Ursula von der Leyen amputates the Green Deal to save its life

Dr. Ursula von der Leyen has never had a patient quite like the Green Deal — and the treatment she’s prescribing for the viral politics infecting her landmark policy is amputation. 

Europe’s green agenda is under attack from a motley coalition of corporate lobbyists, far-right rabble rousers and von der Leyen’s own political family, the center-right European People’s Party (EPP).

Von der Leyen, the top EU executive and a medical doctor before she entered politics, is adamant she wants to save the patient, even if that means removing some of its minor limbs.

After all, von der Leyen considers the Green Deal one of her signal political achievements. 

“We’re standing firm by the European Green Deal. Climate change won’t go away," said European Commission Chief Spokesperson Paula Pinho.

Launched at the beginning of her first term as European Commission president in 2019, the Green Deal promised to completely overhaul the EU economy — slashing climate-warming pollution to zero, reshaping agriculture, transport and energy, and bringing industry, corporations and citizens into harmony with nature.

But last year’s EU election delivered an alternative right-wing majority in the European Parliament — in addition to the centrist one that backed von der Leyen’s second term. EPP President Manfred Weber has since been using that right-leaning majority to target green legislation. 

In response, von der Leyen has supported looser rules on car emissions, stripped-down corporate regulations and redirected green funds — to name a few items.

But thus far, the Green Deal’s core — a net-zero drive for 2050 and the laws to deliver it — has not changed. And that’s von der Leyen’s strategy. 

“We're in a very different place than we were at the beginning of the first mandate” in 2019, said a Commission official who is familiar with von der Leyen’s thinking and was granted anonymity to protect their relationship. “[The president] remains committed to the Green Deal, it just now has to incorporate some of these changed realities.”

Slimming down

In 2020, von der Leyen said the Green Deal was about “much more than cutting emissions.” Yet EU officials and von der Leyen's advisers now say her vision has shifted away from an all-encompassing drive for sustainability on every level. 

While some of those broader goals remain, the emphasis is now on preserving what von der Leyen views as the core of the Green Deal: its climate change laws and the EU’s efforts to stamp out its greenhouse gas pollution by 2050.

This is closer to what Weber is prepared to accept as well.

That shift has guided von der Leyen in making compromises on a flock of environmental rules — often under the guise of easing the bureaucratic burden on companies.

"Simplification is in the interest of the European Green Deal. If it gets too complex, it won’t be done,” Pinho said.

The Commission has binned requirements for companies to report on their environmental impacts and exposure to climate risks. It has watered down a ban on the sale of combustion engine vehicles by 2035. It has killed a law controlling pesticides. The list could go on.

Meanwhile, the prospect of an attempt to regulate carbon pollution from agriculture — a major emitter — has faded.

Frustration has been mounting among those political groups that want to preserve a full-bodied vision of the Green Deal. They argue that the climate, nature and corporate responsibility drives are all interlinked, and that companies and citizens need to be given a clear sense of direction. 

Meanwhile, the impacts of spiraling declines in biodiversity, natural habitats and the stability of the climate grow worse by the day.

“All this demonization of the climate policies … creates a lot of uncertainty,” said Vula Tsetsi, co-chair of the European Green Party. It is von der Leyen’s role, she said, “to defend what for her has been so important in the previous legislation, meaning the Green Deal. And she should not give up.”

Last Friday, von der Leyen seemed to make her most dramatic concession yet to Weber’s demands. After the EPP and far-right groups pushed the Commission to ditch an anti-greenwashing measure, the EU executive seemed to indicate it would withdraw the bill.

An enormous row ensued. Centrist and center-left parties accused von der Leyen of being subservient to Weber and the far right’s anti-green agenda. 

“VDL needs to get EPP in line," said Socialist European Parliament member Tiemo Wölken, who worked on the law, using the Brussels nickname for von der Leyen. The European Parliament's biggest group is trying to "kill everything related to the sustainability agenda,” he added.

But in a twist, it turned out the Commission hadn’t meant it, or misspoke — it wasn't clear. 

And von der Leyen’s position, as POLITICO reported on Tuesday, is that she stands by the proposal, as long as the greenwashing rules don’t apply to the smallest companies.

But even as that conflict rumbles on, a new, direct attack on the Green Deal’s core climate mission is gathering steam. 

Next week the Commission is to present its 2040 climate target, but a coalition of countries is pushing to stop the goal from affecting more near-term climate efforts. That could further delay EU attempts to establish a critical milestone, which is already far behind schedule — and weaken other climate efforts in the process. 

The EPP also has its grumbles about the 2040 target, seeking more flexibility on how countries can reach their goals.

The Commission is listening. According to a draft of the EU executive's 2040 proposal, countries will be allowed to outsource some emissions cuts to poorer nations. Notably, however, von der Leyen's preferred 90 percent emissions-cut target remains — another concession made to save the overall goal.

What will von der Leyen do if the virus enters the body? Leeches? Or euthanasia?

Louise Guillot contributed reporting from Brussels.