Although the climate problem is far from solved, the green transition can no longer gather the same momentum in the EU as it could a few years ago. This was acknowledged by the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, at a press conference at the Prime Minister's Office.
The climate issue has been displaced by other agendas that concern citizens more.
- In some countries, security is the biggest concern. Elsewhere, it is the housing market or employment that people are most concerned about, she says and continues:
- If you put the three elements together, that is overall what we were asked to deliver on in the elections in June last year.
The statements were made by Metsola while she is visiting the European Parliament's Conference of Presidents in Copenhagen ahead of the Danish EU presidency.
Here, Roberta Metsola is asked why the EU is struggling to agree on a new climate target for 2040 - and whether it should be a 90 percent reduction.
New problems in focus
Roberta Metsola explains that the European Parliament has received a new mandate from the voters compared to the last election period.
- This is a discussion that is driven by many factors and especially which priorities are important in your own local area, says she.
This is a reference to concerns about housing, security and jobs. Roberta Metsola believes that citizens have sent a signal to politicians in the Union that climate policy must not be at the expense of efforts to combat these problems.
- We cannot continue to push towards climate goals without addressing the main concerns in the countries where the poverty gap is growing, because then we have not responded to the concerns of our citizens, she says.
Instead, climate measures and perspectives should be incorporated into the rest of the policy.
- We can no longer separate the economy from the climate. For many years we did that. Where we talked about economic growth, investments and competitiveness in a separate track from the climate, says Metsola.
That must stop, she says. For example, competitiveness can be about getting cheap, green energy.
/ritzau/
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