North Macedonia in late 2020, which damaged Sofias reputation and diminished its bargaining power within EU institutions. And, by resisting the EUs vital efforts to create a joint carbon-neutral future, Bulgaria has undermined European taxpayers confidence that the country will efficiently allocate its share of the Just Transition and Recovery and Resilience facilities to climate mitigation and green investment. While the previous Bulgarian government was struggling to adjust to Europes ambitions of climate leadership, the Commission launched the new legislative package Fit for 55. Adopted on 14 July 2021, the package includes 13 new or revised pieces of legislation that will have a broad impact on all EU economies if the Commission succeeds in addressing all the technical, social, and diplomatic challenges it presents, as ECFRs Alex Clark recently explained. The proposed extension of carbon pricing to the construction and transport sectors is likely to have a major impact on Bulgarian society, as is the carbon border-adjustment mechanisms effect on the price of products imported from neighbouring Turkey and Serbia. This was not the case with the EU Emissions Trading System, whse effect on energy prices largely spared Bulgarian consumers (due to their countrys coal subsidies and partially regulated energy markets). The Bulgarian government will now have to face up to the climate challenge, by the raising expectations of Bulgarian voters and catching up to climate policy developments in Brussels and further afield.

The European Council on Foreign Relations does not take collective positions. ECFR publications only represent the views of its individual authors.

Read the original post:
Bulgarias abstention from the fight against climate change - European Council on Foreign Relations

The latest confrontation between Warsaw and Brussels is more than a judicial disagreement: it marks a key moment in the fight between the rule of law and autocracy that threatens to very essence of the European project.

Last week, Polands constitutional tribunal ruled that decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) regarding Polish courts violate the Polish constitution. Two days later, the CJEU declared that a chamber of the Polish Supreme Court does not fulfill EU criteria of an independent court and has to cease operations. The Polish authorities, in turn, said that they are not bound to follow the ruling and simply ignored it.

Questioning the supremacy of the EU law and verdicts of the blocs highest judicial body is not a minor offence. The EU is in its very essence a system of rules which requires respect and needs an ultimate arbiter when their application is disputed.

However, the EU institutions are not omnipotent. The boundary between what they are allowed to do and what is reserved for the authorities of the member states is often a matter of controversy. National tribunals and governments tend to complain about the power grab by the European institutions and even question decisions taken by the CJEU.

The current conflict between Warsaw and Brussels/Luxembourg is of a different magnitude, and framing it as a defense of Polish sovereignty against a EU overreach is nonsense.

The subjugation of the judiciary is a key part of the anti-democratic project of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the ruling party Law and Justice (PiS). And the intention of the Polish authorities is nothing less than to deny the EU the power to ensure that the courts in its member states remain independent and are not subject to political pressure.

Article 19 of the EU treaty guarantees "effective legal protection" for all EU citizens and companies. The Polish government says that this fundamental provision violates the Polish constitution because it grants the CJEU competence to assess if the national courts including those in Poland meet standards of judicial independence, standards which are internationally recognised and consolidated.

Should the EU the Commission, CJEU and the member states tolerate this defiance, it would pave the way for the destruction of the union. It would give member states a free hand to decide not just the structure of their judicial systems which is the sovereign right of all countries but also the principles they are based on. The EU is a union based upon a common market and common citizenship, but an independent judiciary is also a common good. Allowing member states to subvert it would be suicidal.

In Poland, judges have been harassed for standing up for the separation of power, for submitting questions to the CJEU and for implementing its rulings. The disciplinary system for judges is fully controlled by the minister of justice who nominates both prosecutors and judges and can personally go after each and every judge in the country.

This system, unsurprisingly condemned last week by the CJEU as violating EU principles, is used to intimidate judges, persecute those who criticise the demolition of the rule of law and ultimately to silence any form of resistance to these practices. And it is in the defense of this system as a pillar of the ongoing autocratic transformation that the Polish government and its subservient constitutional tribunal risk the future of the country and that of the EU.

All this is reflected in a report published this week by the European Commission in the framework of its yearly monitoring of the rule of law. In spite of an unemotional language, the report reads like a desperate cry or even an indictment.

"There are risks as regards the effectiveness of the fight against high-level corruption, including a risk of undue influence on corruption prosecutions for political purposes," the paper notes about Poland, proving it wasn't the lack of knowledge but political resolve that failed to prevent the current showdown. Now the stakes for both the EU and Poland could not be higher.

The Commission has already given Warsaw until 16 August to comply with the CJEU verdict. Otherwise, Brussels will request the court to impose daily financial penalties.

But the Commission must go further than issuing an ultimatum: it needs to clearly say that, as long the constitutional barriers for the application of the EU law are in place in Poland, payments from the Recovery Fund will be withheld. Moreover, the executive should trigger the newly established conditionality mechanism which is supposed to protect the EU financial interests against the risks related to deficiencies of the rule of law. Obviously, all of this will not work without the public backing from the member states.

In short, the EU needs to let the money its most powerful argument speak, since all more diplomatic ways have failed.

The recent escalation in Warsaws conflict with the EU could be the swan song of Kaczynskis waning power. His parliamentary majority is crumbling and the return of Donald Tusk his old political enemy to Poland revives unpleasant memories. For Kaczynski, this is a race against time. By tightening autocratic screws, he wants to secure the power before it slips away. But yet another, after Hungary, autocracy beefed up by huge EU funds would open the way for self-destruction of the European project.

This is the moment of truth when both the EU and Poland need a very powerful political signal that crossing indisputable red lines the binding nature of the rule of law can and will not be tolerated.

--

Piotr Buras is the head of the Warsaw office of the European Council on Foreign Relations and co-author of the report "Defending the EU against grand corruption. The rule of law mechanism and Poland".

This article is part of The Briefing, Euronews' weekly political newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Continue reading here:
Poland's legal defiance is the EUs moment of truth | View - Euronews

Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, first unveiled the Canada-EU partnership at a summit in June. Courtesy of the European Commission.

Canadas Minister of Natural Resources, Seamus ORegan, and the European Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, released a joint statement on July 19 on the Canada-EU Strategic Partnership on Raw Materials. The statement is a follow-up on the framework for the partnership, which was released on June 15.

At that time, Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, said that the agreement was intended to encourage market diversification from Chinas raw materials supply chain. We as Europeans want to diversify our imports away from producers like China because we want more sustainability, less environmental damage and we want transparency on raw materials. Justin Trudeau, at the time, underscored the potential climate and employment benefits of the partnership, saying that, in order to continue creating good, green jobs for the middle class, we must secure supply chains for critical minerals and metals that are essential for things like electric car batteries, indicating the centrality of materials crucial to the development of green tech to the partnership.

Related: Funding will go to phasing out the use of coal at the Sault Ste. Marie steelmaker

The partnership is designed with the intention of solidifying supply chains for raw materials between Canada and the EU, with the stated goals of creating jobs and combatting climate change.

In Mondays joint statement, the two parties announced some of the key initial deliverables for the project: securing European and Canadian financial support for critical mineral projects in both Canada and the EU; setting up prize-based innovation challenges; and advancing best practices on mapping and classifying critical minerals. A joint event is also planned on Tracing Net-Zero Battery Minerals in order to support research and innovation.

The joint statement also re-emphasized some of the goals of the partnership: Through this strategic partnership, we are joining forces to tackle strategic dependencies, build critical minerals and metals value chains, boost our competitiveness in global markets and develop the clean technologies needed [to accomplish those goals].

See more here:
Canada and European Union outline critical minerals partnershipSome of the key initial deliverables of the partnership are intended to diversify and...

The European Commission is working on a bill to regulate foreign subsidies. According to it, any foreign company wishing to sign a sizeable M&A deal in the European Union or export to the European Union on a public procurement basis must report subsidies it received in its home country for three years and obtain an approval from the European Union.

False data submission or non-submission can be subject to a fine equivalent to 1 percent to 10 percent of sales. In addition, the European Union can initiate an investigation on every possibility of subsidy-based competition distortion.

The application of the new regulation has to be limited to countries lacking transparency in terms of subsidy operation, said the American Chamber of Commerce in the European Union, adding, The cost burden and time delay attributable to the data preparation will hinder market innovation in the European Union in the end.

What is important is smooth data exchange using existing bills, not a new bill, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the European Union commented, continuing, This new regulation will lead to a decrease in corporate investment in the European Union.

South Korea is keeping the transparency in accordance with its FTA with the European Union and yet South Korean companies may become innocent victims, the Korea Business Association Europe pointed out, adding, This is because the bill has too much room for arbitrary interpretation and application.

More here:
European Union to Adopt New Subsidy Regulation - BusinessKorea

BRUSSELS Poland and Hungary were criticized sharply Tuesday by the European Commission in a set of reports that said recent actions by the countries threatened judicial independence and undermined the rule of law.

The reports reviewed the state of the rule of law in all 27 European Union member states, and its conclusions about Poland and Hungary were severe, notwithstanding their relatively bland bureaucratic language.

Their impact, however, is likely to be small.

The European Union has no effective tools for quickly disciplining member states, and a new initiative to at least allow the withholding of E.U. coronavirus recovery funds from countries found to be undermining the rule of law will not be put to the test before autumn, if then.

Hungary and Poland get the most attention because they are considered the main offenders when it comes to undermining the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and media pluralism. But numerous other member states, including Austria, Bulgaria, Malta, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, also have serious problems with the same issues.

Hungary and Poland are still seeking commission approval for their recovery spending plans as part of the 800 billion euro about $920 billion pandemic fund. But E.U. officials made clear that the reports released Tuesday were entirely separate from the judgments to be made later about whether to approve or withhold money. Hungary is to get some 7 billion euros, and Poland about 24 billion.

The reports were presented by Vera Jourova, vice president for values and transparency, and Didier Reynders, commissioner for justice. They spoke generally of the effort to establish what Mr. Reynders called a culture of the rule of law.

In a background briefing for journalists, E.U. officials (under the ground rules, they do not allow themselves to be named) were relatively straightforward. About what has happened in Hungary over the last year, one official said: The vast majority of the concerns remain present, and some of them have worsened.

Issues raised in the reports include clientelism, favoritism, nepotism, corruption, pressure on the media and questions about judicial independence.

Hungary is also under renewed attention over its reported use of a sophisticated Israeli-developed spyware called Pegasus to monitor journalists, rights workers, opposition politicians and foreign heads of state.

A consortium of media organizations, including The Washington Post and The Guardian, reported this week that the sophisticated spyware has been used by more than 50 countries. At least five of the smartphones that appeared to be targeted belonged to individuals in Hungary, according to the consortium, and more than 300 Hungarian phone numbers appeared on a list of about 50,000 that included some selected for surveillance using Pegasus, the consortium said.

The European Union has commented carefully on those findings, which emerged after Tuesdays reports were written. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said Monday that if Hungarys use of Pegasus was verified, it is completely unacceptable and against any kind of rules we have in the European Union.

When the freedom of media is concerned, she said, free press is one of the core values of the European Union. It is completely unacceptable if this would be the case.

But once again, the question of any sanctions remains unclear.

There is no real avenue for them against E.U. members that does not rely on a lengthy court process or the unanimous vote of member states which would be impossible, especially since Poland and Hungary have agreed to block any such actions. So-called Article 7 disciplinary proceedings initiated against Poland and Hungary, which in principle could see them denied voting rights, are therefore moot.

Hungarys foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, on Monday denied the use of Pegasus in surveilling civilians. At a news conference, Judit Varga, the justice minister, said: Hungary is a state governed by the rule of law and, like any decent state, in the 21st century it has the technical means to carry out its national security tasks. It would be a serious problem if we did not have these tools, but they are used in a lawful manner.

Analysts were skeptical about the impact of the rule-of-law reports.

In the short term, this report primarily offers a facade of action, said Laurent Pech, a professor of European law at Middlesex University in London, arguing that the commission should have prioritized prompt and decisive enforcement actions.

The findings, Mr. Pech said, may prove helpful in the long term, but he asked, What is the point of a rule-of-law report if, due to lack of decisive action and enforcement, there is no rule of law left to monitor in some countries?

In Poland, one of the reports says, the situation for justice has generally deteriorated, with politicized reforms creating serious concerns as regards the rule of law, in particular judicial independence.

The European Commission is in a major struggle with both countries about the rule of law and the supremacy of European law over national courts. Poland has challenged the authority of the European Court of Justice, which has ordered the suspension of a disciplinary chamber for judges on the grounds that it is politicized and not independent.

Poland has refused, and the commission on Tuesday again warned that it would initiate further actions against the country. If Poland does not comply with the court orders by Aug. 16, the commission will ask the court to penalize Poland financially, Ms. Jourova said.

E.U. law has primacy over national law, she said. There can be no compromise on this.

The report on Poland also cited intimidation of journalists and a growing lack of media pluralism, with a state-owned oil refinery, Orlen, buying a local media group that owns 20 of the 24 regional newspapers in the country.

Established a year ago, these reports are meant to be a kind of health check and early warning system on the state of justice, media freedom and other institutions. But they are written in collaboration with member states, so are inevitably blander than many critics and nongovernmental organizations would prefer.

Still, European Union officials insist that these reports prompt debate, influence political agendas and are used by member states and the E.U. Parliament in making decisions. Mr. Reynders also said they would play an important part in future decisions about disbursing recovery funds.

Mr. Reynders described the reports as maybe one of the most important sources for the possible application of the new conditionality.

Continue reading here:
E.U. Slams Poland and Hungary on Rule of Law, but to Little Effect - The New York Times