Disowning a Successful Policy to Pursue Retrograde Actions?

With support from both member government and EU parliamentarians, the European Commission under the leadership of its conservative president, Ursula von der Leyen, formulated world’s hereto most impactful plan for sustainable development, the European Green Deal. In its election manifesto for the German Bundestag 2021, the CDU/CSU promised to turn German into a net-zero emissions industrialized country by 2045. The manifesto contains many of the policies, from emission pricing for buildings and transport to carbon border adjustments, that have since become reality. Recognizing the desire of the German automotive industry to move away from combustion engines, the manifesto called a build-out of the electric vehicle charging infrastructure and a faster expansion of the electricity grid.

That Europe had started a transition away from fossil fuels helped it tremendously to soften the blow from Russia’s aggression 2022, as I have argued elsewhere. The mistakes of past policies, which created an ill-considered dependency on Russian gas, however, could not be corrected overnight and required painful adjustments by industry and households.

European belated climate policies have been a success by any measure. Many of the detailed laws, regulations, and support programmes came in place, just as they had been promised in the election manifestos. They created a momentum as companies, municipalities, and other actors changed their investments and their future outlook. Investments in renewable energy shot up. Electricity prices came down again after adjustments were for the halted supply of Russian gas. Greenhouse gas emissions now that have entered a trajectory that could allow Europe, if it completes its Green Deal agenda, to fulfill the ambitions laid out by the CDU/CSU in their election manifesto of 2021.

A success to celebrate! A reason to brag!

But what do European conservative parties do?

They appear to be about to revert course. While the German car industry is plagued by inventories of unsold EVs, the European Peoples' Party calls for protecting the petrol engine. While German households are still dependent on gas from the unreliable Middle East and the US, the CDU bad-mouth heat pumps. Have they not called for energy efficiency in the past? Promised to electrify the economy? To support the car industry its transition to net-zero? Suddenly these are bad ideas!?

Now conservatives appear to run from their own courageous decisions. To pretend it was someone else. To attack others for promises they made to voters one election cycle ago. To criticize laws and rules they voted for.

Instead of doubling down on innovation, of creating the industries of the future, some conservatives now promise to back the golden past. They seem to think this can be achieved by supporting what has become low-margin industries. Should the state really try to offset the natural competitive advantage of other regions in basic chemicals production by subsidizing energy? It is an economic policy that can never succeed.

The reversal of policy is doing great harm to businesses that followed our political leaders. Reversing course now is costly. It will make all future policy harder to implement, because it signals that businesses and investors cannot trust the political class to follow through on its plans.

The European Green Deal was the project of a conservative Commission president and broad coalition across the traditional divides of European politics. Once successfully implemented, it will make Europe a better place to live, and less dependent on energy deliveries from powers that do not share our values, our freedom, our rights. Without the major parties coming together, such a monumental task cannot be achieved. I really hope conservatives will remember their past commitment to and leadership of this cause. Europe will not succeed without it.