Metsola pressured to raise greenwashing debacle with leaders
The chiefs of the Socialists and Renew groups in the Parliament have written to its president, Roberta Metsola, to ask her to raise the Commission’s controversial threat to withdraw an anti-greenwashing law with EU leaders when they come to Brussels for a summit on Thursday.
Iratxe García and Valérie Hayer wrote in a joint letter that they expect Metsola to raise “the issue of the protection of the Parliament and Council’s roles in the interinstitutional processes” at the European Council.
The two MEPs, who jointly lead groups amounting to 211 MEPs, accused the Commission of misusing its powers, not informing the Parliament as it should, and questioned the legality of its intended withdrawal, citing EU case law.
The law is now essentially dead after Italy withdrew its support following the Commission’s mixed (or non-existent) messaging on the subject at the end of last week. Journalists who asked whether Ursula von der Leyen had cooked up a plot with Giorgia Meloni when in Rome last Friday, were stonewalled by Commission spokespeople on Wednesday.
Next on the chopping block? The EU’s anti-deforestation law.
On Tuesday, the environment committee backed an EPP-led call to make most EU countries exempt from the Commission’s deforestation rules, which the EPP and the far right already managed to delay for two years during this mandate.
The non-binding resolution urges Brussels to create a “negligible risk” label for EU countries, while expanding its list of “high-risk” countries, currently just Russia, Belarus, Myanmar, and North Korea. Essentially it would mean letting most of Europe off the hook.
“We need a more nuanced approach,” said Austrian MEP Alexander Bernhuber (EPP), who led the charge. Speaking to Euractiv, he said the objection should be a signal for the Commission to “rework the proposal."
NATO
How much self-respect are NATO members willing to shed to keep Donald Trump from blowing up today’s summit in the Hague? Quite a lot, it seems, reading the grovelling text messages Rutte sent to Trump (released by the latter) praising his “truly extraordinary” move to bomb Iran that “no one else dared to do”.
European leaders are throwing everything at the US president, from creative accounting, to gifts, a royal dinner and even an overnight stay in a palace – to keep NATO on track and to keep Europe covered by American security guarantees. Though, on Air Force One, Trump was evasive when asked about the collective defence guarantees in NATO’s treaty.
Of course there's a greater good in the Europeans’ minds: Ukraine. But on the home front, Brussels’ latest efforts to punish Russian aggression are being hampered by Hungary. It’s a familiar story, but the 18th package of sanctions – once hoped to be ready for Thursday’s European summit – is still not there, with some governments calling for a rethink on pushing the oil price cap lower. The Commission said it stood by its proposal Tuesday, appearing to deny reports that it had already ditched it.
The EU’s offer to Ukraine to join the bloc is also stuttering. There are now discussions about how to continue supporting Ukraine’s progress among 26 member countries rather than 27 due to Hungary’s veto. Brussels would help Kyiv make the necessary reforms – but leave official progress until that veto falls away.
Amid it all today, the question is whether Trump buys European promises to raise defence spending to 5% of GDP.
Keep following the NATO developments on our dedicated live blog from The Hague, staffed by Euractiv's FIREPOWER team.
And speaking of Trump: A Republican congressman has nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize for his “extraordinary and historic role” in the Iran-Israel ceasefire and for preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Meanwhile, an initial classified assessment of the US bombing of Iran over the weekend found the strikes only set back its nuclear program by a few months. | 
