Europe’s chemical industry has reached a breaking point. The warning lights are no longer blinking — they are blazing. Unless Europe changes course immediately, we risk watching an entire industrial backbone, with the countless jobs it supports, slowly hollow out before our eyes. Consider the energy situation: this year European gas prices have stood at 2.9 times higher than in the United States. What began as a temporary shock is now a structural disadvantage. High energy costs are becoming Europe’s new normal, with no sign of relief. This is not sustainable for an energy-intensive sector that competes globally every day. Without effective infrastructure and targeted energy-cost relief — including direct support, tax credits and compensation for indirect costs from the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) — we are effectively asking European companies and their workers to compete with their hands tied behind their backs. > Unless Europe changes course immediately, we risk watching an entire > industrial backbone, with the countless jobs it supports, slowly hollow out > before our eyes. The impact is already visible. This year, EU27 chemical production fell by a further 2.5 percent, and the sector is now operating 9.5 percent below pre-crisis capacity. These are not just numbers, they are factories scaling down, investments postponed and skilled workers leaving sites. This is what industrial decline looks like in real time. We are losing track of the number of closures and job losses across Europe, and this is accelerating at an alarming pace. And the world is not standing still. In the first eight months of 2025, EU27 chemicals exports dropped by €3.5 billion, while imports rose by €3.2 billion. The volume trends mirror this: exports are down, imports are up. Our trade surplus shrank to €25 billion, losing €6.6 billion in just one year. Meanwhile, global distortions are intensifying. Imports, especially from China, continue to increase, and new tariff policies from the United States are likely to divert even more products toward Europe, while making EU exports less competitive. Yet again, in 2025, most EU trade defense cases involved chemical products. In this challenging environment, EU trade policy needs to step up: we need fast, decisive action against unfair practices to protect European production against international trade distortions. And we need more free trade agreements to access growth market and secure input materials. “Open but not naïve” must become more than a slogan. It must shape policy. > Our producers comply with the strictest safety and environmental standards in > the world. Yet resource-constrained authorities cannot ensure that imported > products meet those same standards. Europe is also struggling to enforce its own rules at the borders and online. Our producers comply with the strictest safety and environmental standards in the world. Yet resource-constrained authorities cannot ensure that imported products meet those same standards. This weak enforcement undermines competitiveness and safety, while allowing products that would fail EU scrutiny to enter the single market unchecked. If Europe wants global leadership on climate, biodiversity and international chemicals management, credibility starts at home. Regulatory uncertainty adds to the pressure. The Chemical Industry Action Plan recognizes what industry has long stressed: clarity, coherence and predictability are essential for investment. Clear, harmonized rules are not a luxury — they are prerequisites for maintaining any industrial presence in Europe. This is where REACH must be seen for what it is: the world’s most comprehensive piece of legislation governing chemicals. Yet the real issues lie in implementation. We therefore call on policymakers to focus on smarter, more efficient implementation without reopening the legal text. Industry is facing too many headwinds already. Simplification can be achieved without weakening standards, but this requires a clear political choice. We call on European policymakers to restore the investment and profitability of our industry for Europe. Only then will the transition to climate neutrality, circularity, and safe and sustainable chemicals be possible, while keeping our industrial base in Europe. > Our industry is an enabler of the transition to a climate-neutral and circular > future, but we need support for technologies that will define that future. In this context, the ETS must urgently evolve. With enabling conditions still missing, like a market for low-carbon products, energy and carbon infrastructures, access to cost-competitive low-carbon energy sources, ETS costs risk incentivizing closures rather than investment in decarbonization. This may reduce emissions inside the EU, but it does not decarbonize European consumption because production shifts abroad. This is what is known as carbon leakage, and this is not how EU climate policy intends to reach climate neutrality. The system needs urgent repair to avoid serious consequences for Europe’s industrial fabric and strategic autonomy, with no climate benefit. These shortcomings must be addressed well before 2030, including a way to neutralize ETS costs while industry works toward decarbonization. Our industry is an enabler of the transition to a climate-neutral and circular future, but we need support for technologies that will define that future. Europe must ensure that chemical recycling, carbon capture and utilization, and bio-based feedstocks are not only invented here, but also fully scaled here. Complex permitting, fragmented rules and insufficient funding are slowing us down while other regions race ahead. Decarbonization cannot be built on imported technology — it must be built on a strong EU industrial presence. Critically, we must stimulate markets for sustainable products that come with an unavoidable ‘green premium’. If Europe wants low-carbon and circular materials, then fiscal, financial and regulatory policy recipes must support their uptake — with minimum recycled or bio-based content, new value chain mobilizing schemes and the right dose of ‘European preference’. If we create these markets but fail to ensure that European producers capture a fair share, we will simply create new opportunities for imports rather than European jobs. > If Europe wants a strong, innovative resilient chemical industry in 2030 and > beyond, the decisions must be made today. The window is closing fast. The Critical Chemicals Alliance offers a path forward. Its primary goal will be to tackle key issues facing the chemical sector, such as risks of closures and trade challenges, and to support modernization and investments in critical productions. It will ultimately enable the chemical industry to remain resilient in the face of geopolitical threats, reinforcing Europe’s strategic autonomy. But let us be honest: time is no longer on our side. Europe’s chemical industry is the foundation of countless supply chains — from clean energy to semiconductors, from health to mobility. If we allow this foundation to erode, every other strategic ambition becomes more fragile. If you weren’t already alarmed — you should be. This is a wake-up call. Not for tomorrow, for now. Energy support, enforceable rules, smart regulation, strategic trade policies and demand-driven sustainability are not optional. They are the conditions for survival. If Europe wants a strong, innovative resilient chemical industry in 2030 and beyond, the decisions must be made today. The window is closing fast. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT * The sponsor is CEFIC- The European Chemical Industry Council  * The ultimate controlling entity is CEFIC- The European Chemical Industry Council  More information here.

Crops tailor-made using new gene-splicing techniques should face fewer regulations than genetically modified organisms, EU negotiators agreed Thursday.  Critics are calling it a GMO rebrand; proponents say they are bringing science back in style. The late-night negotiations — dragged across the finish line with the help of the European Parliament’s far right — capped years of haggling over how to ease the path for a new generation of gene-editing technologies developed since 2001, when the EU’s notoriously strict regulations on GMOs were adopted. The deal’s backers tout NGT’s potential to breed climate-resilient plants that need less space and fertilizers to grow, and they argue the EU is already behind global competitors using the technology. But critics fear the EU is opening the door to GMOs and giving too much power to major seed corporations.   The agreement opens the door to “unlabelled — yet patented — GM crops and foods, boosting corporate market power while undermining the rights of farmers and consumers,” warned Franziska Achterberg of Save Our Seeds, an NGO opposing GMOs, calling the deal a “complete sell-out.” INNOVATION VS. CAPITULATION European lawmakers, however, were responding to fears that outdated GMO rules were holding back progress on more recent genomic tweaks with a lighter touch — and throttling innovations worth trillions of euros.  Currently, most plants edited using new precision breeding technology — which can involve reordering their DNA, or inserting genes from the same plant or species — are covered by the same strict rules governing GMOs that contain foreign DNA.  The deal struck by the EU’s co-legislators creates two classes for these more recent techniques. “NGT1” crops — plants that have only been modified using new tech to a limited extent and are thus considered equivalent to naturally occurring strains — would be eligible for less stringent regulations. In contrast, “NGT2” plants, which have had more genetic changes and traditional GMOs will continue to face the same rules that have been in place for over 20 years.  Speaking before the final round of negotiations, Danish Agriculture Minister Jacob Jensen argued that the bloc needs to have NGTs in its toolbox if it wants to compete with China and the U.S., which are already making use of the new tech.  The deal “is about giving European farmers a fair chance to keep up” echoed center-right MEP Jessica Polfjärd, the lead negotiator on the Parliament’s side of the deal. She added that the technology will allow for the bloc to “produce more yield on less land, reduce the use of pesticides, and plant crops that can resist climate change.” Polfjärd had struggled to keep MEPs on the same page even as the bill advanced into interinstitutional negotiations. Persistent objections from left-wing lawmakers, including a key Socialist, forced her to embrace support of lawmakers from the far-right Patriots for Europe, breaking the cordon sanitaire.  Martin Häusling, the Green parliamentary negotiator, called the result miserable, saying it gives a “carte blanche for the use of new genetic engineering in plants” that threatens GMO-free agriculture.  DAVID AND GOLIATH In a hard-won victory for industry, the final legislation allows for NGT crops to be patented.  For Matthias Berninger, executive vice president at the global biotech giant Bayer, it’s just good business. “When we talk about startup culture in Europe … we also need to provide reasonable intellectual property protections,” he said in an interview. Yet safeguards meant to prevent patent-holders from accumulating too much market power don’t go far enough for Arche Noah. The NGO advocating for seed diversity in Europe, warned of a “slow-motion collapse of independent breeding, seed-diversity and farmer autonomy” if the deal makes it to law as is. They have MEP Christophe Clergeau, the Parliament’s Social-Democrat negotiator who led the last-ditch resistance.  In an interview on Thursday morning, he gave it five to 10 years before small breeders have disappeared from the bloc and farmers are “totally dependent” on the likes of Bayer and other huge companies. (Berninger said Bayer doesn’t want to inhibit small breeders by enforcing patents on them.) The deal now needs to be endorsed by the Parliament and the Council of the EU before the new rules are adopted. At the end of the day, it’s up to consumers to pass judgment, DG SANTE’s food safety and innovation chief Klaus Berend said Thursday, appearing at the POLITICO Sustainable Future Summit directly before the late-night negotiations began.  “We know that in Europe, the general attitude toward genetically modified organisms and anything around it is rather negative,” he cautioned. The key question for new genomic techniques is “how will they be accepted by consumers?” Their acceptance, Berend added, “is not a given.” Rebecca Holland contributed to this report.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission has unveiled a new plan to end the dominance of planet-heating fossil fuels in Europe’s economy — and replace them with trees. The so-called Bioeconomy Strategy, released Thursday, aims to replace fossil fuels in products like plastics, building materials, chemicals and fibers with organic materials that regrow, such as trees and crops. “The bioeconomy holds enormous opportunities for our society, economy and industry, for our farmers and foresters and small businesses and for our ecosystem,” EU environment chief Jessika Roswall said on Thursday, in front of a staged backdrop of bio-based products, including a bathtub made of wood composite and clothing from the H&M “Conscious” range. At the center of the strategy is carbon, the fundamental building block of a wide range of manufactured products, not just energy. Almost all plastic, for example, is made from carbon, and currently most of that carbon comes from oil and natural gas. But fossil fuels have two major drawbacks: they pollute the atmosphere with planet-warming CO2, and they are mostly imported from outside the EU, compromising the bloc’s strategic autonomy. The bioeconomy strategy aims to address both drawbacks by using locally produced or recycled carbon-rich biomass rather than imported fossil fuels. It proposes doing this by setting targets in relevant legislation, such as the EU’s packaging waste laws, helping bioeconomy startups access finance, harmonizing the regulatory regime and encouraging new biomass supply. The 23-page strategy is light on legislative or funding promises, mostly piggybacking on existing laws and funds. Still, it was hailed by industries that stand to gain from a bigger market for biological materials. “The forest industry welcomes the Commission’s growth-oriented approach for bioeconomy,” said Viveka Beckeman, director general of the Swedish Forest Industries Federation, stressing the need to “boost the use of biomass as a strategic resource that benefits not only green transition and our joint climate goals but the overall economic security.” HOW RENEWABLE IS IT? But environmentalists worry Brussels may be getting too chainsaw-happy. Trees don’t grow back at the drop of a hat and pressure on natural ecosystems is already unsustainably high. Scientific reports show that the amount of carbon stored in the EU’s forests and soils is decreasing, the bloc’s natural habitats are in poor condition and biodiversity is being lost at unprecedented rates. Protecting the bloc’s forests has also fallen out of fashion among EU lawmakers. The EU’s landmark anti-deforestation law is currently facing a second, year-long delay after a vote in the European Parliament this week. In October, the Parliament also voted to scrap a law to monitor the health of Europe’s forests to reduce paperwork. Environmentalists warn the bloc may simply not have enough biomass to meet the increasing demand. “Instead of setting a strategy that confronts Europe’s excessive demand for resources, the Commission clings to the illusion that we can simply replace our current consumption with bio-based inputs, overlooking the serious and immediate harm this will inflict on people and nature,” said Eva Bille, the European Environmental Bureau’s (EEB) circular economy head, in a statement. TOO WOOD TO BE TRUE Environmental groups want the Commission to prioritize the use of its biological resources in long-lasting products — like construction — rather than lower-value or short-lived uses, like single-use packaging or fuel. A first leak of the proposal, obtained by POLITICO, gave environmental groups hope. It celebrated new opportunities for sustainable bio-based materials while also warning that the “sources of primary biomass must be sustainable and the pressure on ecosystems must be considerably reduced” — to ensure those opportunities are taken up in the longer term. It also said the Commission would work on “disincentivising inefficient biomass combustion” and substituting it with other types of renewable energy. That rankled industry lobbies. Craig Winneker, communications director of ethanol lobby ePURE, complained that the document’s language “continues an unfortunate tradition in some quarters of the Commission of completely ignoring how sustainable biofuels are produced in Europe,” arguing that the energy is “actually a co-product along with food, feed, and biogenic CO2.” Now, those lines pledging to reduce environmental pressures and to disincentivize inefficient biomass combustion are gone. “Bioenergy continues to play a role in energy security, particularly where it uses residues, does not increase water and air pollution, and complements other renewables,” the final text reads. “This is a crucial omission, given that the EU’s unsustainable production and consumption are already massively overshooting ecological boundaries and putting people, nature and businesses at risk,” said the EEB. Delara Burkhardt, a member of the European Parliament with the center-left Socialists and Democrats, said it was “good that the strategy recognizes the need to source biomass sustainably,” but added the proposal did not address sufficiency. “Simply replacing fossil materials with bio-based ones at today’s levels of consumption risks increasing pressure on ecosystems. That shifts problems rather than solving them. We need to reduce overall resource use, not just switch inputs,” she said. Roswall declined to comment on the previous draft at Thursday’s press conference. “I think that we need to increase the resources that we have, and that is what this strategy is trying to do,” she said.

LONDON — It was June 2019, and the president of the United States was taking tea with the future British king.  The meeting between Donald Trump and then Prince Charles was scheduled to last 15 minutes. It stretched to an hour and a half.   Trump could barely get a word in edgeways. Charles did “most of the talking,” the president told a TV interviewer the day after they met.   One topic dominated. “He is …” Trump said, hesitating momentarily, “… he is really into climate change.”  Without global action on the climate, Charles wrote back in 2010, the world is on “the brink of potential disaster.” At the London royal residence Clarence House during Trump’s first U.K. state visit, face-to-face with its most powerful inhabitant, Charles decided to speak on behalf of the planet.  It was tea with a side of climate catastrophe.   Six years on, the stage is set for Charles — now king — to try to sway the president again. A second term Trump — bolder, brasher, and no less destructive to global efforts to tackle climate change — is heading back to the U.K. for an unprecedented second state visit and to another meeting with the king. They meet at Windsor Castle on Wednesday.  In the years between the two visits — with extreme weather events, wildfires and flooding increasingly attributed to a changing climate — Charles’ convictions have only strengthened, say those who know him well.  “His views have not changed and will not change. If anything I think he feels it, probably, more strongly than ever,” said the broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby, a friend and biographer of the king. “It seems self-evident to me, therefore, that he would regard President Trump’s attitude towards climate change and the environment as potentially calamitous.”   But stakes are higher for the king in 2025 than in 2019. The meeting represents an extraordinary influencing opportunity for a monarch who has spent his life deploying “soft power” in the service of cherished environmental causes. But now he is head of state, any overtly political conversation about climate change risks stress-testing the U.K.’s constitutional settlement between government and monarch.  Charles has a duty, says constitutional expert Craig Prescott, to “support the [elected] government of the day in what they want to achieve in foreign relations.”  And “in a broad sense,” he added, “that means ‘getting on the good side of Trump.’”  The meeting between Donald Trump and then Prince Charles was scheduled to last 15 minutes. It stretched to an hour and a half. | Pool Photo by Toby Melville via Getty Images Labour’s focus on an ambitious green transition, though, gives the king some leeway to speak in favor of international climate action.  Both Dimbleby and Ian Skelly, a former speechwriter for Charles who co-wrote his 2010 book Harmony, expect him to do exactly that.  “I would be astonished if in this meeting, as at the last meeting , he does not raise the issue of climate change and biodiversity in any chance he has to speak privately to Trump,” said Dimbleby.   The king will be “diplomatic,” Dimbleby added, and would heed his “constitutional duty,” avoiding “saying anything that will allow Trump to think there is a bus ticket between him and the British government. … But he won’t avoid the issue. He cares about it too much.”  “He knows exactly where the limits are,” said Skelly. “He’s not going to start banging the table or anything. … He will outline his concerns in general terms, I have no doubt about that — and perhaps warn the most powerful person in the world about the dangers of doing nothing.”  Buckingham Palace and Downing Street declined to comment when asked whether the king would raise climate with Trump, or whether this has been discussed in preparations for the state visit.  HAVE YOU READ MY BOOK, MR. PRESIDENT?  In the time since that tea at Clarence House, the President has shown no sign that Charles’ entreaties on the part of the planet had any impact. (And they didn’t have much effect at the time, by one insider’s account. Trump complained the conversation “had been terrible,” wrote former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham in her memoir.  “‘Nothing but climate change,’ he groused, rolling his eyes.”)  The U.S. has once again withdrawn from the Paris climate accords. Trump’s Department of Energy has rejected established climate science. America’s fossil fuel firms and investors — some of whom helped Trump get elected — have been invited to “Drill, baby, drill.”  With America out of the fight, the world’s chances of avoiding the direst consequences of climate change have taken a serious blow.  Charles, on the other hand, has only grown more convinced that climate change, unchecked, will cause “inevitable catastrophes,” as he put it in Harmony, his cri-de-coeur on saving the planet.  Dimbleby predicted that, this time around, one subtle way allowing the king to make his point would be to gift Trump a copy of that book — a treatise on environmentalism, traditional wisdom and sustainability that diagnoses “a spiritual void” in modern societies, a void which has “opened the way for what many people see as an excessive personal focus.”  “I’m sure [the king] won’t let [Trump] out of his sight before giving him a copy,” said Dimbleby. Chinese Premier (and Trump’s main geopolitical rival) Xi Jinping already has a copy, said Skelly.  But the meeting comes at a time when Prime Minister Keir Starmer — boxed in politically by the need to keep the U.S. on side for the sake of trade, Ukraine and European security — has avoided openly criticizing the Trump administration’s attacks on climate science or its embrace of fossil fuels.  His government will not want the king to say or do anything that upsets transatlantic relations. Even when the president, sitting next to Starmer, trashed wind energy ­— the main pillar of U.K. decarbonization plans — on a July visit to his Turnberry golf course in Scotland, the prime minister mustered no defense beyond quietly insisting the U.K. was pursuing a “mix” of energy sources.  If Trump starts railing against windmills again in his chat to the king, he might get a (slightly) more robust response, predicted Skelly. “The response to that will be: ‘What else are we going to do without destroying the Earth?’ That’s the question he’ll come back with, I’d imagine.”  HOW TO TALK TO TRUMP ABOUT CLIMATE  Some who have worked with Trump think that, because of the unique place Britain and the royals occupy in his worldview, Charles stands a better chance than most in getting the president to listen.  “President Trump isn’t going to become an environmentalist over a cup of tea with the king. But I think he’ll definitely hear him out — in a way that maybe he wouldn’t with other folks,” said Michael Martins, founder of the firm Overton Advisory, who was a political and economic specialist at the U.S. embassy in London during the last state visit.  “He likes the pageantry. He likes the optics of it. … Engaging with a king, Trump will feel he’s on the same footing. He will give him more of a hearing than if it was, I don’t know … Ed Miliband.”  Trump has even declared his “love” for Charles.  The royal admiration comes from Trump’s mother. Scottish-born Mary Anne Trump “loved the Queen,” Trump said in July. The ratings-obsessed president appears to consider the late monarch the ultimate TV star. “Whenever the queen was on television, [my mother] wanted to watch,” he said during July’s Turnberry visit.    The king could benefit from an emotional link to First Lady Melania Trump, too. She was present at the 2019 meeting and sat next to Charles at the state banquet that year. In her 2024 memoir, Melania says they “engaged in an interesting conversation about his deep-rooted commitment to environmental conservation.”  She and Trump “exchange letters with King Charles to this day,” Melania wrote. TAKING TEA AT THE END OF THE WORLD  The king will have plenty of chances to make his case.   A state visit provides “quite a lot of time to talk” for monarch and president, said one former senior British government official, granted anonymity to discuss the royals and their relationship with government.  There will be a state banquet plus at least one private meeting in between, they said. Charles may also be able to sneak some choice phrases into any speech he gives at the banquet. Trump’s chief U.K. political ally is Nigel Farage, whose anti-net-zero Reform UK currently lead opinion polls. | John Keeble/Getty Images The king receives regular briefing papers from the Foreign Office. As the meeting looms, the same person suggested, he may be preparing thoughts on how to combine a lifetime’s campaigning and reading with those briefings, to shape the opportunity to lobby a president.  “He will be reading his foreign policy material with even more interest than normal. He will probably be thinking about whether there is any way in which he can pitch his arguments to Trump that will shift him — a little bit — toward putting his shoulder to the climate change wheel,” the former senior official said.    “He won’t say: ‘You, America, should be doing stuff.’ He will say, ‘Internationally I think it is important we make progress on this and we need to be more ambitious.’ Or he might express concern about some of the impacts of climate change on global weather and all these extreme weather events.”  However he approaches it, 2019 showed how tough it is to move the dial.  After that conversation, Trump told broadcaster Piers Morgan that he thought Charles’ views were “great” and that he had “totally listened to him.” But then he demonstrated that — on the crucial points of how fossil fuels, carbon emissions and climate change are affecting the planet — he totally hadn’t.    “He wants to make sure future generations have climate that is good climate, as opposed to a disaster,” Trump said. “And I agree,” he added, before promptly pivoting to an apparent non-sequitur about the U.S. having “crystal clean” water. It was a typically Trumpian obfuscation. Asked about the king’s views during the Turnberry visit, Trump said: “Every time I met with him, he talked about the environment, how important it is. I’m all for it. I think that’s great.”  In nearly the same breath, he ranted about wind energy being “a disaster.”  GOOD LUCK, CHARLIE  “It is difficult, if not impossible, to see [Trump] change his views on climate change, because they’re not informed by his understanding of the science or consequences, but rather by naked politics,” said leading U.S. climate scientist Michael Mann in emailed remarks.   And Trump will come to the meeting prepared, said Martins, the former U.S. Embassy official. “Trump will receive the full briefing on the king’s views on environment. He won’t be going into that blind. He’ll know exactly what the king has said over his career and what his views are on it and how it affects American interests. I don’t anticipate him being surprised by anything the king says.”   He added: “Bashing net zero and President Biden … gets [Trump] political wins.”    To Charles’ long-standing domestic critics, it all highlights the pointlessness of his position.  Donald Trump has even declared his “love” for King Charles III. | Pool Photo by Richard Pohle via Getty Images “He is bound by these constitutional expectations that he does nothing that will upset the apple cart [in U.K./U.S. relations],” said Graham Smith, chief executive of campaign group Republic, which calls for the abolition of the monarchy. “If he was elected, he’d have a lot more freedom to say what he actually wants.”  “Soft power is a highly questionable concept,” added Smith. It’s only useful, he argued, when backed by something Charles lacks and Trump has by the bucket-load: “Hard power.”  And time may be running out for Charles to deploy even soft power in the climate fight.   Trump’s chief U.K. political ally is Nigel Farage, whose anti-net-zero Reform UK currently lead opinion polls. If British voters pick Reform at the next election, Charles’ potential advocacy would be restrained by a government opposed to action on climate change.  So how far will Charles go to seize his moment?  He wrote in Harmony: “If we continue to be deluded by the increasingly irresponsible clamour of sceptical voices that doubt man-made climate change, it will soon be too late to reverse the chaos we have helped to unleash.” He feared “failing in my duty to future generations and to the Earth itself” if he did not speak up.   Skelly, the former speechwriter who co-wrote the book, predicted that Charles would walk a fine diplomatic line — but was “not someone to sit on his hands or to remain silent.”   “He was warning about these things 30 years ago and nobody was listening. … He feels increasingly frustrated that time is running out.   “I’d love to be a fly on the wall — because it will be a fascinating conversation.”

BRUSSELS — French President Emmanuel Macron says a new law may be required to allow more wild wolves to be shot in France, taking advantage of looser EU protections of the predators. “We’re not going to let the wolf develop and go into [areas] where it competes with our activities,” Macron said during a trip to Aveyron on Thursday, referring to wolf attacks on farmers’ livestock. “And so that means that we must, as we say modestly, cull more of them.” He said that people “who invent rules and who don’t live with their animals in places where there are bears or wolves should go and spend two nights there.” Reports of wolf attacks on livestock in France have risen over the past decade and a half, with more than 10,000 reported annual deaths in recent years. European lawmakers in May greenlit a proposal amending the European Union Habitats Directive, moving the wolf from the list of “strictly protected” to “protected” species. That makes it easier for farmers in the EU to shoot wolves that threaten their herds. The directive will enter into force on July 14, giving countries until January 2027 to implement the change in national law. The highly-political push was led by the conservative European People’s Party as part of a campaign to endear themselves to farmers ahead of last year’s European elections. It became a personal project of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, whose pet pony Dolly was killed by a wolf in 2022. Green groups say relaxing protection rules is the wrong response. Macron “is engaging in a rare level of populism by asserting completely false things,” Jean-David Abel, head of the biodiversity network at France Nature Environnement, told Franceinfo on Friday.

Dr. Ursula von der Leyen has never had a patient quite like the Green Deal — and the treatment she’s prescribing for the viral politics infecting her landmark policy is amputation.  Europe’s green agenda is under attack from a motley coalition of corporate lobbyists, far-right rabble rousers and von der Leyen’s own political family, the center-right European People’s Party (EPP). Von der Leyen, the top EU executive and a medical doctor before she entered politics, is adamant she wants to save the patient, even if that means removing some of its minor limbs. After all, von der Leyen considers the Green Deal one of her signal political achievements.  “We’re standing firm by the European Green Deal. Climate change won’t go away,” said European Commission Chief Spokesperson Paula Pinho. Launched at the beginning of her first term as European Commission president in 2019, the Green Deal promised to completely overhaul the EU economy — slashing climate-warming pollution to zero, reshaping agriculture, transport and energy, and bringing industry, corporations and citizens into harmony with nature. But last year’s EU election delivered an alternative right-wing majority in the European Parliament — in addition to the centrist one that backed von der Leyen’s second term. EPP President Manfred Weber has since been using that right-leaning majority to target green legislation.  In response, von der Leyen has supported looser rules on car emissions, stripped-down corporate regulations and redirected green funds — to name a few items. But thus far, the Green Deal’s core — a net-zero drive for 2050 and the laws to deliver it — has not changed. And that’s von der Leyen’s strategy.  “We’re standing firm by the European Green Deal. Climate change won’t go away,” said European Commission Chief Spokesperson Paula Pinho. | Oliver Matthys/EPA “We’re in a very different place than we were at the beginning of the first mandate” in 2019, said a Commission official who is familiar with von der Leyen’s thinking and was granted anonymity to protect their relationship. “[The president] remains committed to the Green Deal, it just now has to incorporate some of these changed realities.” SLIMMING DOWN In 2020, von der Leyen said the Green Deal was about “much more than cutting emissions.” Yet EU officials and von der Leyen’s advisers now say her vision has shifted away from an all-encompassing drive for sustainability on every level.  While some of those broader goals remain, the emphasis is now on preserving what von der Leyen views as the core of the Green Deal: its climate change laws and the EU’s efforts to stamp out its greenhouse gas pollution by 2050. This is closer to what Weber is prepared to accept as well. That shift has guided von der Leyen in making compromises on a flock of environmental rules — often under the guise of easing the bureaucratic burden on companies. “Simplification is in the interest of the European Green Deal. If it gets too complex, it won’t be done,” Pinho said. The Commission has binned requirements for companies to report on their environmental impacts and exposure to climate risks. It has watered down a ban on the sale of combustion engine vehicles by 2035. It has killed a law controlling pesticides. The list could go on. Meanwhile, the prospect of an attempt to regulate carbon pollution from agriculture — a major emitter — has faded. Frustration has been mounting among those political groups that want to preserve a full-bodied vision of the Green Deal. They argue that the climate, nature and corporate responsibility drives are all interlinked, and that companies and citizens need to be given a clear sense of direction.  Meanwhile, the impacts of spiraling declines in biodiversity, natural habitats and the stability of the climate grow worse by the day. It has watered down a ban on the sale of combustion engine vehicles by 2035. | Filip Singer/EPA “All this demonization of the climate policies … creates a lot of uncertainty,” said Vula Tsetsi, co-chair of the European Green Party. It is von der Leyen’s role, she said, “to defend what for her has been so important in the previous legislation, meaning the Green Deal. And she should not give up.” Last Friday, von der Leyen seemed to make her most dramatic concession yet to Weber’s demands. After the EPP and far-right groups pushed the Commission to ditch an anti-greenwashing measure, the EU executive seemed to indicate it would withdraw the bill. An enormous row ensued. Centrist and center-left parties accused von der Leyen of being subservient to Weber and the far right’s anti-green agenda.  “VDL needs to get EPP in line,” said Socialist European Parliament member Tiemo Wölken, who worked on the law, using the Brussels nickname for von der Leyen. The European Parliament’s biggest group is trying to “kill everything related to the sustainability agenda,” he added. But in a twist, it turned out the Commission hadn’t meant it, or misspoke — it wasn’t clear.  And von der Leyen’s position, as POLITICO reported on Tuesday, is that she stands by the proposal, as long as the greenwashing rules don’t apply to the smallest companies. But even as that conflict rumbles on, a new, direct attack on the Green Deal’s core climate mission is gathering steam.  Next week the Commission is to present its 2040 climate target, but a coalition of countries led by France is pushing to stop the goal from affecting more near-term climate efforts. That could further delay EU attempts to establish a critical milestone, which is already far behind schedule — and weaken other climate efforts in the process.  The EPP also has its grumbles about the 2040 target, seeking more flexibility on how countries can reach their goals. The Commission is listening. According to a draft of the EU executive’s 2040 proposal, countries will be allowed to outsource some emissions cuts to poorer nations. Notably, however, von der Leyen’s preferred 90 percent emissions-cut target remains — another concession made to save the overall goal. What will von der Leyen do if the virus enters the body? Leeches? Or euthanasia? Louise Guillot contributed reporting from Brussels.

The European Commission set off a political cluster bomb Friday when it suddenly declared it was killing a relatively minor rule on corporate greenwashing. But why did killing this little-known law — which would force companies to back up environmental claims with verifiable evidence— cause such an almighty stink, and why now? The answer may lie in months of rising pressure, in which right-wing forces have used their increased influence in Brussels to relentlessly chip away at EU green rules. Leading this anti-green push has been the center-right European People’s Party, the largest force in the European Parliament. Often opposing it have been the remaining partners in the once-powerful, now-enfeebled centrist bloc that includes the center-left Socialists & Democrats, liberal Renew Group, and the Greens. Two days before the Commission said it was killing the Green Claims Directive, the EPP sent a letter to the Commission saying it wanted the law dead. The Commission seemed to capitulate without a fight, feeding a growing sense among the center-left bloc that the EPP is controlling not just Parliament but also the Commission. Subsequent developments have cast doubt on whether the Commission even really meant to announce it was killing the law, or whether the spokesperson had made a mistake. But that didn’t matter. The pressure cooker had blown its top, and the S&D, Renew and the Greens were steaming mad. “We are on the brink of an institutional crisis,” Valérie Hayer, chair of the Renew Europe group, told POLITICO.  Months of failure to influence Brussels policy had finally caught up with them. THE GREEN DEAL BACKLASH Their frustrations can be traced back to early last year, at the tail end of the Green Deal Mandate. The European Green Deal, a huge package of environmental reforms covering climate, biodiversity, pollution, agriculture, energy efficiency, recycling, and more, defined Ursula von der Leyen’s first term as president of the Commission. She launched it in late 2019 when Greta Thunberg was at peak popularity and the climate crisis was considered the world’s great existential threat. The Green Deal had support across ideological lines. The Green Deal had support across ideological lines. | Oliver Hoslet/EPA Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 shifted attention away from climate, but it was the perhaps the farmers’ protests — in part against EU green rules — of late 2023 and early 2024 that marked the real turning point. Looming European elections, in which the populist right was projected to make big gains, prompted the EPP to cast itself as the party of farmers that would protect Europe’s rural economy from environmental overreach. The Nature Restoration Law, designed to help restore Europe’s depleted biodiversity,  was the EPP’s first target. They succeeded in watering this down, and would have killed it altogether if Austria’s environment minister hadn’t gone rogue. The EPP did, however, succeed in killing rules that would have put limits on pesticide use. European elections in June brought a more right-wing Parliament, in which the EPP found itself in a position to choose to form a majority with either hard- and far-right groups, or with the traditional centrist block. Without the EPP, neither side had the numbers. In this new environment, the EPP’s next target was anti-deforestation rules, which it tried and failed to water down with the help of far-right groups — drawing accusations of breaching the cordon sanitaire, the unofficial agreement among centrist parties not to collaborate with the far right. ALL ABOARD THE OMNIBUS Then came von der Leyen’s first omnibus simplification bill. Proposed at the behest of member countries and industry and backed by the EPP, the awkwardly-named law opened up a number of green regulations for businesses, with the goal of reducing red tape. The draft proposal, released in February, was a bonfire of green regulation, slashing the content and reducing the scope of the laws. And it started a trend. Over the intervening few months, the Commission, EU countries, and right-leaning groups in Parliament have targeted an expanding list of green rules and policies, including through more omnibus simplification bills. Some of these measures have originated with the EPP in Parliament, some from within the Commission, and others from national governments — reflecting increased influence of pro-business, anti-green sentiment across EU institutions. Some moves affecting green policies have included: cutting green regulations for farmers; watering down laws on soil health; downgrading the protection status of wild wolves; reducing the scope of chemical safety regulations; reducing the scope of the carbon border tax; allowing billions in Covid-19 relief money earmarked for climate projects to go to defense instead; blocking the use of the term “Green Deal” in a Parliament report on water resilience; criticizing use of EU money to fund green NGOs; watering down greenwashing laws; continued attacks on anti-deforestation and forest monitoring laws. The list goes on. Mostly these have been at the less meaty end of the Green Deal, and have not affected the core promise of slashing greenhouse gas emissions to create a climate-neutral Europe by 2050. But two changes stand out. One is the Commission’s decision to cave in to industry pressure for leniency on this vehicle year’s emission targets, that were meant to act as a milestone along the route to the 2035 ban on combustion engines — and a softening on the scope of the ban itself. “We are on the brink of an institutional crisis,” Valérie Hayer, chair of the Renew Europe group, told POLITICO. | Ronald Wittek/EPA The other is the Commission’s draft plan to allow the use of carbon credits overseas to meet the EU’s 2040 climate targets. Pretty much all of these policies have been opposed by the Greens and S&D and, to a lesser extent, the centrist Renew — groups which held more sway in previous mandates. Which may explain the eruption of frustrations this week.

All 27 European Union member countries have agreed to push for radical cuts to ethical supply chain rules, setting the stage for tense negotiations with other EU institutions later this year. It continues a growing trend of cutting back environmental laws to reduce the regulatory burden on business and boost the bloc’s sluggish economy. On Monday evening, EU ambassadors endorsed the Council of the EU’s position on the first omnibus simplification bill, a proposal for sweeping cuts to EU green rules that is one of the first major bills of Ursula von der Leyen’s second term as European Commission president. Green groups and some European lawmakers already considered the Commission’s original proposal too weak — now, member countries want it to be even laxer. The Council’s final position adopts a French proposal to just ask companies with more than 5,000 employees and €1.5 billion in net turnover to police their supply chains for environmental and human rights abuses. The threshold on the current proposal is 1,000 employees and turnover of €450 million. If endorsed by the EU as a whole, this would mean that fewer than 1,000 European companies would be subject to the law, called the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. EU countries in the Council also agreed that companies should only have to assess their direct suppliers — and not their entire supply chain, as originally stipulated. They also want to postpone the deadline by which EU countries must transpose the directive into national law by a year. Denmark, which will take on the presidency of the Council of the EU in July, will run negotiations with the European Parliament and Commission on this. It comes just days after the Commission announced it would kill anti-greenwashing legislation days before negotiations on the law with Parliament and Council were due to conclude, causing uproar among some groups in Parliament.

A clear message flowed through the halls of the third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) in Nice last week: the ocean is in crisis. The ocean covers over 70 percent of our planet and is essential to all life on Earth. It is a vital source of biodiversity, and marine ecosystems that support the livelihoods and cultures of billions of people around the world. It cools and regulates our climate. And yet this vast resource, much of which is still unseen or unknown, is transforming at an alarming pace. “Ecosystems are threatened, coral reefs are bleaching faster than ever before, cyclones are more intense than ever,” said the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, in his opening remarks. “The globe is burning, our oceans are boiling.” > The ocean covers over 70 percent of our planet and is essential to all life on > Earth. It is a vital source of biodiversity, and marine ecosystems that > support the livelihoods and cultures of billions of people around the world. Ten years on from the Paris Agreement, UNOC3 — co-hosted by France and Costa Rica — sought to catalyze further action and policy commitments toward protecting our ocean. This major global event brought together ocean stakeholders from intergovernmental organizations, civil society, academic institutions, and Indigenous and local communities, among others, to share ideas, insights and ongoing projects in support of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14: Life Below Water. In Nice’s Palexpo, rebranded for the conference as “The Whale”, the European Commission hosted the European Digital Ocean Pavilion, implemented by Mercator Ocean International. The Pavilion formed a central hub for the European ocean community, while showcasing cutting-edge EU assets and technologies for ocean observation. “Through state-of-the-art simulations, multimedia screens and interactive installations, visitors could visualize ocean processes, explore ‘what-if’ scenarios, and better understand the ocean’s vital signs,” said Elisabeth Hamdouch-Fuehrer, deputy head of earth observation at the European Commission. Mercator Ocean, Philippe Fitte The Pavilion was split into three sections, each highlighting the EU’s progress toward a sustainable blue future. INSPIRE hosted daily forums on a broad range of ocean topics, connecting scientists, policymakers and the public in discussions on major ocean challenges and the inspiring solutions working to solve them. ENGAGE took visitors on an immersive journey through the ocean that combined ocean knowledge, art pieces and ocean monitoring technology. DECIDE offered a hands-on experience of Europe’s digital ocean revolution, in a command center filled with screens visualizing the past, present and future conditions of the ocean. These simulations were powered by a revolutionary technology: the European Digital Twin of the Ocean (EU DTO). This cutting-edge digital replica provides real-time simulations of ocean dynamics and potential future changes — whether from harmful impacts like plastic pollution or the effects of mitigation policies. The EU DTO draws on the EU’s extensive ocean data resources, a comprehensive marine observation network that includes Copernicus satellite data, EMODnet data produced by underwater autonomous drones, and in-situ sensors across the world’s seas and and numerical models. Using powerful, state-of-the-art AI-driven modelling, the EU DTO takes this data and creates — in seconds— intricate ocean simulations. > This cutting-edge digital replica, , provides real-time simulations of ocean > dynamics and potential future changes — whether from harmful impacts like > plastic pollution or the effects of mitigation policies. On the opening day of the conference, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, visited the European Digital Ocean Pavilion to experience first-hand the technology she announced three years ago in Brest. “Today we proudly present the first demonstration version,” said von der Leyen. “It’s an amazing tool that helps us better understand the ocean, from pollution to navigation but also from risk to our coasts to biodiversity — you name it.”  The EU DTO’s arrival brings significant advances to European and global ocean management. It is a fundamental pillar supporting the European Ocean Pact, the EU’s strategic framework for ocean sustainability leading up to 2029, which seeks to promote the health, productivity and resilience of the ocean and support European coastal communities into the future. The EU DTO’s real-time monitoring, predictions and scenario testing can transform insights on ocean health into concrete action, supporting evidence-based policies that lead to meaningful change. “We have in Europe a lot of data and a lot of excellent science, and the Digital Twin Ocean is going to be the machinery through which we will bring this knowledge in an actionable state here and now,” said the policy officer for the Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE), Zoe Konstantinou.   Mercator Ocean, Philippe Fitte Mercator Ocean International has a scientific legacy in the field of operational oceanography, working at the forefront of digital ocean model development for over three decades. In a major announcement of the week, Mercator Ocean International was took a step closer to transitioning into an intergovernmental organization. This transition will establish Mercator International Centre for the Ocean as a global platform that provides scientific ocean intelligence and digital ocean services to its member states, and supports of international commitments. “Addressing these challenges requires international collaboration and governance to deliver, access to ocean information that is really trustworthy,” said Pierre Bahurel, director general of Mercator Ocean International. “We are ready to support you in the decisions you have to make and offer you digital knowledge and services that you can trust.” > Mercator Ocean International has a scientific legacy in the field of > operational oceanography, working at the forefront of digital ocean model > development for over three decades. During the week, the Digital Ocean Pavilion showcased several key international ocean monitoring projects hosted by Mercator Ocean International. These included the OceanPrediction Decade Collaborative Centre (DCC), a global platform aiming to advance coordinated ocean forecasting and build a “Predicted Ocean” — designed to be a transformative outcome of the UN Decade of Ocean Science. A part ofthis initiative is the OPERA project, a program dedicated to advancing ocean science and innovation in sub-Saharan Africa, while the Ocean Prediction for Costa Rica project, launched in March 2025, will boost forecasting in Costa Rica particularly around Cocos Island National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Together, these events illustrated the instrumental role of coordinated ocean prediction in supporting climate resilience and sustainable development.  Though the challenges faced by the ocean are severe, the Digital Ocean Pavilion highlighted the formidable capacity of European society in tackling them together through collaboration. Charlina Vitcheva, director general of DG MARE, urged everyone in the ocean community to continue their important work to better understand the ocean. “Only then can we take the right policy actions, put the right investments in the blue economy, and unleash the potential of marine technologies.” 

The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is grounded in the recognition that people, land, and society are deeply interlinked. But today, that connection is under strain. Farmers face mounting pressure from extreme weather, rising input costs and increasing regulatory complexity. Against this backdrop, the upcoming CAP reform is a pivotal moment, one that must deliver real outcomes to future-proof European agriculture.   To do that, policymakers should focus on three clear priorities: enabling co-investment between the public and private sectors; ensuring payments are simpler and rewarding farmers for what really matters; and equipping farmers with tailored support beyond payments. This is the foundation for a CAP that truly supports food security, climate action, and farmer livelihoods, while keeping food affordable for consumers.   By aligning around these priorities, the CAP can move beyond being just a rulebook for farmers and become a framework that brings together everyone involved in sustaining and shaping our food future, balancing agricultural progress with care for the environment and our communities. At PepsiCo, we see the impact of these policies up close, starting from the very first step of our value chain. Across the EU, we work with over 800 farmers to source key agricultural crops and ingredients, including potatoes, corn and oats. These ingredients are the backbone of iconic brands like Lay’s, Doritos, and Quaker, which rely on thriving farming communities and sustainable agricultural practices. Their success is our success. And so is their sustainability.  But I can also see that today’s farmers face an uncertain future. With the EU standing at a crossroads, we have to rethink how to support food security, respond to climate impacts and deliver more equitable outcomes for farmers, while keeping food affordable and accessible for consumers.   That’s why CAP reform matters now. Done right, the CAP can become a global model for a public-private partnership that drives meaningful and measurable progress across the full agri-food value chain.  On PepsiCo’s part, we remain committed to being a constructive partner in support of a more competitive, resilient and sustainable food system — based on regenerative agriculture.  This approach uses science-based farming practices that aim to restore ecosystems by improving soil health and fertility, reducing emissions, enhancing water quality and protecting biodiversity while also supporting farmer livelihoods. For example, in Jaén, southern Spain, we recently launched ‘Viva Oliva’ to support local olive growers, many of whom have been working in this historic trade for generations. Through this project, we’re providing hands-on training from agronomy experts so that farmers can protect the ecosystem more efficiently and conserve vital resources.   Crucially, these practices also create new opportunities, ensuring that farming can continue to be a viable option for the next generation. In 2024 we sourced 100 percent of the olive oil for our Alvalle gazpacho brand from Jaén, securing a high-quality local supply for Alvalle while strengthening the role of farmers in our supply shed.  > We’re investing in innovative techniques that bring life back to the land > because it is the right thing to do for our business, for the farmers we work > with and for the planet. Viva Oliva is just one of the many projects that’s helped us spread regenerative agriculture across a total of 3.5 million acres (approximately 1.4 million hectares) of farmland. Recently, we extended our target and are now aiming to reach 10 million acres (around 4 million hectares) globally by 2030.   We’re also taking action further upstream through partnerships with fertilizer companies like Yara, equipping farmers with precision tools to improve nutrient efficiency, increase yields and lower the carbon footprint of their crops. This collaboration supports approximately 1,000 farms across the EU and the UK that supply key ingredients for Lay’s and Walkers, covering around 128,000 hectares. By 2030 the partnership aims to reduce fertilizer production emissions by up to 80 percent and in-field fertilizer emissions by up to 20 percent, helping scale regenerative practices while supporting farmer productivity.  > Recently, we extended our regenerative agriculture target and are now aiming > to spread these practices across 10 million acres of farmland globally by > 2030. I know that we have the expertise and ambition to meet these goals, but we can’t do it alone. To make this a reality, we need EU policymakers to deliver a coherent and enabling regulatory framework that’s fit for purpose, based on three guiding principles.  Firstly, policymakers must match ambition with investment. Strong public funding is essential, but the CAP should be reimagined to enable co-investment through blended finance models, where public and private capital work together to accelerate impact. Private investment should be results driven, allowing trusted private-sector partners, who operate at size and scale, to co-design solutions with farmers.  Secondly, payments should be simpler and pay farmers for what really matters. This requires rewarding farmers not just for compliance but also for delivering real, measurable environmental benefits such as healthier soils, lower emissions, cleaner water, and richer biodiversity. Farming is unlike most other businesses, with income around 40 percent lower than non-agricultural income,1, which is why CAP incentives must reflect the true costs farmers face, including machinery upgrades and land-use shifts. And the system should incentivize progress over perfection — farmers who are already taking action should be compensated accordingly.  Thirdly, the CAP must recognize that farmers need support beyond payments. Investing in climate information systems, knowledge sharing networks, rural infrastructure and novel technologies will help accelerate and scale the implementation of new techniques — while ensuring profitability. Travelling across Europe to meet our teams on the ground, I see firsthand how local needs differ, so farmers should also be free to choose the solutions that are best suited to their region and crops to ensure policies are impactful.    > “Done right, the CAP can become a global model for a public-private > partnership that drives meaningful and measurable progress across the full > agrifood value chain. Archana Jagannathan And PepsiCo is committed to being part of that solution. Together with like-minded partners, we’re fully committed to growing food in a way that revitalizes the earth, supports farmer livelihoods, and feeds a growing population.