Green-left politicians are more than happy to risk ignoring democratic procedures if doing so can deliver their policy objectives.
A new EU environmental law was passed after voters went against the green parties.
D espite the heavy losses the Greens suffered in the European Parliament elections, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen seems to be coming closer to a second term. While nominally a member of the German center-right CDU, she is really a not-so-closeted green-left politician. She has made great efforts to push radical green policies in the EU, including a de facto ban on sales of nearly all new combustion-engine cars after 2035, expanding the EU’s “cap and trade” climate taxation to more sectors, and imposing burdensome and expensive housing-renovation targets. At the same time, right-wing European Parliament election winners are being excluded from top European Union jobs.
Right after the European Parliament elections, the EU’s Nature Restoration Law was passed by EU governments meeting in the Council of the EU. (The EU’s “government” is, roughly speaking, divided between the council, which is mainly composed of the prime ministers of the different member states, the commission, its executive arm, and the EU parliament.) The passing of this law is yet more evidence that the EU is not planning to slow down its efforts to impose costly green regulation. That doesn’t bode well for European industry, which is already struggling with high energy prices.
The Nature Restoration Law, which would be yet another EU regulatory burden imposed on farmers and industry, was assumed dead until, suddenly, the position of Austria changed from abstention to support. This was decided by Leonore Gewessler, Austria’s federal minister for climate action and environment.
In doing so, she went against the wishes of her (Green) party’s coalition partner, the center-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), which counts the Austrian chancellor, Karl Nehammer, in its ranks. Ahead of the vote, he warned the Belgian EU presidency that the approval by Gewessler was unlawful, stating: “Austria’s abstention, which has already been registered in accordance with the usual procedures, must remain in place. . . . This is partly because there is a valid negative opinion from the federal states and the necessary agreement between the federal ministries concerned is lacking.”
Despite this, the (Belgian) minister who chaired the EU Council meeting, Alain Maron, the environment minister of the Brussels Region, decided to allow the vote to take place anyway, thereby also accepting the claim from Gewessler that Austria had changed its position to support the new EU law.
Maron should have postponed the vote, especially given that without Austria’s vote, the law would not have passed. Without Gewessler’s vote, there could only have been a vote on the law after Austria’s parliamentary elections on September 29. Maybe that is why Maron, a member of the Ecolo (Green) party decided to go ahead with it. Another explanation may have been that Hungary, which has opposed the law, was due to assume the EU’s rotating presidency on July 1.
To add insult to injury, Maron was acting in a caretaker capacity, as his party had just suffered massive losses in the June 9 Brussels regional election, and he himself had lost 75 percent of his votes compared with the last election.
Nehammer has started a legal challenge with the European Court of Justice (ECJ), demanding an annulment of the EU Council decision. A national criminal lawsuit against Gewessler has been filed. According to Nehammer, “there is a suspicion that Leonore Gewessler . . . is acting unlawfully and knowingly . . . against the constitution — this constitutes abuse of office.” If prosecutors take up the case and if she is convicted, she risks a prison sentence of six months to five years, extended to ten years if the inflicted damage exceeds €50,000.
Legal experts are divided on whether the ECJ challenge will be successful. In any case, it will not lead to a temporary suspension of the Nature Restoration Act, which has also already been adopted by the European Parliament, despite the efforts of the center-right European People’s Party (von der Leyen’s own EU party affiliation, as it happens) to block it. The law has already been somewhat softened by the European Parliament, which decided that EU member states would no longer be required to deliver on curtailing damage to nature, instead being obliged to “make an effort” to do so. That reduced obligation still exposes member states to environmentalist lawfare.
The way the legislation was passed exposes a much greater problem than the regulation itself. It exposes how — to nobody’s surprise — green-left politicians are more than happy to risk ignoring democratic procedures if doing so can deliver their policy objectives.
In an editorial in De Morgen, Belgian journalist Bart Eeckhout, a left-leaning commentator, warns: “The green joy over the approval of the nature restoration law could be short-lived. Who will protect democracy now that even the greens place their conscience above the rules of the game? . . . This is a risky precedent that undermines the rules of European democracy. Will the greens also find it courageous if right-wing ministers devise a tough migration policy on their own in the European Councils of Ministers?”
I think we know the answer to that question.