nEUwsletter 25/11/2019

European Parliament declares climate emergency: a turning point in the climate change policy ?

By Emmanuel Jeanny

Members of the European Parliament take part in a voting session in Strasbourg, France, November 28, 2019. MEP's voted on a "climate emergency" resolution ahead of a United Nations climate conference in Madrid that begins on Monday, December 2. Vincent Kessler/REUTERS

On the 28th November, the European Parliament declared by a symbolic vote “climate and environment emergency”. This motion has been adopted by a comfortable majority of 429 to 225. Although this decision has no binding force because it is not a directive nor a regulation, it shows the position of the European institutions in the climate change. Indeed, the EU is the first international organization to make such a decision showing its will of being the leader of the policies for ecologic transition in a time when some countries don’t raise awareness concerning this issue. Indeed, some weeks before the Cop25 in Madrid and three weeks after the confirmation of Donald Trump of leaving the Paris agreement, the world needs an efficient policy to protect the climate.

Furthermore, this decision has been made in order to increase the pressure on the European countries, to make these respect the objective of limiting global warming under 1.5 degrees Celcius. This decision follows some national declarations of climate emergency as it is the case in Austria or in the United Kingdom.

Some other decisions of this institution have to be noticed. First, this motion came after a vote to endorse the new European Commission to transform the “European green deal” for a low-carbon future. The parliament also declared that member States should increase their contribution to the “international green fund”. Although the EU states are the largest providers of public finance, the pledge by the developed countries to collect 100 billion dollars in 2020 has not been met yet.

Finally, the new European Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen, in her pledges has plans by 2025 to dedicate half of the climate investment to the “Europe’s climate bank”, in extending the emissions trading system (a system which taxes polluting industries) to include further sectors such as the maritime one and the aviation and traffic one. She also said that she wants Europe to become the first continent to reduce emission to zero by 2050 and that targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 must be more ambitious.

Sources:

The Washington Post

France 24

NATO: Political tensions undermining an already ageing alliance.

By Thomas Lezeau

Credits: Getty Images

On Thursday the 7th of November, French President Emmanuel Macron came out with bold words to qualify the seventy-year-old North Atlantic Treaty Organization, qualifying it as being “in a brain dead state”, criticizing the lack of coordination between Europe and the United States as well as Turkey’s unilateral behaviour in Syria. These comments were immediately decried and criticized by Berlin, London and Washington whereas Moscow applauded Mr Macron for his “golden words”. NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, on the other hand, declared that NATO was “still strong” and that member States need to “work together more than have done for decades”. Mike Pompeo and the United States then took the opportunity to remind the other member States that they desire a better sharing of the financial charges, which are, it is true, mostly covered by the US as of now.

Next Tuesday and Wednesday will take place the 2019 NATO Summit in London with a new problem in the air: on Friday the 29th, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called out Emmanuel Macron as being in a “brain dead state”- referring to the expression used earlier this month by his French counterpart - after France had criticized Turkey’s attacks against Kurdish forces in northern Syria. As a consequence of this rash and provocative declaration, France summoned the Turkish ambassador in Paris for an explanation. The context in which the summit will take place is therefore extremely tense and rather than the risk of the summit simply being a failure, NATO’s whole future might be at stake next Tuesday and Wednesday…

Adoption of the European Union budget

By Charles Elie-Martin

Credits: Shutterstock

On the 27th November, the EU Parliament approved, by a large majority (543 votes for, 136 against), the EU budget for 2020. It has increased by 1.5% in comparison with 2019, amounting now to 168.7 billion euros.

Where does the money come from ?

The EU has four sources of revenues. The first, and most important one, is the Gross National Income (GNI) own resources, namely the national contributions from member States. As its name suggests it, its amount is based on each member State's GNI. This method of calculation is the rationale for the disparities between the different countries. As examples, Germany -the largest contributor to the EU budget - provided 19.6 billion euros in 2017, whereas Malta -the smallest contributor- provided 82.4 million euros that same year. Several countries, for instance, Germany and the Netherlands, recently pleaded for a rebalancing of financial expenses. This source is, in theory, residual, meaning that it was created in order to fulfill the gaps left by the other revenues. However, in practice, it accounted for 56.1% of the total budget in 2017.

Secondly, traditional own resources are taxes raised by member States on behalf of the EU. This source is mainly concerned with custom duties on EU imported goods. Thirdly, the VAT-based own resources is a contribution by member States funded by a portion of their VAT on the basis of a harmonised VAT base, as there is one rate and specific exemptions by country. Fourthly, other revenues which include taxes and deductions from EU staff remuneration, interests and fines.

How will the money be spent ?

There are different budget components. In 2020, the majority of the funds will be allocated to the support of sustainable growth (59.9 billion euros) as well as the economic, social and territorial cohesion (58.6 billion euros). Another important component is the competitiveness for growths and jobs (25.3 billion euros). In the same way as the previous years, a substantial part of the budget will be allocated to the administration of the EU (10.3 billion euros).

More concretely, the Parliament reconsidered the budget in order to focus some funds on the Erasmus+ program for students, as well as for the struggle against global warming.

The creation of a European direct tax

The idea of a direct tax in the EU is old and more than once discussed. The main justification for the creation of such a tax is to avoid financial opacity by granting the EU with a true own resource. Moreover, it has been suggested that a direct tax could be a further step in the development of the EU citizenship.

However, this project is technically and politically tricky to support. Technically, first, a direct tax would require a fiscal harmonization at the European Union level, which has not happened yet and is laboriously applicable for now. Politically, then, regarding the democratic representation within the EU as the Commission is proposing the budget whereas its members are not elected by the European people. However, there can be, quoting American revolutioners, no taxation without representation.