One of the priorities of the new President of the Commission is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 through this new ecological pact.
One of the priorities of the new President of the Commission is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 through this new ecological pact.
It will be up to the future Vice-President of the Commission and Commissioner for Climate Action, Frans Timmermans, to implement this roadmap. Ursula von der Leyen, who calls ecology an urgent moral, human and political obligation, wants to make it a “trademark” of the European Union.
If the President attaches such importance to it, it is first and foremost because she had to work with the political forces represented in the Council and the European Parliament: the Member States and MEPs to ensure her election. The appointment of Social Democrat Frans Timmermans as Vice-President of the Commission, a requirement resulting from negotiations between Member States, has pushed her to “green” her programme for Europe. In addition, the ecological push observed during the European elections in May 2019 led most of Parliament’s political groups to be more demanding on the ecological and climate issue.
While waiting for more details on the financing of this Green Pact, the project leaders can still position themselves on the last call for projects of the LIFE programme, concerning the improvement of natural capital in favour of biodiversity.