European Greens warn: European People’s Party alliance with Giorgia Meloni will kill the Green Deal

Padua, Italy During his visit to Padua, Italy, Bas Eickhout highlighted the severe impact of storms and heavy rainfall in many parts of northern Italy with the regions of Veneto and Lombardy being particularly affected by floods. The heavy rains caused severe damage and suffering to citizens, local farmers and the economy. Extreme weather caused by climate change is becoming more and more frequent.Bas Eickhout, European Green lead candidate said: “The Green Deal is needed more than ever, for example to prevent extreme weather events from becoming more frequent. A Green Deal should be social, and include a major investment plan to fund green infrastructure, renewable energy, and public services. This way, we will create jobs, reduce energy costs, and improve living standards across Europe. The green transition is not abstract, it improves the lives of people. It means new rail lines, new factories, new opportunities, better health. And Greens have attention for small and medium-size sustainable agricultural practices, which are partners in protecting the environment against extreme weather.” Green top candidate Bas Eickhout pointed out that a potential alliance of right-wing and far-right parties on the European level threatens the future of the Green Deal. “We have already seen how the conservative and far-right parties in the European Parliament started dismantling key elements of the Green Deal, such as the Nature Restoration Law.”Eickhout emphasised that the Greens are fully committed to defending the Green Deal and the interests of farmers and citizens against climate impacts: “Farmers are suffering because of the current unsustainable model. The Green Deal is the solution, not the problem. We need a Green and Social Deal that prioritises people and the planet over profits.”

Greens alone in taking threat of the far right seriously

Brussels. The Eurovision Debate made it clear that the European People’s Party, and the Liberals, are openly courting the far right. Terry Reintke, representing the European Greens, highlighted the importance of stopping the far right, and strengthening the European Green Deal.
At the debate Terry Reintke said “The biggest threat to security in Europe is the rise of the far right. There are far right politicians that want to destabilise this union, that want to take away the fundament of what has built peace, freedom and prosperity in Europe over the last decades. Many of them are working with Putin, with China, trying to undermine our interests. We cannot have the extended arm of Vladimir Putin sitting in parliament. Europe has to resist to this threat.This is why we call on all citizens to mobilise and vote for democratic and pro-European parties on 9 June. A vote for the Greens means a vote against the far right.”The lead candidate of the European People’s Party, Ursula von der Leyen, suggested in the debate that Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party is a pro-European, pro-Ukraine, and pro-rule of law party. But just today Italian journalists wrote to the European Commission asking Commissioner Jourova to protect media freedom in Italy, which is under attack from the Meloni government. Giorgia Meloni once described Europe as ‘rotten to the core’ and she wanted Italy to leave the eurozone as recently as in 2019.In the debate Terry Reintke also confronted Sandro Gozi who was representing Renew Europe Now, and who intentionally evaded answering questions about how the European liberals intend to respond to their member party VVD’s decision to go into coalition government together with the far-right in the Netherlands. Terry Reintke warned: “If Renew is committed to the European project, it must send a very clear signal now that there are consequences when its parties go into coalition with the far right. You cannot just tell us that you will solve this after the European election. Have an extraordinary group meeting and expel VVD from your group.” The rise of far right populists such as Meloni also threatens the Green Deal, a flagship policy of the last five years. About a year ago, an unholy alliance of the EPP, Liberals, and the far right (ECR and ID) began dismantling key elements of the Green Deal, such as the Nature Restoration Law. Intensifying extreme weather events, including last summer’s heat waves and recent floods in Germany and Italy, underscore the urgent need for climate action.Terry Reintke said: “The Greens will continue to tackle climate change with the urgency it demands. Conservatives and Liberals have already started to kill the Green Deal. But the Greens are committed to taking it forwards. Our Green and Social Deal leaves no one behind. We aim to invest in home insulation to cut energy costs, promote renewable energy to free Europe from fossil fuel dependency and autocrats, and create new jobs.”

Germany’s preliminary coalition talks collapse

AS COALITION talks in Berlin dragged on through Sunday evening there were rumours of progress, of a nearing accord. After four weeks Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats CDU, the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens had sailed past two self-imposed deadlines. Now, perhaps, a deal was close. But not long before midnight everything changed. With the rest of the FDP leadership at his side, Christian Lindner appeared without warning outside the negotiation venue and announced that he was breaking off talks. He blamed the lack of a “common vision for the modernisation of the country” and of a “common basis of trust” for a prospective Jamaica government (the parties’ colours are those of that country’s flag). It had been impossible, he complained, to secure the “trend shifts” that FDP voters wanted in areas like the economy, tax and migration: “It’s better not to govern at all than to govern wrongly”. Nicola Beer, the FDP’s general secretary, characterised the talks as: “No agreement on the Soli [“solidarity” tax funding the former communist east] or education federalism, no proportionate immigration rules. Instead an ideological energy policy that would have deindustrialised Germany”.(By The Economist) (photo: merkel)

Greens Isolated as Unions Fight Back Against FSC

Late last year, we highlighted Governor Paul LePage’s executive order on building certification standards, specifically his efforts to allow Maine “to source wood products from various certification schemes, such as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI).” Governor LePage is not a lonely voice, with support emerging from across the political spectrum from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW ) to inject greater competition into the certification process, specifically to allow SFI-certified products to be used by U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) for its LEED rating system. Moves to rationalize the LEED rating system are long overdue, but this doesn’t mean that the Forest Stewardship Council will stand idly by and protect their monopoly.The IAMAW’s support is a major blow for the greens and their attempts to monopolize certification in the forestry industry through the Forest Stewardship Council. USGBC now finds itself under growing pressure to put an end to their senseless – and politically motivated – support of FSC and embrace the bipartisan solutions being put forward by Republicans and unions to overhaul its LEED rating system. But what’s most damning is that IAMAW cites its preference for SFI over FSC because the latter is often “vulnerable to the whims of large special interest groups who are able to dictate outcomes that in the past have been harmful to workers, their communities, and forest health.” Of course, we could not agree more. It’s time for USGBC to drop its blind loyalty to F SC. American workers and, most of all, taxpayers deserve better.