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Chancellor Merkel at the EU summit: "It was always clear what our schedule looks like"
Photo: Kenzo Tribouillard / AP
Angela Merkel looked a little out of breath when she opened the final video press conference on Friday after a two-day EU summit.
"We had a very busy program today and yesterday," said the Chancellor.
The next seven-year EU budget, the corona recovery program, the joint fight against the corona virus and Brexit were on the agenda - all complicated topics.
And the EU is under time pressure for all of them.
A long-term problem like climate change can get under the wheels, even if it has long since become a noticeable crisis.
The heads of state and government of the EU, according to the final declaration of the summit, do not want to continue discussing until December how much the EU's greenhouse gas emissions should decrease by 2030.
The date is considered a decisive milestone: if the EU wants to achieve its goal of being climate neutral by 2050, it must reduce emissions more quickly than previously planned over the next ten years.
In any case, the current reduction target of 40 percent will not be enough, as the EU Commission has calculated.
Its president Ursula von der Leyen has therefore recently proposed an increase to at least 55 percent.
"Weak response" to China's initiative
She was "very much in favor," said Merkel after the summit.
But Merkel did not want to go along with a statement by eleven of the 27 heads of state and government who had demanded that the 55 percent target be set before the summit - unlike, for example, French President Emmanuel Macron.
The Chancellor left the question of why unanswered.
In any case, von der Leyen's proposal has only been available since September.
Merkel said the commission must first consult with all member states about the consequences of implementing the 55 percent target.
In December you can then see how it goes on.
"It was always clear what our schedule was like."
But it does not meet with approval everywhere - if only because the possible climax of the second coronavirus wave in December could again push climate protection into the political sidelines.
"It is risky to wait until the next EU summit in December," says Lutz Weischer from the environmental organization Germanwatch.
With the 55 percent target, the EU Commission made a decisive contribution to China's commitment to becoming climate-neutral by 2060.
"The international dynamic is now threatening to stall," said Weischer.
The summit declaration is a "weak response" to China's initiative.
The Green MEP Sven Giegold made a similar statement.
By waiting until December, "the EU is giving away the chance for a positive dynamic," said Giegold.
And even if a common stance were agreed at the December summit, negotiations with Parliament and the Commission would slide into 2021 - in the EU Council presidencies of Portugal or Slovenia.
The Federal Government, which currently holds the rotating Council Presidency, "achieved nothing with its great political weight in the climate".
In the end it's all about the money again
In addition, it is not certain whether the heads of state and government will ultimately decide on the 55 percent target, nor how exactly it will be achieved.
It is true that the summit communiqué states that all member countries should contribute to a higher climate target.
In doing so, however, "national circumstances" will be taken into account as well as "fairness and solidarity".
A hiccup about who does how much is programmed with it.
Resistance is to be expected in particular from some Eastern European countries, which are still heavily dependent on coal and gas.
Bulgaria's Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, for example, has already described the currently applicable reduction target of 40 percent as his "absolute upper limit".
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš named 55 percent "not feasible" for his country.
So far, Poland has not even committed itself to climate neutrality by 2050, but is the only EU country to receive an exception.
In the end it threatens to be about money again.
For example, the EU has set up a billion-dollar transition fund to cushion the social and economic consequences of the phase-out from fossil fuels.
But those who are not prepared to do anything for the EU climate goals, it is said from the EU Commission, cannot claim any money from the pot.
And experience shows that when it comes to money, negotiations in the EU usually take a little longer.
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