Debate: Sustainable Europe Investment Plan - How to finance the Green Deal
Date: THURSDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 2020
Speaker: Siegfried Mureşan
Country: Germany
Language: EN

Paul Tang and myself, as co-rapporteurs, are presenting to you today Parliament’s report on the Sustainable Europe Investment Plan. This is the financing of the Green Deal: it’s an own-initiative report by Parliament which should lay the framework for the financing of the Green Deal, because we believe much of the success of the Green Deal will depend on its financing. We have set ambitious objectives there, and we will only meet those objectives if we follow suit with appropriate financial resources. Resources will be needed from the European level, from the national level and from the local level, and they will be needed from the private and from the public sector alike in order to meet these objectives. We started our work on this report immediately after the Commission presented the Green Deal and the Sustainable Europe Investment Plan – that was at the beginning of this year. It was before the start of the pandemic, and we set ambitious objectives. The one thing which I want to say very clearly for Parliament now is that we are sticking to the objectives of the Green Deal: combating climate change; polluting less; improving our energy efficiency. Those need to be permanent tasks. They should not only be tasks that we are busy with when there is no other crisis. So we are committed to the objectives of the Green Deal, but obviously we need to see, together with the Commission, how we ensure the financing in the new context. We set the objective to mobilise EUR 1 trillion for the next 10 years before the pandemic, but we are seeing that the pandemic is affecting our economies, and it is affecting our enterprises, and we need to reach the objectives of the Green Deal together with our enterprises and with our economies, not against them. The first important question will be, how much financing can we mobilise and how much can the private sector do to reach these objectives? This is why the report which Paul Tang and myself are putting in front of you today raises an important element. Will we reach, Vice-President Dombrovskis, the leverage effects that we were planning at the beginning of the year? We need to see if the objectives which we had for the next 10 years are reachable, and how. We need to see if the leverage effects which we were planning at the beginning of the year are realistic and we also need to see what the synergies between the resources that we mobilised after the pandemic and the objectives of the Green Deal will be. How will Next Generation EU, the recovery and resilience facility, contribute to these objectives? We, as the European Parliament, are setting ambitious green objectives, including for the recovery and resilience facility. The Commission rightly proposed 37% climate mainstreaming under the recovery and resilience facility. We, as the European Parliament, are backing the Commission in the 37%, but I am going one small step further and I am proposing 40%. The question is, do we count the resources from the recovery resilience facility under the Sustainable Europe Investment Plan or not? This is an important question that we need to clarify together. We also recognise the important role of the EU budget and the positive contribution towards reaching the objectives of the Green Deal which cohesion policy has, which research policy has, which agriculture policies have and which the Just Transition Fund also has.  With regard to the Just Transition Fund, I would like to say that it is crucial that the Just Transition Fund is sufficiently financed and that the climate transition takes into consideration the different levels of development and dependence on fossil fuels in different EU Member States. Obviously Member States are deciding by themselves their own energy mixes. We are committed and Member States are committed – they should be committed – to transitioning from the least clean sources of energy, but we need to see how the transition can take place from country to country. We, in our report, are also saying that the projects with the highest potential to reach our climate objectives should be financed as a priority and we also say that a level playing field should be guaranteed for EU companies. We are also aware of the importance of own resources, where the Council, the Commission and Parliament have made together very good progress for a calendar for own resources in the next seven years. We see own resources as a source of revenue, but also as a tool to incentivise greening at the level of consumers and at the level of the private sector. We believe that private financing is very important as well because, as I said, financial needs are very big. The investment needs are between EUR 250 and 400 billion per year. We, as the public sector, are doing our part, but we need a commitment from the private sector as well. And the role of the European Investment Bank is also important, as well as other financial institutions, such as such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. This being said, Madam President, I would like to thank my co-rapporteur Paul Tang for the excellent work which we did together, himself on behalf of the Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) Committee, myself on behalf of the Budget Committee, and all of our shadow rapporteurs, who really spent tens of hours in the negotiations with us.  The report was adopted with a very large majority at the level of the committees. We’re looking forward to the final vote tomorrow in plenary, and then we’re looking forward to the cooperation with the European Commission on the basis of what Parliament will be saying in this report.