FT.com / World / Europe - Merkel to press for EU deal on climate

FT.com / World / Europe - Merkel to press for EU deal on climate


Merkel to press for EU deal on climate

By Bertrand Benoit, Hugh Williamson and Frederick Studemann in Berlin
Published: March 6 2007 22:04 Last updated: March 6 2007 22:04

A European deal on cutting carbon emissions will be the first of a number of potentially painful steps for European Union nations in the fight to tackle global warming, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has warned.

In an interview with the Financial Times ahead of Thursday’s EU summit – the first under this year’s German presidency – Ms Merkel said she wanted Europe to take a “pioneering lead” on meaningful green initiatives.

She said she expected a commitment by the bloc’s 27 member states to cut CO2 emissions by 20 per cent of their 1990 level by 2020 to be just the starting gun for a round of difficult negotiations that would “put Europe at the forefront internationally”.

“There will be further negotiations about national burden-sharing commitments. Kyoto was no different,” said the chancellor, who, as environment minister, was Germany’s lead negotiator for the Kyoto accord in the 1990s. “The necessity to combat climate change and to reduce our energy dependency, coupled with the fact that Kyoto is now running out, have concentrated minds.”

She also conceded that Berlin had yet to overcome the scepticism of a dozen governments, led by France, which oppose a binding obligation to raise the share of renewable resources in Europe’s energy mix to 20 per cent by 2020.

This is the most controversial of three subordinated pledges underpinning the broader emissions commitment – including goals on biofuels and energy saving measures – that the European Commission has put forward for the summit.
Taking the lead on climate change would also have economic advantages as it would create the necessary incentives for European industry to develop “cleaner technologies” that could then be exported.

With Germany also chairing the Group of Eight industrial nations this year, Ms Merkel wants to feed the conclusions of this week’s council meeting into the agenda of the G8 summit in June.
Her long-term goal is a post-Kyoto agreement that includes a global version of Europe’s carbon trading scheme. However, French proposals to tax imports judged to have been made under questionable environmental conditions were met with scepticism.

On the proposed “unbundling” of Europe’s energy sector, she said she expected backing for a compromise solution that stopped short of separating generating and distribution networks.

“Stripping the energy producers of their networks is no guarantee that there will be more competition.”

Ms Merkel will also use this week’s summit to present her plan for the “Berlin declaration” to be published on March 25 when the EU celebrates 50 years of the Rome Treaty, its founding document.

She said the text, which will highlight the EU’s achievements and future challenges to ordinary citizens, would be short and “actually be readable” – unlike many official EU documents.

While the declaration will avoid mentioning the stalled constitutional treaty, she reaffirmed Berlin’s position – opposed by the UK – that the document should mention the euro.

“There are domains of reinforced co-operation, for instance in the eurozone or in the Shengen area, that are very much part of the reality of the EU.”

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007