15 October 2020,
Dear EU Finance Ministers,
In the next few weeks, you will decide upon the size of the EU budget for the next 7 years and on how the €672,5bn Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) will be spent. Both the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and the RRF will determine if Europe will have the means to finance the Green Deal and whether it is going to invest in a fossil free future. Given that the financial support of the Green Deal until 2028 and the conditions underpinning the e RRF are at stake, Generation Climate Europe is calling on you to ensure the MFF is sizeable enough, and the governance of the RFF green enough, to enable Europe to invest in the transition to climate neutrality. refuse a too little MFF and a too fossil RRF. Generation Climate Europe is the largest coalition of youth-led NGOs pushing for stronger action from the EU on climate and environmental issues, representing 460 national organisations from all EU Member States and over 20 million young citizens.
TOO LITTLE
The size of the MFF is currently simply not enough for the EU to fulfill its long-term climate objectives and preserve the full capacity of the recovery plan.. While the EU’s 2030 climate targets are set to increase, the European Commission has estimated the investment gap to meet our current 2030 climate and environmental policy goals to be at approx. €470bn per year. Due to the added pressure on national budgets caused by the health and economic crises, and because of the worryingly low Just Transition Fund, increasing substantially the next MFF will be essential to ensure that the Green Deal has the adequate financial means to be implemented. The ability of the Commission to raise revenue through Own Resources will also be vital to ensure the EU can repay the Next Generation EU recovery plan. This is why you should accept the the introduction of new EU own resources as put forward by Parliament on 14th September in its Own Resources Report .
TOO FOSSIL
The RRF is too fossil fuel supportive. The RRF does not yet have an exclusion list. That means that NextGenerationEU would still be able to finance fossil infrastructure projects, creating lock-in greenhouse gas emissions for many decades to come. Without a clear exclusion of fossil-fuels projects, there is no guarantee that the recovery will undermine the EU’s ability to meet its climate neutrality target for 2050. If we can therefore not ensure that the€672,5bn will be invested to safeguard our future, Parliament should not support the RRF.
The financing of the Green Deal and Europe’s environmental and energy future are at stake in the coming weeks. This is why we urge you to only accept a substantially increased MFF based on the Parliament’s calendar for new EU own resources, and to only accept an RRF which excludes fossil investments.
Yours sincerely,
Generation Climate Europe