Foreign Policy: It’s a New Europe—if You Can Keep It

 The lockdowns that stopped the virus in Europe have had a devastating economic impact. Again, the American habit of dramatizing data by means of annualizing rates of change disguises the fact that economic implosion in Europe has been every bit as bad, if not worse. The U.S. economy fell 9.5 percent in the second quarter of 2020. Germany’s contracted by 10 percent. In Spain, the collapse was twice as bad, at 18.5 percent. (If Spain reported its data in the American style, it would be down 65 percent on the year.) [...]

In the process, the more conservative voices of Northern Europe extracted serious concessions. Unfortunately, those came at the expense of some of the more progressive and innovative budget elements, including spending on joint efforts in the areas of health care and green investment. Thankfully, the package is up for debate in the European Parliament, which is, step by step, asserting leverage over Europe’s politics. Earlier in the crisis, the Parliament favored a far more expansive plan, and hopefully it will make adjustments to the July compromise. [...]

This summer, there was certainly nothing inevitable about the way the deal was done. It did not seem likely. Credit goes to the European Commission for raising the stakes, upping the original suggestion by Merkel and Macron to an ask of 750 billion euros, on top of the regular 1.1 trillion euro ($1.3 trillion) multiyear budget. (It was the Commission’s officials who dug up the legal precedent that would allow the EU to justify massive borrowing.) Among national governments, one has to admire the Spanish and Italians, who began the long march toward a constructive European response back in March and suffered through the demeaning objections of Northern Europeans without walking away. The best that can be said for the Dutch and the Austrians is that they gave way in the end. Perhaps the shameless defense of the narrowest conception of national interest by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz will serve some useful purpose in dampening criticism from their domestic populists. [...]

It was not by accident that as the crisis deepened, the French government started its latest approach to Berlin not via the chancellery but by working its connections to the Social Democrats in the German Finance Ministry. In a desperate effort to revive the flagging political fortunes of the Social Democrats and his own chances of party leadership in 2019, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz had become the leading German proponent of European reform, pushing ideas both for unemployment insurance and banking. Both had been met by stony disapproval from the CDU and a nein from the chancellery.

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Social Europe: An economic, as well as a monetary, union?

The significance of the five-day European Council is not simply the sheer size of the €1.2 trillion stimulus to be given the EU economy but the unprecedented scale of the collective borrowing the union will undertake on world financial markets, to finance that recovery strategy. Of the €750 billion to be invested in post-pandemic economic recovery, an unprecedented €390 billion will be in grants, not repayable loans. [...]

To pay for the collective-borrowing programme, the summit also agreed—in principle—to new common taxes. These include levies on plastics and polluting imports and a digital tax. Although details remain to be agreed, this is a radical step towards an EU fiscal policy. [...]

The logic of what was agreed may, though, demand still further and more radical changes in future. The union will also have to decide whether the wind of change must sweep through the forthcoming Convention on the Future of Europe—and lead to major reforms of the EU constitution itself.

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Politico: Pandemic has left Europeans thirsty for change, poll finds

According to the poll, a majority of respondents across all six countries said the COVID-19 pandemic has made them "more aware of the living conditions of other people" in their country, ranging from 56 percent in Poland and France to 73 percent in Italy. Beyond national borders, the crisis has triggered similar reactions, with about three-quarters of all respondents agreeing that "no matter where we are from, as humans we are fundamentally the same." [...]

The desire for a fresh start was particularly manifest with regard to questions about the environment. A Green New Deal "that makes large-scale government investments to make our economy more environmentally friendly," for example, resonated positively with 59 percent of German respondents, 71 percent in Poland, and 77 percent in Italy. [...]

Solidarity is not confined to national borders, however, with 48 percent of Dutch respondents supporting the idea of a European Reconstruction Fund and common debt, even though the government of the Netherlands is one of the so-called frugal four countries.

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Social Europe: The Green Deal may not be green enough

The Green Deal covers areas such as energy, construction, agriculture and transport, and further develops the concept of the ‘circular economy’ as well as the EU’s biodiversity strategy. The details of how existing policies will have to be adapted and new ones introduced will be worked out over 2020 and 2021.

However, the plan as currently constituted is not enough. The Green Deal remains ‘a new growth strategy’, based on the same ideology that led us into the climate crisis. Although the aim is to reduce the carbon-intensity of our lifestyle, it is continuing the path of further growth. It allows continuous extraction and consumption of unsustainable and non-renewable resources, with natural gas—specifically the less carbon-intensive liquefied natural gas—as an important part of the energy strategy for an (indefinite) transition period, including carbon-capture and storage (which is a long-term strategy by default). [...]

The speed and intensity with which we act is decisive: the more moderately we act, the more effort will be needed to try to contain global warming to an average 1.5C—if that’s still possible. Climate NGOs further stress that the EU should choose strategies that avoid a temporary overshoot of the 1.5-degree objective and which consequently also rely least on unproven removal technologies (including carbon capture and storage) to bring the temperature rise back below 1.5C in case of overshoot. They are not the only experts judging that the development and deployment of sustainable negative emission technologies at a global scale is unreliable today. [...]

What we need instead is a revolution in our lifestyles. We need a radically different way of thinking. We need to tap into existing movements and forms of organisation that have a ‘healthy eco-system-first’ strategy and apply indicators that do not reflect quantitative production capacity (gross domestic product) but the improvement of our (qualitative) wellbeing. Without this change, we cannot reach net-zero emissions and we cannot contain global warming to 1.5 degrees.

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Social Europe: Keeping the promise of eurozone convergence

Fundamentally, they are political. Technical proposals for rendering the eurozone robust have been tabled time and again: a eurozone investment budget, a European deposit-insurance scheme, a proper eurozone unemployment-(re)insurance system, the issuance of joint- and several-liability eurobonds. And, time and time again, these have been discussed, diluted and typically disposed of in a drawer.

The truth is there is insufficient trust to move forward. Resilience requires risk-sharing; risk-sharing requires trust. Trust, however, has been eroded by disappointment—disappointment that a decade of austerity has failed to reduce debt, disappointment that two decades of the euro have failed to bring convergence. [...]

This promise has not been fulfilled. On the contrary, the eurozone has been drifting apart—since long before the current crisis. While in 1999, GDP per capita in northern Europe was around €2,000 above the eurozone average, by 2019 it was €4,500 higher. Conversely, Italy and other southern-European countries have lost ground, from about €4,000 below the eurozone average in 1999 to €7,500 below 20 years later. Instead of shrinking, the gap has doubled. [...]

A more promising approach is to even out the regional distribution of value added. Andalusia, the Uckermark and metropolitan areas such as Naples or Thessaloniki should be brought to similar levels of productivity as Munich, Milan or the Amsterdam metropolitan area.

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EURACTIV: In political U-turn, Czechs back EU’s green recovery plan

If confirmed, the move would mark a U-turn from previous government positions. In March, as the coronavirus pandemic started spreading across the continent, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš urged Europe to “forget about the Green Deal now and focus on the coronavirus instead”. [...]

The European Commission has promised to raise the EU’s emissions reduction target to 50-55% by 2030, up from 40% currently. The proposal is due to be released later this year, after the EU executive completes a detailed cost-benefit analysis.[...]

In addition, Czechs seem broadly supportive of climate action. According to a survey published in March, 84% of Czech people think that climate change caused by human activities threatens their future. And 79% believe the Czech Republic should aim to achieve net-zero emissions, the survey found.

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Engadget: EU plans to introduce sweeping 'right to repair' legislation for electronics

If the European Parliament were to pass legislation, it would extend its eco-design law to cover phones, tablets and computers, and likely force tech companies to completely rethink the designs of their products. The legislation would also require those same companies to provide easy to access information related to the repairability and durability of their products. At the moment, most consumers have to turn to websites like iFixit to find information on how to fix their devices. "Single-use will be restricted, premature obsolescence tackled and the destruction of unsold durable goods banned," the Commission said. [...]

The plan is one part of the European Green Deal, a policy initiative the EU announced last year. Like the Green New Deal advocated by congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the goal of the European Green Deal is to transform the continent's economy in light of the climate crisis. [...]

The plan is the latest attempt by the EU to tackle electronic waste. In January, European Union lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favor of legislation to push to device manufacturers to adopt a shared charging cable standard. The new legislation is likely to face stiff resistance from manufacturers. Ahead of the charger vote, Apple said any regulation would "stifle innovation" and ultimately hurt consumers more than it would help them.

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Social Europe: Just Transition Fund can boost European coal phase-out

The European Commission’s proposal for a Just Transition Fund has the potential to add to this momentum, by making the EU’s remaining coal countries an offer too attractive to refuse. The fund is one of three pillars of a new Just Transition Mechanism, a central part of the European Green Deal. Next to it, a dedicated scheme under the InvestEU fund and a public-sector loan facility with the European Investment Bank will support regions and sectors most affected by the union’s transition to climate neutrality. [...]

To receive funding, countries will need to draw up territorial transition plans. Such plans are an essential element of a just-transition process, as they give prospective security to workers, industries, investors and communities. Importantly, these strategies need to be driven by all stakeholders from affected regions: people from a given region best know its strengths and weaknesses and what they want it to look like in the future. [...]

Under the proposed allocation criteria for the Just Transition Fund, Poland and Germany will stand to benefit the most. Allocation of funding is based on greenhouse-gas emissions, employment or production levels in a certain industry, economic development and the number of inhabitants—climate ambition is entirely missing from this equation. [...]

The European Parliament has already made clear that Just Transition funding must be conditional on coal phase-out plans. Among member states, the EU countries which are members of the Powering Past Coal Alliance control a comfortable majority and share a common interest in insisting on strict climate conditionality.

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