It was last week when the American tycoon family of Rockefeller, who are stakeholder in the US oil company Exxon Mobil Corp, voiced the initiative that the energy giant should raise the issue that the company should turn to renewable energy and set targets for curbing climate-damaging emissions. Surprisingly, shareholders at the annual meeting in Dallas rejected a proposal that would force the company to adopt “quantitative goals” for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Some analysts say that the clash around long-term targets and short-term profits is the regular point of friction between senior capitalists and greedy junior nouveau riches.
The environment debate between the EU and new Member States now reminds such a conflict between old rich families and “poor cousins.” Now when the old Europe has enjoyed its wealth and starts thinking about the environment, the measures proposed by Berlin, Paris or Brussels, as salutary as they are, raise irritation among the “poor cousins.” Central and Eastern European (CEE) capitals imply that they can not afford to pursue as ambitious eco-policies as their Western European counties for two simple reasons.
First, if they comply with the measures proposed, their economies will suffer painful blow. Polish officials recently stressed that reaching the 20 percent CO2 reduction target would cause a 40 percent increase of power production costs in its coal-dominated industry. Later on, the prime ministers of Lithuania and Slovakia criticised the pre-accession commitment to close the Soviet-era nuclear power plants. These commitments came out to be too costly, especially with world oil prices climbing up. Earlier this year, Lithuania explored the ground in an attempt to see whether it would be possible to revoke its commitment and keep its nuclear power plant operating. During the second meeting of the European nuclear energy forum, Slovak leader Robert Fico described as “absurd” the agreements, which were made a condition for the countries to join the EU, news agency AFP reported. A second reason for eco-scepticism in the CEE is the expectation of high industrial growth. The countries, which will witness this growth, are concerned with the looming CO2 reduction targets and seek ways to ensure higher quotas. At the beginning of the year Hungary drew up the initiative that those countries, which expect to witness a higher industrial growth, should receive higher emission quotas at least in the so-called non-ETS sectors, e.g. construction and farming.
The EU allocates quotas applying solidarity principle, with richer countries receiving stricter targets than poorer ones. But even this preferential treatment seems to be insufficient for the new Member States. The “poor cousins” stressed that the EU does not appreciate enough the previous efforts made by them in fight against global warming. The key point of CEE countries is the fact that the Commission established the 20-percent reduction target according to the member states’ emissions and economic strength in the baseline year of 2005. However, nobody takes into consideration that in the process of the EU accession those countries had realised significant part of the target, namely cutting down emissions by 7.9 percent.
With such a handicapped start and expected industrial growth, the new Member States will have to pay a comparatively higher price for implementation of the CO2 reduction targets. The Hungarian initiative was supported by the three Baltic states, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia. During the Environment Council last week, the seven partners tabled a proposal, which would foresee a different distribution of CO2 cut targets than that drafted the Commission. The states ask to be treated equally to those member states that have already achieved the most in the fight against climate change, e.g. the UK, Sweden or Finland. At the same time, CEE used the example of the South European countries, Spain and Portugal, which lag behind in implementation of the green agenda measures.
The Old Europe bared its teeth when new Central Europe sought to keep their nuclear power plants, but poor cousins responded by raising the issue of CO2 targets. “We have not caught up with the GDP level of the EU, and Brussels asks as to impose numerous quotas, restrictions and limitations. We are sensitive enough about the environment, but it is not now in our priority list that high as it for the old Member States. May be we can not have all, but at leas we will bargain every inch in this field,” a senior diplomat from a new Member State told New Europe. So the bargain seems to have started.