Brussels proposes 100,000 million euros for the energy transition without explaining where it will get the money

Brussels wants to become the global conscience against climate change. That is why today the president of the community executive, Úrsula Von der Leyen, has just presented her European Green Pact with which she intends the disappearance of fossil fuels in the European club in 2050. To this end, she proposes to accelerate the cutting of gases with greenhouse effect up to 50% or 55% in 2030 when the current goal was expected at 40%.

This plan called Green Deal in English has echoes to the New Deal powered by Roosevelt, but the big difference is that here the constant and sound public money shines by its absence, at least for the moment although the community executive has promised to mobilize up to 100,000 million euros. In an attempt to add epic to today's proposal, Von der Leyen has ensured that the community club faces its "man on the moon" moment.

But the president of the community executive is aware of the many reluctance that this plan faces in countries with economies heavily dependent on coal and that is why she proposes a buffer fund with the aim of leaving no one on the road. Tomorrow the usual summit of the month of December is held in Brussels and the heads of State and Government must approve a text of conclusions in which they commit to achieve climate neutrality in the year 2050. Until now, it has been impossible to reach a agreement before the veto of Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary. There have already been two European summits of the highest level in which it has been impossible to reach an agreement.

The community executive estimates that 260,000 euros per year of additional European investment will be required to achieve the current objectives, which represents 1.5% of European GDP according to the 2018 data. At the beginning of the year, the community executive will present a detailed proposal on how he intends to get this money, with the aim of also involving the private sector. At the moment, Brussels intends that a quarter of the budget framework for the years 2021 and 2027 is destined to the ecological transition and that this is only the spearhead to mobilize the aforementioned amount of 100,000 million euros through also the action of the European Investment Bank. As a crutch, Brussels also plans to use new taxes on plastic and the revenue generated by the greenhouse gas emission system.

Among the concrete proposals that the European Commission will be unveiling during the year 2020, they include a border coal tax for products from third countries, with the aim that European companies are not threatened by relocation, trade expansion of emissions to other media such as aviation, a fairer taxation for products that fight against climate change and measures to make European agriculture and livestock more environmentally friendly.