Patchy at best: EU unveils coronavirus recovery plan – Greenpeace
***Three tests for Europe’s Covid recovery plan
Brussels – The European Commission’s €1.85 trillion recovery plan is contradictory at best and damaging at worst, said Greenpeace.
The plan includes several eye-catching green “options”, including home renovation schemes, taxes on single-use plastic waste and the revenues of digital giants like Google and Facebook. But it does not solve the problem of existing support for gas, oil, coal, and industrial farming – some of the main drivers of a mounting climate and environmental emergency. The plan also fails to set strict social or green conditions on access to funding for polluters like airlines or carmakers.
Fundamentally, the Commission’s proposal does not offer alternatives to an economic model that has been shaken by the coronavirus pandemic, because of its reliance on endless growth, the concentration of wealth and the exploitation of people and nature.
“The Commission claims its plan protects us and invests in the future, but really it leaves our children and grandchildren to face the consequences of climate and environmental breakdown. For every sensible measure there is another that keeps us dependent on fossil fuels, encourages the destruction of nature, and prolongs job insecurity. Failing to cut off industries that pollute the environment and exploit people will lead us right back to disaster.
“On balance, the evidence suggests that this plan does not go far enough to free us from pollution as usual. There will be no long-lasting recovery without support for a fairer, greener and healthier world that isn’t wrecked by the blind pursuit of GDP growth.”
Greenpeace EU director Jorgo Riss
The Commission’s plan, which still requires the approval of European governments, does not fulfil three fundamental tests devised by Greenpeace to measure whether it will lead to a green recovery, or whether it entrenches the current fossil-fuel and waste-intensive economic system, hidden under a thin green veneer.
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Contact: Greenpeace EU press desk: +32 (0)2 274 1911, pressdesk.eu@greenpeace.org
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