"We need to tackle the three major crises of our day at the same time. We must do everything we can to bring prices down so that citizens and businesses can survive the coming winter. At the same time, we must finally stop financing the Russian war of aggression through our energy bills and continue to prioritize the climate crisis, in particular the goals for 2030,” this is what rapporteur in the ENVI Committee Peter Liese believes is what the European Commission’s proposal for REPowerEU is all about. The European Commission has proposed to intervene in the European emissions trading system and thus generate 20 billion euros to promote investments such as in LNG terminals, renewable energy and energy efficiency so that we can become less dependent on Russian gas. Now the ENVI negotiators agreed on a text.
The proposal met with criticism from environmental groups, social democrats and the Greens because it would lower the price of emission certificates. The rapporteur for the Environment Committee, the CDU politician Peter Liese, sees this as an advantage: "In the current phase, we must do everything we can to curb the price of electricity in particular and to relieve companies that are on the verge of bankruptcy. That is why it is not just an unpleasant side effect, but rather a desired effect if we push the ETS price down now. The price was €20 two years ago and has risen to almost €100 for a short time. In view of the general situation, one cannot be happy about this development. Investments in decarbonization cannot be made so quickly that they provide sufficient relief in the coming winter. That is why it is important to dampen the price in the short term. However, the proposal that we have worked out in the Environment Committee provides that the certificates are not simply put on the market, but that certificates from the period after 2026 are brought forward. This means that the climate effect will remain until 2030. What is clear is that the relief we are giving now must be compensated for by additional efforts by 2030.”
Read more: Tackling together the energy price crisis, dependency on Russia and climate protection
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) now published a recommendation for the vaccination of the newly approved Omicron booster vaccines.
"Although the bivalent booster vaccines are approved for all persons above 12 years, the EMA recommends first protecting the vulnerable population with a higher risk for a severe disease course. I consider this recommendation to be very comprehensible. The EMA's recommendation is not binding for the member states. Still, I hope that the national authorities in member states will quickly come to similar recommendations," said the health policy spokesperson of the largest group in the European Parliament (EPP-Christian Democrats), Peter Liese.
Read more: ECDC and EMA publish recommendations on Omicron booster vaccination
The Christian Democrats in the European Parliament propose a short-term intervention in emissions trading to relieve electricity consumers and companies of costs in the next difficult months and, at the same time, generate money for necessary investments in renewables, energy efficiency, and LNG terminals. They want to focus primarily on cross-border projects between Member States.
Dr. Peter Liese, the EPP group's environmental spokesman and rapporteur in the Environment Committee for REPowerEU and European emissions trading, said: "We urgently need to react quickly to protect electricity customers and companies from unbearable costs. European emissions trading must also contribute to this. At the same time, we are still too dependent from Russian energy and need to finally stop financing Putin’s war. Moreover, we should not weaken but even strengthen our climate ambition for 2030 because the last weeks have shown that to tackle climate change is even more urgent.
"This is great news; the vaccines will help us to get an even better grip on the pandemic in the upcoming months," commented Peter Liese, the health policy spokesperson for the largest group in the European Parliament (EPP-Christian Democrats), on the news that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has recommended approval for two adapted vaccines against the Omicron subvariant of the coronavirus.
Read more: EMA recommends approval of Moderna and BioNTech's Omicron-adapted vaccines