Update: Pirate Party MEPs and the Greens/EFA Group along with a progressive majority have successfully voted down a considerably weakened position on the EU Emissions Trading System, following efforts of the EPP Group and industry lobbies. The ETS file will now go back to the Environment Committee. Read more.
Strasbourg, 8/6/2022 – Today, Pirate Party Members of the European Parliament vote in favour of the Fit for 55 package, which includes new proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the EU by 55% until 2030. According to the Pirates, the package will also help to reduce Europe’s energy dependency on fossil fuels, including Russian gas and oil.
Mikuláš Peksa, Czech MEP for the Pirate Party and member of the ITE Committee, comments:
“We are finally moving towards approving specific implementation procedures that will bring Green Deal to life. We have to stay ambitious. The Fit for 55 package is the way how to initiate the EU’s deep and whole-economy decarbonisation. The Czech presidency in the Council of the EU will have the task of completing individual adjustments, thanks to which Europe will gradually move to a larger share of renewable resources (RED) and will receive additional resources for investments and solutions of social impacts of the energy crisis – Social climate fund, partly CBAM and ETS II. In particular it will allow for a large part of society, including small enterprises and households, to be more effectively engaged into modern energy and to profit more via self-sufficiency, energy savings and security of energy supplies. That is what we necessarily need at this moment.”
According to the Pirates, the faster this legislation passes, the sooner the EU decreases its dependency on Russia. The package includes an EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), an Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR) to ensure efforts to reduce emissions in the EU are shared equally, CO2 emission standards for cars and vans, the “LULUCF” regulation on land use, land use change and forestry and the first EU Social Climate Fund, which provides financial support for EU citizens struggling with increasing energy costs.
Pirate Party Members of the European Parliament also support an update of the regulation for CO2 emission standards for new passenger cars and vans. Thanks to the Fit for 55 package, there will be more investments in the car industry towards low or zero emission cars, resulting in more affordable electric vehicles for the broader public.
The approved texts will be the Parliament’s mandate for trilogue negotiations on the final laws during the upcoming Czech presidency.
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