Parliament votes against urgent procedure for amending European Climate Law
In a key vote in the European Parliament today to urgently set the EU’s 2040 emissions target, the right-wing EPP group sided with the extreme-right Patriots for Europe group (which includes Germany’s AfD and Poland’s PiS). The Patriots for Europe group is a leading proponent of climate denial and far-right conspiracy theories about climate action.
After the Patriots group won the bidding for the rapporteurship of the report on amending the European Climate Law in the ENVI Committee, it became urgent to limit their control over the file by supporting an urgent procedure for the file in a vote in Strasbourg today. However that urgent procedure was denied today when the EPP sided with the far-right.
The Left’s leading MEP on the topic Catarina Martins said: “There are very few issues on the table as urgent as climate action, as rising temperatures and extreme weather events destroy communities across Europe. The decision by the EPP to side with parties like the AfD and block urgent climate action is shockingly irresponsible. We will now push for a simplified procedure in the Parliament, but for now the European Climate Law is not safe in the hands of the extreme right.”
