Analysis
What remains of the Green Deal
‘We are facing the biggest attack ever on the Green Deal.’ The ambitious climate targets the EU once set to comply with the Paris Agreement are now little more than a dead letter.
Europe is doubling down on competitiveness and hitting the brakes on the Green Deal. This change in political winds is nothing new, but unlike the recurring legislative reversals in recent years, the slowdown decided on Thursday received a solemn, official political blessing from the European Council, which brings together EU heads of state and government.
The banner under which this epochal shift is taking place is now “competitiveness,” a magic word which has already acquired legitimacy by invoking Mario Draghi’s highly influential report. For almost all leaders of the 27 EU countries, this translates into a demand for fewer constraints on businesses.
The discussion on environmental issues came after a long morning dedicated to Ukrainian President Zelensky, who was present in Brussels, and after the realization that untangling the knots around the use of frozen Russian assets would require further discussion later in the evening, when ECB President Christine Lagarde joined the leaders.
European Council President António Costa has now convened an extraordinary summit focused solely on competitiveness for February 12. This was in response to a request sent on Wednesday by 19 countries – including Italy – which claimed legislative simplification was a precondition for competitiveness: one must have only a “minimum necessary level of regulation,” a goal which requires accelerated efforts to achieve.
The ambitious climate targets the EU once set to comply with the Paris Agreement are now little more than a dead letter. The goal of a 90% emissions reduction by 2040 (compared to 1990 levels) remains in effect on paper, but the agreed-upon methods for achieving it render it largely meaningless. The Council’s conclusions, approved on Thursday evening, explicitly state the need to use pragmatic and realistic means. They mention carbon reduction tools, counting international credits in the Emissions Trading System (ETS), and a review clause “taking into account scientific evidence and technological advancements.” Finally, they insist on considering the “global competitiveness situation.”
Among the requested changes is a chapter on the automotive sector, where Italy, working with Germany, sees an opening for the use of biofuels, though France and Spain remain explicitly opposed. There are also calls to revise the ETS2, a new emissions accounting system for road transport and buildings set to start in 2027.
The Commission has thus answered the leaders' call in their letter, signaling readiness towards a downward adjustment of climate targets under the looming threat of rising fuel and energy prices. According to a diplomatic source, no leader raised any objections during the climate discussion.
“We are facing the biggest attack ever on the Green Deal,” responded Bas Eickhout, a Dutch MEP and leader of the European Greens. Eickhout pointed to the continuous backtracking on long-settled decisions, like the 2035 phase-out of combustion engines, and the broader deregulation agenda. He then took aim at governments, particularly Germany and France, which are “creating investment uncertainty, putting European industry at risk and handing over the keys to the future of clean technologies to China.”
The European Parliament also reacted. On Wednesday, progressive MEPs, riled up by the ongoing flirtation between the center-right EPP and the far right, united to narrowly reject a watered-down compromise on the corporate due diligence directive – a key piece of Green Deal legislation. However, EU leaders dismissed this as a parliamentary hiccup. The minor rebellion was quickly quashed by EPP leader Manfred Weber and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who called blocking the due diligence directive “unacceptable.”
Following Thursday's Council meeting, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola promised another vote on the directive to get back to business as usual: “It is our duty to keep our commitments.”
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/quel-che-resta-del-green-deal on 2025-10-24