Now that the dust is settling after a fraught European Parliament election campaign, and after widespread concerns from European Green Deal supporters on the fate of that flagship framework of laws for the environment and climate are beginning to ease, we can begin to see a little more of what has actually survived and passed officially into law – in the ‘Official Journal’ as Euro-jargon calls it – and what has not – yet. From a UK perspective, this flurry of EU environment and climate law making means that a large amount of significant legal and policy divergence has now fully emerged.
AUTHOR: Michael Nicholson
A mortal threat to the European Green Deal?
The last 6 months have seen a high volume of legislative files completed. In fact, the months leading up to the elections in June saw a frenzy of activity to finalise and ‘get over the line’ those files, partly because that’s what happens at the end of a Parliamentary term, but also partly motivated by fears of what a different composition of MEPs might do to the EGD files. Fears that apathetic, climate sceptic and openly hostile MEPs would be in the ascendency and gut the EGD have, in the end, not materialised. That is not to say that challenges don’t exist as a colleague in IEEP UK’s sister organisation in Brussels puts it, “In 5 years, we may therefore see a Green Deal mostly still in place on paper but facing vast implementation challenges and lacking transformative potential”.
An EU policy blitz
A policy blitz in the remaining 6 months, and in particular the final 3 months before the European Parliament elections was impressive, covering waste, circular economy, industrial policy, climate, energy and nature.
On circular economy policy, a range of files came through to completion. The ‘Right to Repair’ Directive (2024/1799) sets out common rules across the EU to promote the repair of goods for consumers, introducing a new right to repair both in and outside of the legal guarantee period. The 2009 Ecodesign Directive is being replaced by a revision, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (2024/1781). Designed to target a wider array of products than its 2009 predecessor it introduces a new requirement for a ‘digital passport’, sets mandatory green public procurement requirements and aims to prevent unsold consumer products from being destroyed. Amending the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and the Consumer Rights Directive, a new Directive on Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition (2024/825) passed its final hurdle and entered the Official Journal too. It is designed to tackle generic environmental claims (e.g., eco-friendly or climate neutral) if the company involved cannot substantiate this claim, to improve sustainability labelling and assist with information on the durability and repairability of a product. With the UK’s circular economy policies having remained broadly static since Brexit, these EU policies constitute significant divergence between the EU & UK.
In waste policy, the EU have passed into law a revised Waste Shipment Regulation (2024/1157). With significant transboundary impacts, this will prohibit the export of plastic waste form the EU to non-OECD countries, require companies to have independent audits on the facilities to which they ship waste to and that they demonstrate that waste exports are properly managed. An amendment to the 2012 WEEE Directive (2024/884) has also passed which essentially corrects a deficiency in law that an EU Court of Justice ruling had highlighted in one of its cases. The amendment clarifies several details with regard to applicability of WEEE rules and also introduces a review clause for the Directive as a whole to be no later than 2026 (see here for details).
A framework Net Zero Industry Act (2024/1735) was passed in June in a politically significant move to fuse environment & climate, industrial policy, jobs and competitiveness into one. Addressing the clean energy transition and resilience, the ‘Act’ (it’s actually a Regulation) sets a goal for net zero manufacturing of at least 40% of the EU’s needs by 2030, to kick off in earnest carbon capture and storage and sets out a plan to address a skills shortage in net zero technology. Linked to this, the Critical Raw Materials Act (2024/1252) (again, a Regulation) passed recently with the aim of securing a sustainable supply of those resources required for such a net zero transition. Both of these new ‘Acts’ constitute significant divergence in the regulatory strategy and philosophy with UK policy. The last UK Government opted for a voluntary and free market approach to securing such resources for the green transition.
For those vehicles still powered by the internal combustion engine, there was further tightening of rules around emissions. CO2 emissions standards for heavy duty vehicles (2024/1610) were the subject of new rules as were tighter Euro 7 standards (2024/1257) for lighter vehicles.
A revised Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) is imminent after having received agreement between the European Parliament and Council, but it has not yet been entered into the Official Journal. However, an accompanying Regulation on the reporting of environmental data from industrial installations and the establishment of an Industrial Emissions Portal (2024/1244) has entered into law. These come after other linked files that were passed early in 2024 on F-Gases (2024/573) and Ozone Depleting Substances (2024/590). A revised directive to improve the Energy Performance of Buildings (2024/1275) entered into force in April which sets targets to decarbonise the building stock by 2050.
Like the revised IED, the Nature Restoration Law (legal text after Parliament and Council agreement) has also seemingly passed all of its legislative hurdles but has not yet formally entered into the Official Journal. This hugely contested piece of legislation, and significant win for the environment movement as a whole, is expected to enter the OJ shortly after the summer. Check out IEEP’s recent policy brief here on the NRL.
A significant cross-cutting file also passed in the final months of the last Parliamentary term. A revision of the 2008 Environmental Crime Directive (2024/1203) entered into force in May. The revised directive includes a fuller list of what is to be classed as a criminal offence in the member states including on breaches to deforestation rules. It also introduces requirements for ‘Qualified Offences’ to tackle particularly serious breaches of environmental law and though it falls short of what campaigners called for on ‘ecocide’, goes some way towards it.
A look ahead: Implementation & fights…
A significant chunk of the EGD, at least those files focussed on environment and climate, have now passed and attention will rightly shift to how these new laws are implemented and financed properly.
The symbolic 2030 milestone on the way to the 2050 & Net Zero is approaching fast. Climate targets e.g., to reduce GHG emissions by 55% compared to 1990 levels is on the near horizon, the ‘30×30’ biodiversity target looks like it is going to be hard to achieve and a plan to be at least 11.7% more energy efficient by 2030 is challenging. What happens in this next Parliamentary session and implementation of the already existing suite of legislation will define and determine the outcome of those goals.
Big fights will continue to take place over new and recently passed laws. Some EU Member States are uneasy about how anti-deforestation and corporate sustainability due diligence laws will be implemented. There will be fierce debate as detailed implementing and delegated legislation of all of the recently passed law come forward. We will also see further legislative action such as defining a GHG reduction target for 2040 and whether or not to expand the EU Emissions Trading Scheme appear – neither of which will pass without controversy.
Back in the UK, it remains to be seen whether the new Labour Government will match the previous Conservative Government’s approach of moving more slowly and with a less stringent approach to regulation. On chemicals regulation, the new Government has signalled that it would like to align more closely with the EU. Yet this is only one of a wide array of policy areas where varying degrees of policy and legal divergence have opened up between the EU and UK since Brexit.
Photo by Rocco Dipoppa on Unsplash.