🇪🇺Ursula von der Leyen Risks EU Majority over Green Claims Directive and Budget Fight
Tensions mount within Von der Leyen’s centrist coalition as backlash grows over the withdrawal of the Green Claims Directive and looming EU budget disputes.
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When it rains, it pours for Ursula von der Leyen
Last week saw members of the Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s centrist coalition, comprised of the Socialists and Democrats (Left), Renew Europe (Centre), and the European People’s Party (Right), threaten to pull out over Von der Leyen siding with the right to cancel the Green Claims Directive.
For those not in the know, the Green Claims Directive is a proposal to combat “greenwashing” by ensuring that any claims of eco-friendliness are verified, and not simply a marketing strategy to make more money.
A study completed by the European Commission prior to the proposal’s publication showed that 53% of green claims on products and services give vague, misleading or unfounded information, with 40% of claims having no supporting evidence.
While the dossier itself seems like a clear winner in the public’s eyes, it has become yet another symbolic victim of the culture war, with the right broadly wanting it gone in a similar way to the Nature Restoration Law last mandate, and the left wanting to safeguard whatever they can from the EU Green Deal.
This dossier has been going through the Ordinary Legislative Procedure for several years now, with the initial proposal being published in March 2023. Since then, it has been going through the process, with negotiations having begun to find a compromise position back in January.
Unfortunately, after all of this effort, and ahead of a final meeting between MEPs and the Polish Presidency of the European Council, the Commission announced that it was going to withdraw the dossier entirely, following a letter from Manfred Weber’s EPP demanding it be withdrawn.
The letter, naturally, was accompanied by the far-right European Conservatives and Reformists and Patriots for Europe Groups making similar demands.
The situation was further confused by the Commission announcing that it would only withdraw the dossier if the European Council amendment to include 30 million micro-enterprises (less than ten employees) within the scope of its powers.
Valérie Hayer, the French president of the liberal Renew Europe Group, immediately applied pressure to the Commission, decrying it as “disgraceful” and an “unprecedented institutional scandal”.
“ Stopping negotiations and requesting a withdrawal in the middle of the process is an unprecedented institutional scandal.
Where is the Platform? What is the value of a word once it has been given?
I asked Ursula von der Leyen not to withdraw it and let co-legislators work based on their mandate. Then, everyone will be free to vote as they see fit in the final vote.”
- Valérie Hayer responding to the withdrawal of the Green Claims Directive
The Socialists and Democrats, led by Tiemo Wölken, their spokesperson in the European Parliament’s Environment, Climate, and Food Safety Committee, likewise decried what he called “a cynical attempt to kill important legislation that would protect consumers”:
“Let’s call this what it is: a coordinated attack by the Commission and the EPP against green legislation. The timing is no accident – this is a cynical attempt to kill important legislation that would protect consumers from greenwashing and ensure honest environmental claims. Ursula von der Leyen as Commission chief is betraying her mandate and turning the Commission into the EPP’s headquarters. That’s an institutional scandal.
This is a clear case of the Commission abusing its power in a partisan way against European citizens’ best interests. Pulling it back just days before the inter-institutional agreement is reckless, baseless, and undemocratic.”
While this has become a clear sign of yet another fracture within the European Parliament’s ruling majority, with the EPP flirting with the far-right whenever they feel they can get away with it politically.
This has led to the other members of the centrist party threatening to pull their support on several occasions, and yet we’re seeing this play out yet again.
A brewing fight over the MFF
The EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework(MFF) is the EU’s seven-year EU budget, and is up there with the Common Agriculture Policy as one of the most contentious negotiations at the EU level, and is always gone through with a fine-toothed comb.
As you can imagine, it doesn’t need any additional drama to be added for flavour, and yet it seems like that’s exactly what we’re looking at now.
A fight appears to be brewing around the next MFF, with the Socialists making it clear that any reduction to the Social Fund, a part of the EU budget intended to tackle poverty and support vulnerable groups that was worth €142.7 billion in the 2021-2027 MFF, will cost the Commission their support.
Speaking to Politico, the President of the Socialists and Democrats, Iratxe García Pérez, made it clear that Von der Leyen “won't have a blank check from the Socialist group”, and that the new attempts to create a more competitive EU would not happen “at the cost of leaving behind the EU’s social cohesion.”
A large part of the anxiety surrounding the next MFF is the Commission’s major push to reinvigorate European industry and defence, as well as the ongoing review and streamlining of the legislative library that forms European law today.
The fact that a lot of the laws currently being reviewed and recompiled into the various Omnibuses are related to the Green Deal and other perceived left-wing policies has caused concern across left-wing politicians who believe that the rightward turn of the Von der Leyen commission is not a short-term move.
This isn’t helped by the fact that the VDL2 Commission is formed of 13 EPP, five socialist, and four liberal commissioners, and the way in which Ursula von der Leyen continues to lean towards the whims of her European political party, the EPP, and their attempts to keep the far-right on side.
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The Commission is still not fully democratically elected
What a useful summary: thank you so much, Julien!
Speaking as someone who had been working on climate action in the built environment for 25 years, the corporate capture and greenwashing is actively stopping simple, effective, cheap and non-risky action. And you just need to read the Grenfell report to know exactly how much those jokers care about anything but profit maximisation. They’ve had a malign influence over EU policy that is EXTREMELY frustrating… I’m not surprised they are using sneaky means to try to prevent a minimum of accountability, and am pleased they are being called out.