Verbatim report of proceedings

Tuesday, 7 June 2022 - Strasbourg

Revision of the EU Emissions Trading System - Social Climate Fund - Carbon border adjustment mechanism - Revision of the EU Emissions Trading System for aviation - Notification under the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) (joint debate – Fit for 55 (part 1))

  Sara Skyttedal (PPE). – Madam President, when witnessing the climate debate, it sometimes feels a little bit like an auction. The highest bidder is regarded as the winner. But I believe that there are actors bidding without actually caring if they can cover the costs. As negotiator of the ETS, I have seen this behaviour as well, with the Greens wanting to remove protection from carbon leakage as early as possible, not taking into account all the pathways looks like.

And you can’t just tap your finger and get new carbon—free industry in place over a day. It has to be approved, constructed and for some sectors we still need innovation to get where we want. We can’t control this by our whims because we are politicians, not magicians. Our industries in Europe are on board with the Green Deal. We should be proud of how they invest and innovate to show that we can combine competitiveness with the Green Deal. We need to lead them along this path, to reward the best performers, to incentivise those lagging behind, while protecting them from unfair competition from China and India.

The outcome from the Environment Committee, unfortunately, does not do that. It’s just going to hurt European competitiveness, threaten our jobs and risk increased emissions outside of Europe. I therefore urge Members to support the outcome on this from the Industry Committee instead.