It was the crown jewel of a climate agenda that defined Ursula von der Leyen’s first term as Commission president. But a little over two years after it was enacted, the European Union’s 2035 ban on gasoline-powered cars is dead. Its killers: Germany, home of Europe’s largest car industry, and the center-right European People’s Party, the pro-business political family to which von der Leyen and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz belong. It was their pressure that forced the Commission’s hand, after Berlin went from potentially abstaining on a vote to undercutting the entire combustion engine ban — all within three weeks.  Under the new proposal, the ban would be replaced by a target to reduce emissions by 90 percent in all cars sold after 2035. That means a range of vehicles will be part of the mix long past 2035, including pure combustion engines and plug-in hybrids that have both a combustion engine and an electric motor —  as long as they are offset with made-in-EU green steel and alternative fuels derived from non-fossil sources. Germany and the EPP argued the outright ban constrained the ability of European automakers to compete and took the freedom of choice away from consumers.  “Six months ago, it was unthinkable that the Commission would make this course correction,” an EU diplomat said, calling Germany’s “decisive intervention” a game changer in the fate of the law. “The ideology of pure electric is ending.”  After winning the majority of seats in the European Parliament in 2024, EPP chief Manfred Weber, also from Germany, said overturning the ban would be his top priority in the new era.  Weber claimed victory on Tuesday, calling the reformed legislation cutting the 2035 emissions target from 100 percent to 90 percent a “massive reduction.”   “We only can win the fight against climate change if we combine it with an economically reasonable approach. The combustion engine is allowed to be sold in the European Union after 2035,” he told a Tuesday press conference ahead of the announcement.  Cars account for 16 percent of EU emissions, making the ban an important — and certainly the most visible — pillar of the EU’s climate policy of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. By the Commission’s own calculations, dropping the emissions target to 90 percent means that 25 percent of the cars sold after 2035 would emit CO2, equivalent to roughly 2.6 million vehicles. The new targets are part of a broader automotive package put forward by the European Commission on Tuesday that included a new regulation mandating zero-emissions corporate fleet targets for each EU country, a battery booster to increase supply, and a regulatory red-tape cutting measure that introduces a new small-car initiative.  German Chancellor Merz, who also advocated reversing the ban in his bid for office, took a more measured tone, calling the revised ban “a clear signal” that it is the right way to “better align climate targets, market realities, companies and jobs.| Kay Nietfeld/Getty Images) The combined measures are meant to boost Europe’s automakers, which are facing a trade war courtesy of U.S. President Donald Trump, stiff competition from Chinese incumbents with high-tech electric vehicles, and stagnant sales across the bloc.  German Chancellor Merz, who also advocated reversing the ban in his bid for office, took a more measured tone, calling the revised ban “a clear signal” that it is the right way to “better align climate targets, market realities, companies and jobs.” For months Merz had tried to corral his governing coalition — which combines the conservative Christian Democrats and the center-left Social Democrats — into a common position on the ban. While the CDU pushed hard for it to be overturned, the SPD wanted to hold the line. Ultimately the conservatives won, putting forward a request for regulation that walks a line between industrial competitiveness and protecting the climate. NO ONE’S HAPPY While the Commission calls it a balanced approach that still paves the way for electric vehicles to take over from CO2-emitting cars, political groups across the spectrum call it a disaster — albeit for different reasons.  The left says reversing the ban will deal a blow to the climate and yet fail to give Europe’s automakers a competitive boost.  “The real problem facing Europe’s car industry is not a law that takes effect in 10 years. It is the collapse of European car sales in China and the steady global decline of combustion-engine markets,” said German Greens MEP Michael Bloss. “Continuing to bet on combustion engines is not an industrial strategy — it is a failure of one.” For the far right, meanwhile, the measures don’t go far enough. MEP Volker Schnurrbusch, a member of Germany’s opposition AfD party, said in a debate in the Parliament that the real issue is the Commission “dictating” what form of transport consumers use. The European Conservatives and Reformists, meanwhile, called the reformed 2035 law a missed opportunity that “falls short of providing the bold actions” needed to make the sector more globally competitive. The differing views on the ban’s reversal will continue to be heard in negotiations among the EU’s institutions, particularly in the Council where EU capitals will battle it out with Cyprus — a small country with no automotive sector — acting as referee. Already, France is gearing up for a fight. “The negotiations are just beginning,” a Paris officials said, adding that allowing combustion engine cars to be sold past 2035 is a red line for the country, even as it gets its desired European preference requirements. Behind the scenes, the automotive sector will continue to lobby to undercut the regulation even more. “The announced measures to mandate the greening of corporate fleets risk running counter to the necessary market and incentive-based approach,” EU car lobby ACEA said in a statement.   Yet that is exactly what the Commission is hoping, with multiple industry officials telling POLITICO that the corporate fleets measure is meant to act as a backstop for the gutting of the combustion engine ban. Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra admitted as much in his remarks before the Parliament Tuesday evening.   “Corporate fleets will steer the clean transition and will help the automakers meet their targets,” he said. The proposal must now be debated by member countries and in the European Parliament.

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s environment ministers struck a deal watering down a proposed 2040 target for cutting planet-warming emissions and set a new 2035 climate plan. Following marathon negotiations all day Tuesday and into Wednesday morning, ministers unanimously approved the bloc’s long-overdue climate plan, rescuing the EU from the international embarrassment of showing up empty handed this month’s COP30 summit. The plan, which is a requirement under the Paris Agreement, sets a new goal to slash EU emissions between 66.25 percent and 72.5 percent below 1990 levels until 2035. That plan is not legally binding but sets the direction of EU climate policy for the coming five years. The range is similar to an informal statement that the EU presented at a climate summit in New York in September. Ministers also adopted a legally-binding target for cutting emissions in the EU by 85 percent by 2040. The deal mandates that another 5 percent reduction be achieved by outsourcing pollution cuts abroad through the purchase of international carbon credits. On top of that, governments would be allowed to use credits to outsource another 5 percentage points of their national emissions reduction goals. Ministers also backed a wide-ranging review clause that allows the EU to adjust its 2040 target in the future if climate policy proves to have negative impacts on the EU’s economy. The deal also foresees a one-year delay to the implementation of the EU’s new carbon market for heating and car emissions, which is set to start in 2027. Hungary, Slovakia and Poland did not support the 2040 deal, while Bulgaria and Belgium abstained. The rest of the EU27 countries backed it. Lawmakers in the European Parliament now have to agree on their own position on the 2040 climate target and negotiate with the Council of the EU before the target becomes law. 

BRUSSELS — For years, the extreme right was content pooh-poohing the European Union’s climate efforts from the back benches. No longer.  On Tuesday, the far-right Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament seized control of talks over the bloc’s next emissions-cutting milestone, a surprise move that shocked centrist MEPs.  The Patriots — the political home of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz, Matteo Salvini’s League and other far-right forces — have called on the EU to “abandon” the European Green Deal, the legislative framework guiding the continent toward climate neutrality by 2050.  Now they will be in charge of drafting the Parliament’s position on the EU’s 2040 interim climate target — and defending that stance in upcoming negotiations with EU capitals. They will also control the Parliament’s timeline, prompting concerns of deliberate delays as the group explicitly stated its resistance to the law.  The Patriots are “resolutely opposed” to the Commission’s recent proposal to cut EU greenhouse gas emissions by up to 90 percent by 2040, the group’s chairman, Jordan Bardella, told reporters at a press conference Tuesday.  “Therefore, we indicated our readiness to work on this report, and we would like to assert our vision,” he said in response to a question from POLITICO. “We are not in favor of declining growth levels. We’re not in favor of abandoning our industrial base and leaving them in the lurch. We are absolutely aware of the very negative and damaging effect of the left and the ecologists, and we want to counter this.”  The reversal comes at a delicate time for Europe’s green agenda, which has faced intense pushback not only from the far right but also from the EPP, the political family of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.  | Guillaume Horcajuelo/EPA The Patriots’ assertive stance marks a significant shift from the Parliament’s previous term, when far-right MEPs largely restricted themselves to jeering from the sidelines and filing futile amendments to EU climate laws. The group’s ideological allies cheered the news as an unprecedented opportunity to constrain the bloc’s green ambitions.  The reversal comes at a delicate time for Europe’s green agenda, which has faced intense pushback not only from the far right but also from the center-right European People’s Party, the political family of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.  The Patriots’ move has backed conservatives into a corner. The EPP has been reluctant to endorse the 2040 target, and was prepared to reject a motion initiated by the Greens to fast-track parliamentary talks on the goal.  Now, however, that motion represents the best shot centrist forces have to curb the far right’s influence.   That’s leaving the EPP with a fateful choice: Either throw its weight behind a fast-tracked target alongside the Greens, Socialists and Democrats, and other centrists — or side with the far right and risk dealing a death blow to von der Leyen’s fragile majority.  FAR RIGHT, NOT SO FAR AWAY The Patriots’ maneuver displays their growing influence in Brussels.  On Tuesday morning, the Parliament’s political groups met to decide who would name the lead MEP, or rapporteur, for the 2040 climate target. That lawmaker gets to draft the Parliament’s stance — although other lawmakers can amend it — and to defend this position in talks with EU governments, as well as to decide on the timeline of discussions.  These leadership roles are handed out through auctions, with each group given points based on their size that they can spend throughout the term. The Patriots simply outbid the other groups.  Centrist and left-leaning MEPs were aghast. The Patriots, they feared, would use this position to delay and sabotage the 2040 target. But they also blamed the EPP — which holds the most points — for failing to outbid the far right.  “They really messed up,” said Lena Schilling, who leads the 2040 target negotiations for the Greens. “There was a bidding process among the coordinators, and the EPP had the chance to go higher than the Patriots did.”  Peter Liese, the EPP’s environmental spokesperson who took part in Tuesday’s meeting, rejected the allegation, saying that other groups had stayed in the bidding process longer than him and could therefore have outbid the Patriots.  Yet the Patriots were only able to bid competitively because the Parliament’s political balance has shifted sharply to the right after last year’s election. The group, founded last year, is the assembly’s third-largest faction, with 85 MEPs, and puts opposition to the Green Deal at the center of its political platform.  On Tuesday, the Patriots’ leadership celebrated the group’s first anniversary while griping about the EU’s climate ambitions.  “It was exactly one year ago, exactly this day, that patriot forces from across the continent joined to form the Patriots for Europe group and became the third-largest group,” said Vice Chair Kinga Gál, speaking alongside Bardella.  “This was,” she added, “a clear refusal [of] the Commission’s disastrous policies in the previous term, including the failed migration pact [and] the harmful policies of the Green Deal.”  Unlike in the previous term, the far right can now form a majority with other right-wing MEPs and the center-right EPP. In recent weeks, this majority established a controversial committee investigating the funding of NGOs — which Bardella described as “beneficiaries of the Green Deal” on Tuesday — and demanded the Commission scrap an anti-greenwashing law.  In contrast, the predecessor of the Patriots, known as Identity and Democracy, had just over 70 MEPs at its peak and few other lawmakers to count on. ID mostly contributed to Green Deal lawmaking by filing copy-paste amendments — never adopted — asking the Commission to withdraw its proposals.  Neither Bardella nor Gál gave details on what the Patriots intend to do with their leadership role. A spokesperson for the Patriots did not respond when asked if the group intends to delay the legislative process. LAST-DITCH EFFORT There’s nothing mainstream groups can now do to strip the Patriots of their leading role on the 2040 climate target. But they can try to restrict the far right’s ability to delay the process.  The Commission is hoping for a lightning-fast passage of the 2040 goal given that the legislation provides the foundation for the bloc’s 2035 climate plan, which is required under the Paris climate accord and is due in September. Countries want to find an agreement by the middle of that month.  The Parliament’s input isn’t required for the 2035 plan, but to pass the 2040 law, governments and MEPs each need to finalize their positions and then strike a deal between the institutions.  To ensure the Parliament is also ready to start interinstitutional talks in the fall, the Greens this week put forward a motion to accelerate the parliamentary process. The EPP, whose membership is divided over whether to support the Commission’s 90 percent target, was poised to reject the motion.  But now, the Greens’ motion has emerged as the only restraint on the Patriots’ influence.  “They can delay and delay and delay the process, and probably act to block the process to keep the 2040 target in the air for months and months and months. That’s the power of a rapporteur,” said Pascal Canfin, the environmental spokesperson for the centrist Renew Europe group.  Under the accelerated procedure, however, the rapporteur doesn’t get to draft a report — speeding up the process and limiting the Patriots’ sway. “It means that we take back control of this file,” Canfin said.  To make it more politically palatable for the EPP to back the fast-tracking procedure, the Greens withdrew their motion on Tuesday so that they could resubmit it alongside the Socialists and Renew, representing more of the political spectrum.  CENTER-RIGHT DILEMMA The Patriots, the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations and the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists are urging the EPP to join them instead.  “There’s a clear majority to at least water down the climate law to address competitiveness and [the] cost of living crisis — if the EPP stands by its own rhetoric. It is time to stop the deindustrialization of Europe,” said Beatrice Timgren, a member of the ECR-affiliated Sweden Democrats.  The far-right Alternative for Germany, affiliated with the Sovereignists, said it would back the Patriots if the group could change the law, not merely delay it: “Europe is shifting, and more parties are starting to realize that ideology must not come before economic survival.” For the EPP, such offers present a dilemma. Large parts of the group are skeptical of the 90 percent target and wish to see it weakened, despite the Commission’s already having given countries more leeway to meet the target than ever before.  But voting against the fast-tracking procedure would be seen by the centrist and left-wing groups as yet another betrayal.  The coalition that secured von der Leyen’s reelection last year — the EPP, the Socialists and Renew — is already fragile. Last month, after the Commission briefly appeared to side with the EPP and the far right in killing an anti-greenwashing law, the other two groups threatened to withdraw their support.  The growing distrust blew up in Monday’s debate over an ECR-led motion of no-confidence in von der Leyen. “Wasn’t it you who joined forces with the radicals to dismantle the Green Deal [and] launch a witch-hunt against environmental NGOs?” Socialist leader Iratxe García Pérez asked her EPP counterpart Manfred Weber.  The confidence vote will be held on Thursday, while the vote to fast-track the climate goal is expected on Wednesday. The EPP was still holding talks over whether to support the motion as of Tuesday evening, and a spokesperson for the group did not respond to a request for comment. Depending on whether the motion passes, the Patriots holding the pen on 2040 “could be very detrimental or marginal,” Canfin said.  “It’s a moment of truth for the EPP,” he added. “Is the EPP ready to kill the 2040 target, teaming up with [the] Patriots? Or is [the] EPP ready to get committed to the 2040 target?”  

BRUSSELS — The pope was dead. And Teresa Ribera was mourning — not only for the man. Pope Francis had embodied an era in which Ribera’s dream of a greener world, shaped by powerful international institutions and scientific advice, had seemed, at last, to be laid down in concrete.  Ten years had passed since Ribera’s highest moment: a year that saw the drafting of the Paris Agreement on climate change and the pope’s landmark environmental proclamation that made the moral case for action.  By the time Francis died in April, Ribera was trying to stop it all from being torn down.  Since arriving in Brussels in December to run the EU’s green and competition policy, she has fought a battle — largely in secret — against opponents who fret that the EU’s efforts to tackle climate change are unaffordable, or that they hand populists an easy win. Her influence shone through this week as the European Commission faced down the French president, discontent from the EU’s largest political force, and the certainty of a far-right backlash to present a new climate goal for Europe.  Ribera pitched the proposed target, an emissions-cutting milestone for 2040, as countering the growing pushback against ambitious climate action.  “For all those challenging the science, hiding the problems, asking to postpone, thinking that the world is going to remain as it is and that the market is going to solve everything … the response coming from Europe is very clear,” she said at a press conference Wednesday.  But political pressure had prompted the Commission to soften the target with concessions to governments, notably a contentious proposal to outsource part of the bloc’s efforts to poorer countries. It was, like Ribera’s first seven months in office, a compromise born of the changed political reality — a reality she has tried to both resist and work within. This account of that time is based on interviews with 11 Commission and government officials, associates of Ribera and close observers of the EU. Many were hesitant to speak to journalists about Ribera, who fiercely values privacy and loyalty, so they were granted anonymity. POLITICO has also interviewed Ribera three times in that span.  Allies and critics alike described Ribera as isolated, lacking political allies amid losses among her fellow social democrats, and facing attacks from outside and inside the Commission. Despite this, they said, she has racked up a series of quiet victories. Pope Francis had embodied an era in which Ribera’s dream of a greener world. | Fabio Frustaci/EPA With populist and illiberal parties incorporating the fight against climate change into their story of grievance, the stakes, as Ribera sees them, are wider than the EU’s green goals. Almost religious. Certainly moral.  “Today, like never before, the green agenda … is being questioned,” she wrote in an emotionally charged letter to El País two days after Pope Francis died. This “counter-reformation,” she added, must be faced down lest the world “return to dark times.” YOU’RE HIRED European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen knew exactly what she was getting when she asked Ribera to protect the EU’s embattled green ambitions.  Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez rammed home the message in a letter to von der Leyen in August 2024, nominating the two-time Spanish minister, former U.N. climate negotiator and policy expert to the Commission. Sánchez touted her “political experience” and “extensive knowledge” of climate change, energy and environmental protection, which he said had won Ribera “great prestige internationally and nationally.” The letter was released to POLITICO under freedom of information laws. Ribera, Sánchez enthused, could “generate consensus and agreements in complex international negotiations.” That was useful for von der Leyen. The European Green Deal — a package of targets and regulations covering almost every sector of the European economy — was a key part of the president’s legislative legacy. Laid down over the previous five years, it not only set a course to end Europe’s contribution to climate change by mid-century, but also sought to rebalance the impact of industry and agriculture on nature. Both von der Leyen and Ribera knew trouble was looming.  The 2024 European election elevated far-right parliamentarians — the very agents of the counter-reformation Ribera believed she was confronting — ensuring that attacks on the green agenda would escalate. And von der Leyen’s own center-right European People’s Party (EPP), the European Parliament’s largest force, had begun to oppose major parts of the package, citing costs to industry and the need to dull the siren call of the political extremes. According to two people with direct knowledge of the discussions and two people briefed on the talks, von der Leyen told Ribera she was choosing her as her first executive vice president — effectively the Commission’s No. 2 — precisely because of her green credentials. Ribera understood her job as boiling down to one overarching mission: Defend the Green Deal.  GETTING TO 90 Von der Leyen’s backing for Ribera showed through during the final frantic talks on the EU’s new 2040 climate goal.  Until Tuesday, the proposed law’s final form — and even its release — remained uncertain.  European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen knew exactly what she was getting when she asked Teresa Ribera to protect the EU’s embattled green ambitions. | Jose Manuel Vidal/EPA The target had already been delayed for months as EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, whose work is overseen by Ribera, battled to find the right set of politically viable concessions.  Months of negotiations with governments and parliamentarians led Hoekstra to suggest that the EU stick to the 90 percent cut to emissions that von der Leyen had promised last year, but outsource some of its climate efforts to poorer countries by buying carbon credits. It was a compromise Ribera disliked but eventually accepted. Even with that concession, a groundswell of opposition arose on Monday when the proposal was presented to the rest of the commissioners and their staffs. Ribera and Hoesktra were even battling calls to delay the announcement, after French President Emmanuel Macron suggested a pause during a dinner with EU leaders the week before.  That dinner was “a big moment,” said one EU official familiar with the internal discussions. “It signaled to everyone that big countries aren’t … on the Commission’s side.” During the meal, von der Leyen pushed back against Macron, defending the target and insisting it needed to be proposed that week, three people briefed on the discussions said. She made the same case this week to wavering commissioners, who eventually fell in line on Tuesday. Hoekstra and Ribera got their compromise. IN THE TRENCHES Ribera has fought many such battles over the last seven months.  She has tried to act as a lawyerly guard dog, apprehending Commission papers and ensuring they align with the EU’s previous green commitments.  Ribera has not always had the full backing of von der Leyen, who has been willing to sacrifice a growing number of green regulations to accommodate EPP concerns while trying to preserve core climate goals.  Despite this, Ribera has won significant victories.  In January, an early draft of von der Leyen’s grand second-term economic doctrine — the so-called Competitiveness Compass — contained only a few nebulous green references while stressing deregulation. Ribera intervened to ensure the final version specifically referenced threatened green policy initiatives.  The socialists’ most powerful leader is Teresa Ribera’s political ally, Pedro Sánchez. | Oliver Matthys/EPA A month later, the Commission launched an “omnibus” bill to reduce bureaucratic burdens on companies. The bill watered down green finance rules and corporate reporting standards. But it would have gone even further, leaving key rules entirely voluntary and therefore toothless, had it not been for Ribera’s backroom dealing, POLITICO reported in February.  Ribera also went on to battle behind the scenes to try to salvage a sinking greenwashing law. At the same time, she rebelled against the EU’s public stance on issues such as Gaza, LGBTQ+ rights and migration.  In May, after rumors circulated that von der Leyen was asking commissioners not to attend the banned Budapest Pride, Ribera demonstratively showed up at a press conference on climate progress with a rainbow-striped notebook.  On social media site Bluesky she expressed solidarity with the Hungarian LGBTQ+ community months before von der Leyen finally did. She frequently issues posts highlighting the misery in Gaza, sometimes criticizing Israel outright, as well as Trump’s crackdown on scientific research and universities. She endorsed an op-ed by former Spanish EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell condemning the bloc’s inaction on Gaza, and expressed support for migrant rescuers in the Mediterranean.  When the United States bombed Iran in June, she appeared to mourn the sidelining of the multilateral order, writing: “Decades to build an international order based on the UN charter, human rights and the rule of law.”  THE LADY’S NOT FOR TURNING Ribera’s stand has been a lonely one. She is unambiguously tribal in her socialist politics — notable in a shifting political landscape. During an interview in her offices just after she had moved into the Berlaymont, POLITICO noted a 1970s photograph hanging behind the modernist suite on which the new commissioner sat. On it, then-British opposition leader and bête noire of the U.K. left Margaret Thatcher was taking a meeting on the same settee. Ribera joked that she might swap it for a picture of current Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Shortly after, the picture was gone.  The center left is in retreat in Europe. The socialists’ most powerful leader is Ribera’s political ally, Sánchez. But the Spanish prime minister has been weakened by a series of poor election results, a fractious coalition and, more recently, a major corruption scandal. Encouraged, Ribera’s domestic opponents on the right and far right have mounted a savage campaign against her in the press. Election losses have also whittled down the cadre of politicians with whom Ribera championed the Green Deal as a Spanish minister. Gone are allies in Germany, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands. On the international level, the global order Ribera helped shape is also under profound stress — both from the White House and by populists across the EU. She has tried to tread lightly, withholding any open disdain for U.S. President Donald Trump and his enablers. But she has also not used Elon Musk’s social network X since December.  Wopke Hoekstra, an EPP politician who took over the climate brief in late 2023, was charged with drafting the 2040 target. | Oliver Matthys/EPA “She seemed more tired and frustrated than the last time I saw her,” said a former government official from an EU country who met Ribera recently. Ribera draws on two experiences for perspective in times of adversity. Her long experience of U.N. climate talks, which have seen many setbacks since they began in the 1990s. And her family’s deep romance with the Atlético de Madrid football team — the Spanish capital’s perennial also-rans, who are so often overmatched by the brutal riches of neighbors Real Madrid.  SEEKING FRIENDS Nowhere is the sense of Ribera as a politician trying to hold back the tide stronger than inside the European Commission itself.  She has few allies in the College of Commissioners, the EU’s executive board that oversees the bloc’s legislation. There are just four socialists on von der Leyen’s team of 27 — five if you count Maroš Šefčovič, whose Slovak party has been suspended from the group.  The EPP dominates the college. And the Commission’s proposals have markedly shifted to incorporate right-leaning priorities. While it’s often overstated how much the EU has backtracked on green issues — there is still broad consensus on the need to tackle climate change — the zeitgeist in Brussels, fed by intense corporate lobbying, is all about softening green regulation.  Defense, deindustrialization, deregulation … Donald. These are the “d’s” raising heartbeats in the European capital in 2025. Decarbonization gets a flat line. The Commission argues that its recent reforms have not compromised the Green Deal’s core mission — particularly when it comes to climate. It frames the changes as “simplification,” streamlining overly burdensome requirements. That’s at least partly a euphemism, said François Gemenne, a Belgian political scientist from the HEC Paris business school. “Whatever they might say and proclaim, there is some backtracking at the EU level when it comes to the Green Deal,” he said. Ribera has tried to resist that decline. “She constantly tries to downsize the intensity of the doctrinal shift within the Commission,” a Commission official said of Ribera. It’s an unfashionable place to be “if suddenly your priority as a Commission is to make life easier for businesses [and] she believes more in tight regulation.” Both Teresa Ribera and Wopke Hoekstra’s teams insist they have an amicable and constructive relationship. | Oliver Hoslet/EPA Ribera “has been working in close cooperation with the President,” said Commission spokesperson Anna-Kaisa Itkonen in an emailed statement. “No College member works in isolation, politically or otherwise.” As executive vice president, Ribera was given sweeping responsibilities by von der Leyen — but diffused power. She oversees the work of other commissioners when it relates to the Green Deal.  There are two schools of thought about von der Leyen’s intent. In one sense, the structure dilutes Ribera’s power, guarding against the kind of policy fiefdom created by Ribera’s executive vice president predecessor, Dutch socialist Frans Timmermans. On the other hand it means Green Deal decisions come with a cross-party seal, potentially blunting EPP attacks. The shared responsibilities have inevitably bred tensions.  Hoekstra, an EPP politician who took over the climate brief in late 2023, was charged with drafting the 2040 target.  Both Ribera and Hoekstra’s teams insist they have an amicable and constructive relationship. He and Ribera were “basically aligned” on the goal, according to the EU official.  But at least twice, Ribera publicly preempted Hoekstra’s work, telling POLITICO that the final target would be 90 percent and saying it should heed the advice of a scientific advisory board that had just ruled out using international credits to meet the goal. Meanwhile, officials from the climate department, who work for Hoekstra, have not always shared key documents from Ribera’s team. And while Hoekstra is subordinate to Ribera in von der Leyen’s org chart, Hoekstra directs the civil servants working on climate policy.  “The way I see it, Wopke Hoekstra dominates on those issues,” an EPP official said. “Ribera is a bit marginalized in the Commission. Wopke has the EPP commissioners who tend to be on his side, and Ribera, as a social democrat, is pretty much alone.” Nowhere is the sense of Teresa Ribera as a politician trying to hold back the tide stronger than inside the European Commission itself. | Oliver Hoslet/EPA  Yet there the pair was on Wednesday, presenting their 2040 compromise together — Hoekstra in a crooked tie, Ribera unusually contained. Yes, she acknowledged, the surge of public, political (and papal) concern that birthed the Green Deal and the Paris accord was “not the world of today.” But the EU wasn’t retreating, Ribera insisted: “We are here.”  It was the same tone she struck in her April eulogy for Pope Francis — yearning for the recent past, defending the distant future, but mired in the political problems of the present. Karl Mathiesen reported from Brussels and London. Zia Weise reported from Brussels.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission will permit countries to outsource a portion of their climate efforts to poorer countries from 2036, according to a draft proposal obtained by POLITICO. The EU executive plans to present the bloc’s 2040 emissions-reduction target on Wednesday after several months of delay. The goal will be set at 90 percent below 1990 levels, the draft amendment to the European Climate Law shows.  But as POLITICO reported in mid-June, the Commission intends to meet up to 3 percentage points of the new target with international carbon credits, despite fierce criticism from its own scientific advisers. This plan aligns with Germany’s position on the 2040 goal.  Such credits will allow the EU to pay for emissions-slashing projects in other, usually poorer countries, and count the resulting greenhouse gas reductions toward its own 2040 target, rather than the climate goals of the country hosting the project. The draft proposal envisages using them only in the second half of the decade. “Starting from 2036, a possible limited contribution towards the 2040 target of high-quality international credits under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement” — global rules governing carbon credits — “of no more than 3% of 1990 EU net emissions,” the draft states. The Commission aims to propose legislation regulating such credits at an unspecified date, the draft adds. “Their specific role and deployment would need to be based on a thorough impact assessment and subject to the development of Union law setting robust and high integrity criteria and standards, and conditions on origin, timing and use of such credits.” Critics, including the bloc’s scientific advisers, warn that relying even just in part on international credits risks slowing the EU’s climate efforts at home. The EU’s existing 2030 and 2050 targets must be met solely through domestic measures. But the proposal specifically excludes the possibility of integrating credits in the EU’s carbon market, an option that some experts feared could tank the bloc’s CO2 price, which is meant to incentivize companies to reduce their emissions. “These international credits should not play a role for compliance in the EU carbon market,” the draft reads.  Carbon credits are only one of 18 “elements” — effectively, promises to make the target more palatable to skeptical governments — that the Commission plans to integrate into the EU’s post-2030 climate policy framework, according to the draft, which is dated June 27. French President Emmanuel Macron joined Poland and Hungary in demanding delays. | Pool Photo by Benoit Tessier via EPA Others include opening the bloc’s carbon market to permanent CO2 removals — for example through capturing carbon directly from the air, a method as yet unavailable at scale — as well as “enhanced flexibility across sectors.” The remaining promises to EU countries are considerably more vague, with the Commission vowing to pay attention to everything from scientific advice and social impacts to cost-effectiveness and economic competitiveness in its policy framework for 2040. The 2040 target has been met with significant pushback from governments, with many sending Brussels long lists of conditions for supporting the goal. Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron joined Poland and Hungary in demanding delays. The Commission in its draft proposal insists that “a 90% target puts the EU on the pathway which provides the greatest overall benefits in terms of competitiveness, resilience, independence, autonomy, a just transition and ensuring that the EU meets its commitments under the Paris Agreement.”

BRUSSELS ― The remaining four years of Ursula von der Leyen’s period at the helm of the European Commission look set to be shaped by last week’s dramatic decision to side with the far right in canceling a significant climate law. By opting to pull legislation designed to stop companies from “greenwashing,” the Commission president detonated a bomb under the informal coalition of centrist pro-EU groups that support her leadership and whose votes she will rely upon to make her biggest priorities a reality. Measures such as rules on deportations for asylum seekers, an overhaul of the Common Agricultural Policy, and a law simplifying green reporting requirements ― policies that will almost certainly cause deep ideological divisions ― will be in disarray if von der Leyen can’t keep the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the liberal Renew Europe on board. Even the ever-tortuous negotiations over the EU’s seven-year EU budget, which looms ominously on the horizon, could be affected, although politicians and officials play this down. While von der Leyen is from the center-right European People’s Party, the group for decades had an informal coalition with the Socialists and, to some extent, with the liberals. The arrangement kept the EU functioning and pursuing a broadly middle-of-the-road, moderate agenda. But Brussels politics is showing that it is not immune to the right-wing winds sweeping across the continent. As the EPP pushes its relationship with the two other mainstream groups further to the right, the EU’s core institutions are now beset by infighting, uncertainty and mistrust.   The “EPP are being irresponsible, using their position just to power play and it feels like they want to humiliate us,” said Socialist MEP Tiemo Wölken, who was his group’s representative leading the greenwashing legislation, the Green Claims directive. And it wasn’t that this topic was an outlier that the EPP needed to crush, he said. “It could have been any other file.” As well as being angry at the cancelation of the proposed law itself, both centrist parties accuse the EPP and von der Leyen of circumventing the EU’s legislative norms. Although the Commission has insisted it has the prerogative to shield the bloc from what it sees as bad versions of laws it originally proposed, this one was already in the final stages of negotiation between the Parliament and the EU Council ― representing national governments ― with both institutions having already approved their positions after months of work. MAKING LIFE DIFFICULT So now for the backlash. In the months and years ahead, Socialist and liberal lawmakers could slow the process of scrutinizing, shaping and agreeing to proposed laws. They could “make the Commission’s life difficult” by refusing to play ball with the EPP on files that groups further to the right won’t support, said EU expert Richard Corbett, a former U.K. MEP and adviser to the European Council president.  Notably, Socialists and liberals could target von der Leyen’s plan to reduce red tape linked to climate targets, the No. 1 priority of her second term in office, he added. “Von der Leyen has to make a choice,” said René Repasi, leader of the German Socialists, warning that if she continues to cater to the right-wing faction in the Parliament, the Socialists could trigger “tough” consequences for the ongoing negotiations over the green reporting rules simplification package ― the so-called omnibus.  “Von der Leyen and the EPP [now] need to say that this action [the withdrawal of the anti-greenwashing bill] was an accident, and to remedy this within this week, otherwise the very foundation [of the coalition] is put into question,” he said. “Von der Leyen has to make a choice,” said René Repasi, leader of the German Socialists, warning that if she continues to cater to the right-wing faction in the Parliament, the Socialists could trigger “tough” consequences. | Alejandro Garcia/EPA The centrists are irked at how last week’s decision appears to deliver a victory to the right-wing in its determination to kill off part of the flagship Green Deal from the last term. This despite von der Leyen’s having used the Socialists and liberals to become Commission president in the first place. It comes after months of growing resentment as the EPP repeatedly hooked up with right-wing and far-right forces ― such as the European Conservatives and Reformists and the Patriots for Europe, the group of France’s Marine le Pen and Hungary’s Victor Orbán ― to press ahead with its policy priorities. “If President von der Leyen wants to have a broader collaboration around the center [in order to advance her policy agenda], this is what she has to avoid,” said the Parliament’s liberal vice president, Martin Hojsík. For its part, the EPP argues that the makeup of the Parliament has shifted away from the left and the center, a change that has given it the mandate to deliver center-right policies ― and, if need be, to rely on far-right votes. WINDS OF CHANGE It’s not just the political configuration of the Parliament that is causing difficulties for von der Leyen.  The waning influence of the center left in national governments across Europe could also paradoxically strengthen the hand of the center left in Brussels ― because it would have less to lose ― thereby making life more difficult for the center-right-dominated Commission. The center left’s hold on power in Spain is increasingly fragile, while this year’s election in Germany saw it reduced from holding the chancellor’s post to junior coalition partner status. At the EU level, the center-left group could feel less bound by the responsibilities of government and become a more active opposition. The same goes for the liberals, if French President Emmanuel Macron isn’t succeeded by a politician of the same party in elections two years hence. “There is definitely this risk,” Repasi said. “The Spanish delegation is the second largest one, they have the leader of the group, and if they do not feel bound by Council responsibilities, it will make it easier for them to move into a different direction.” STORM IN A TEACUP? Yet despite the bickering, some politicians believe the informal coalition of the three centrist parties will stick together in a crunch ― because it’s in all their interests. Precedent is also a factor. The Socialists and liberals have on several occasions ― even in the past few months ― failed to follow through on threats to distance themselves from von der Leyen’s more controversial moves. Such as when they both said they would refuse to vote in favor of Raffaelle Fitto, an Italian right-winger, for European commissioner ― only to do so. And while the right-wing majority has been instrumental in allowing the EPP to advance some of its priorities, the far right’s fundamental opposition to EU integration makes it an unreliable partner when it comes to important files such as the bloc’s €1 trillion seven-year budget. While Ursula von der Leyen is from the center-right European People’s Party, the group for decades had an informal coalition with the Socialists and, to some extent, with the liberals. | Kai Foersterling/EPA “The cooperation of all pro-European voices is unavoidable,” said EPP MEP Sigfried Mureșan, who leads the budget negotiations for the center right. “Otherwise, Europe will not have a budget for the next seven years, and that would be irresponsible.” As for last week’s greenwashing decision, the Commission has now said it could backtrack on the bill’s withdrawal if the Parliament and the Council agree to exempt small firms from having to comply. In the end, this latest crisis might get sorted. But the wounds it has opened are likely to fester. Karl Mathiesen, Marianne Gros and Sarah Wheaton contributed reporting.

BRUSSELS — Jos Delbeke once banned Europe’s heavy industry from offsetting its pollution by paying for emission cuts abroad. Now he thinks it’s time to give the idea a second chance.  The retired Belgian official, who led the European Commission’s climate policy department until 2018, thinks Brussels is right to consider meeting part of the bloc’s next emissions-reduction target with international carbon credits. That puts him at odds with the EU’s own scientific advisers, who have warned against such a move.  EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra is expected to unveil a 2040 climate target on July 2 that permits the use of such credits, which would allow the bloc to fund climate-friendly projects abroad and count the emissions cuts toward its domestic target. “I’m in favor of reopening the door for those credits,” Delbeke told POLITICO in an interview, “but we have to be very restrictive on the quality of those credits. And we have to be very alert and make our own decisions on the quantity that we are going to allow.”  During his decades-long career at the EU executive in Brussels, Delbeke played a key role in establishing the bloc’s carbon market, known as the Emissions Trading System (ETS). The system obliges heavy industry, airlines, power plant operators and shipping companies to pay for their pollution by purchasing CO2 permits that decline in supply and rise in price over time, incentivizing them to switch to cheaper, cleaner alternatives. In the 2010s, the ETS — the EU’s main tool for reducing emissions — allowed the use of international carbon credits regulated under a now-discredited global system known as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). This meant that instead of having to buy a pollution permit representing one ton of CO2 emitted in the EU, companies could also decide to purchase a credit representing one ton of CO2 reduced elsewhere.  The approach backfired, threatening the entire system. Many CDM credits were questionable and did not represent verifiable emissions cuts. On top of that, they were cheap and plentiful, flooding the ETS and suppressing the price, undermining the economic incentive for EU companies to cut their domestic emissions.  Delbeke first limited and then banned all foreign credits on the market. Offsetting has not been possible under the ETS since 2021. The CDM system “was well negotiated, but it was horribly implemented,” said Delbeke, who now lectures on climate policy and carbon markets at the European University Institute.  “Most of those credits came to Europe and were about to kill the ETS market,” he added. “It dampened the prices, and so along with a market stability reserve, we designed a policy to close the door to all credits coming from the CDM.” Yet times have changed, Delbeke insisted. A new global framework regulating credits under the Paris climate accord was finalized in November with the EU’s support. But the bloc has also “learned its lesson” not to accept any and all projects included in an international system, and should instead set its own standards, he said.  Delbeke also said there are alternatives to allowing credits within the carbon market, such as using them to offset emissions the ETS doesn’t cover: “Integrating them into the ETS is one option, but there are also other options.”  EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra is expected to unveil a 2040 climate target on July 2. | Oliver Hoslet/EPA The idea of using credits to meet part of the EU’s 2040 target has drawn fierce criticism from green NGOs and the bloc’s own scientific advisory board on climate change, which warned that foreign credits risk undermining climate efforts and threaten the ETS price.  The European Parliament’s in-house think tank also warned on Thursday that “if international credits were readmitted, these concerns would remain today.”  But Delbeke thinks the EU needs to be more flexible about how it can reach its targets amid economic difficulties, global trade tensions, the war in Ukraine and Donald Trump’s return to the White House.  “If we are grown up in the discussion on carbon credits, being very restrictive on the quantity, very restrictive on the quality, it helps us to realize the targets that we are setting for ourselves in a world that is completely different from when we adopted the targets,” he said.  “The [EU’s] climate law was before the invasion of Ukraine, before we had Mr. Trump in office and before his tariff war. We now want more industry in Europe, we want more on defense, that’s going to increase emissions,” he added. “So the world is looking very different today and I think the targets that were agreed then may turn out to be more expensive than anticipated at the time.”

BRUSSELS — Germany’s incoming government will throw its weight behind an ambitious EU climate target for 2040, but only if the European Commission allows countries to offset a portion of their planet-warming emissions instead of slashing them. The stance was revealed Wednesday in a coalition agreement between the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU), which won February’s snap election, and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD). The SPD’s 300,000-plus members must still approve the 144-page deal.  In the agreement, the two parties recommit to Germany’s 2045 climate neutrality target and give contingent backing to the EU executive’s recommended 90 percent emissions-cutting goal for 2040. Brussels has delayed legislation to enshrine the new target after struggling to find sufficient support from governments and lawmakers. Yet Berlin’s support comes with the radical condition that EU countries must be allowed to incorporate international carbon credits in their climate efforts — meaning that instead of reducing pollution at home, they could pay for emissions cuts in non-EU countries and count those toward their own climate balance.  Despite some enhanced global governance rules, the reliability of such credits varies wildly. Critics warn that relying on offsets would discourage much-needed emissions cuts and shift rich countries’ responsibility to developing nations. Last month, POLITICO reported that the European Commission has held talks with lawmakers and governments on including international credits in the EU-wide goal. The revelation caused significant disquiet among green-minded European Parliament members and environmental groups. The German government deal, if approved, will add the weight of Europe’s largest economy to the push for the credits to be included. Speaking before the coalition deal was released, Tiemo Wölken, a German SPD MEP, said using such credits would “undermine the credibility of our climate policies and unduly shift responsibility onto other nations. This would open up tremendous loopholes instead of enabling emissions reductions at home.” The coalition deal stipulates that any credits should be certified and of high quality, lead to permanent emissions reduction and be limited to “maximum 3 percentage points of the 2040 target.” In addition, the coalition makes its 90 percent support contingent on being allowed to count permanent carbon removals toward the target. And the deal says Germany’s contribution to the EU-wide target must be limited to its existing domestic 2040 target — 88 percent. Both carbon removals and international carbon credits should be integrated into the Emissions Trading System, the EU’s cap-and-trade carbon market, as well as the bloc’s overarching Climate Law, the parties say.  Peter Liese, a prominent CDU MEP, described the agreement’s language as a good compromise.  “If the largest [EU] member state finds a clear position, it will help us find compromise within the EU as well,” he said. Last month, POLITICO reported that the European Commission has held talks with lawmakers and governments on including international credits in the EU-wide goal. | Sean Gallup/Getty Images Beyond the climate targets, the coalition agreement backs the EU’s upcoming carbon price on fossil fuels used for heating and transport in 2027, with the parties vowing to redistribute the revenues to households and companies. The agreement’s energy policy sections are largely unchanged from a March draft, with the new government planning 20 gigawatts of additional gas power plant capacity while pushing ahead with the expansion of renewable energy. The parties also say they “want to make use of the potential of conventional gas production in Germany.” Nuclear power is not mentioned at all in the document, despite the Christian Democrats’ repeated campaign promises to revive Germany’s atomic energy capacity.  The new clean heating law, which sparked a massive backlash, will be “abolished” and replaced with a revised version, according to the agreement. The law, introduced by the outgoing government, would ban the use of fossil fuels in heating from 2045 — a step the International Energy Agency recently lauded as a significant “achievement.”  The CDU has sought to scrap the law, while the SPD — which helped pass the legislation as part of the outgoing government — wanted only targeted revisions, according to March’s draft document.  CORRECTION: The article was updated to correct the coalition’s plans for the clean heating law. It will be abolished.

EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra is considering options to soften the bloc’s 2040 climate goal as he tries to contain a backlash against Europe’s climate ambitions. The European Commission, the EU’s executive, is expected to propose legislation in the coming weeks to adopt a previously announced target to cut 90 percent of greenhouse gas pollution by 2040. But to allay political concerns about the effort’s cost to heavy industry and agriculture, Hoekstra is weighing “flexibilities” for reaching that goal, according to a Commission official and two people briefed on the discussions, granted anonymity to reveal details of confidential deliberations. The options being discussed range from allowing countries to defer steeper cuts to letting them count carbon reductions they pay for in other countries. Another idea would be to lean more on carbon that forests or technology can remove from the air.  For EU officials, the approach is a way to make an increasingly unpopular goal more politically palatable — and help ensure the European Parliament and EU capitals will approve the legislation.  But civil society groups warn the measures could also weaken the EU’s overall efforts to stamp out planet-warming emissions. The options being discussed range from allowing countries to defer steeper cuts to letting them count carbon reductions they pay for in other countries. | Nikolay Doychinov/AFP via Getty Images These are “very dangerous proposals,” said Sam Van den plas, policy director at the Carbon Market Watch NGO. “All those things are potential distractions from the need to deliver immediate emission reductions. The flexibility can also be seen as loopholes.” SHOW ME SOME OPTIONS The Commission is looking at four options to give countries more leeway.  To start, officials are contemplating a “nonlinear” path between the EU’s 2030 emissions-cutting target of 55 percent and its 2040 goal — rather than a straight line. That could mean slower emission cuts to start, compensated by rapid declines later in the 2030s. It would also mean more pollution in total over the decade. The Commission is also considering letting countries purchase carbon credits on new international markets. That would allow EU countries to fund a project that lowers emissions in one country — such as a deforestation program or a more-efficient industrial plant — in exchange for credits that count toward the local goal. These carbon markets are seen as a key way to boost clean energy projects in poorer countries, but have also attracted criticism for being hard to police to ensure the pollution reductions have in fact occurred. Including international credits would significantly alter the EU’s approach to climate change, given how the bloc’s 2030 and 2050 climate goals are domestic targets. The approach also risks flooding the EU’s carbon markets with international credits, said Van den plas. This was the case for much of the 2010s, and it significantly lowered the price of polluting in the bloc.  “There’s a very big risk to repeat the mistakes from the past,” said Van den plas. A third option would let countries depend more on negative emissions to meet their tally — meaning counting carbon removed from the air either by forests or nascent carbon-sucking technologies.  A fourth idea is to let countries play with sector-specific emissions targets. If one sector is having trouble reaching its mandated cuts, for instance, governments could count for it the cuts from an industry moving faster on slashing emissions. None of the options are certain to feature in the final legislation. But they are being floated in talks between Hoekstra and political groups, the Commission official said. A second Commission official close to Hoekstra’s cabinet, who like others was not authorized to discuss the internal deliberations, said: “We are indeed having conversations with a range of stakeholders and will come up with a proposal in the near future, but will not give updates on the process.” WHO’S THE REAL BOSS? The EU’s own laws require it to legislate the 2040 goal. But political attention has drifted away from the threat of calamitous climate damage to other priorities, such as defense and industrial competitiveness.  That has left Hoekstra trying to navigate an increasingly narrow political path to deliver on Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s promise to set a course for a 90 percent emissions reduction.  Ursula Von der Leyen has been in a long-running tussle with Manfred Weber over the bloc’s climate policy. | Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images He needs to satisfy the European Parliament groups that want to retain the EU’s strong climate ambitions — such as the Socialists and Democrats and the Greens — while also placating those who want more focus on industry impacts, such as the center-right European People’s Party (EPP). Representatives from both groups declined to comment for this article. The Commission had initially promised to release the proposed legislation during the first three months of this year. But opposition to the 90 percent goal has been growing. Italy’s hard-right government is pushing for the target to be lowered to 80 percent or 85 percent. Nor is it certain that Germany’s incoming government will back the original figure. The center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which won Feb. 23 federal elections, has not yet supported the target in coalition talks with the center-left Social Democratic Party, according to a draft negotiating text seen by POLITICO. The Social Democrats, however, are pushing to ensure that the goal is part of the coalition agreement.  Most EU countries support the 90 percent goal, said a diplomat from an EU country. But Germany’s position will still be pivotal, the diplomat added, especially as the CDU is the party of both von der Leyen and Manfred Weber, the leader of the EPP group in the European Parliament.  Von der Leyen, who is often referred to as “VDL,” has long tussled with Weber over the bloc’s climate policy. “The problem here lies with VDL and most importantly Weber — which makes me wonder who’s the real boss between them,” said the diplomat, who was granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record. GLOBAL RIPPLE EFFECT The holdup regarding the 2040 target has taken on international significance.  The goal — and the amount of flexibility it allows — will inform the 2035 climate plans that the EU and all countries are required to submit this year under the Paris Agreement. These are known as nationally determined contributions, or NDCs. Few countries met the February deadline set by the United Nations. The EU delay, in particular, is letting other major polluters off the hook, said a United Kingdom official who was not authorized to speak on the record, likewise granted anonymity. “What’s happened with the U.S. monkeying around now is that all the air is gone out of the tires in terms of having people have ambitious NDCs,” the diplomat said. “India’s not going to push it. Neither Saudi Arabia. And then the NDC dates for delivery are going back in time, in large part because the EU is going to be late.” This week, U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell pushed the EU to step up: “When it comes to security guarantees of the economic kind, they don’t come stronger for Europe than a bold new national climate plan this year.” Louise Guillot and Max Griera contributed reporting from Brussels.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission will not unveil its long-awaited proposal to enshrine the EU’s new 2040 climate target on Wednesday, a spokesperson told POLITICO today. A senior official told POLITICO over the weekend that the Commission had agreed to publish an amendment to the bloc’s climate law this week alongside a strategy to boost and decarbonize the EU’s struggling manufacturing industries. The 2040 target “will be presented soon, but not as part of tomorrow’s Clean Industrial Deal package,” said Commission spokesperson Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, adding that there was no specific date yet. The amendment will formalize last year’s Commission recommendation to cut emissions by 90 percent by 2040, kicking off the EU’s legislative process involving national governments and the European Parliament. With the proposal not coming before March, more than a year has now passed since the February 2024 recommendation. That’s in part due to EU lawmaking grinding to a halt in the bloc’s election year. But the proposal’s timing is also subject to political pressures. Poland, which holds the rotating Council of the EU presidency, hopes to avoid dealing with the issue until after its May election. Meanwhile, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s center-right European People’s Party, the largest faction in the European Parliament, is divided over whether to back the 90 percent goal. In the Council, only eight countries have explicitly supported the target.