Remarks by Frans Timmermans at the meeting of Environment Ministers

Good morning to everyone, wherever you are.

It is good to have this opportunity to discuss the biggest challenge Europe has faced since the Second World War. It is also good to make sure that we face this challenge with measures that are future-oriented and not oriented towards the past.

When the Commission worked on the plans for recovery, we had a couple of principles. First, we need to act fast. Second, the response needs to be proportionate to the challenge and so we need to do a lot. And third, we need to create a level playing field and therefore solidarity has to be an essential part of what we do. On top of that, we also came to the conclusion that the risk of throwing money at the old economy of the 20^th century is huge. If we did this, we would create locked-in assets that would not allow us to transform our economy, which needs to be transformed anyway because of the climate crisis that is not going to go away, because of the biodiversity crisis that we face, and because we are in the middle of an industrial revolution.

All these things combined mean that we need to invest in the future. I know as a politician that the risk is always there. When we are in trouble, we start spending money also on things that have no future. If we are asking our children to contribute to a recovery, by allowing us to go onto the financial markets to get subsidies and loans, then we have to have something to offer for our kids as well, which is an environment that is better and an economy that is future proof. This ensures that the temperature does not rise above 1.5 degrees, so that we avoid a number of tipping points that would seriously harm our society and economy in the future.

Let me now focus on a number of things that are important. The Commission has proposed, in Next Generation EU i, to borrow from financial markets to the tune of 750 billion euros. This money will support investments and reforms that are essential for a sustainable recovery, such as circular economy and biodiversity. I will not go into the details of all the funds and programs but let me highlight that within InvestEU, the Sustainable Infrastructure window will be doubled to an EU guarantee of roughly 20 billion euros to sustainable infrastructure projects, including the renovation wave. For local jobs, renovation is going to be one of the issues where we can immediately see results, both for the climate but also for economic growth and jobs. We also propose a new Strategic Investment Window to support key technologies for the energy transition, such as renewable energy, clean hydrogen, batteries, carbon capture and storage. We have seen a huge decline of investments in these sectors. We need to reboot that. The energy investments will have to be rebooted but we have to make sure that these investments go into sustainable energy, into the future and not into the past.

What can Ministers do as of today? The National Energy and Climate plans (NECPs) will have a crucial role for the identification of priorities for the Recovery and Resilience Facility, with its link to the European Semester and National Recovery and Resilience plans. With all the work you have already done, the NECPs offer a good roadmap of policies and projects that are ready to be rolled-out quickly. We hope that they are a good basis for the design of your National Recovery Plans with a twin green and digital transition at their heart. We want a green transition, a digital transition and we want to increase Europe's resilience.

Also, back at home, many of you are already working with your colleagues on the preliminary draft budget for 2021. Now is the moment to make sure the proposed funds can already contribute to our investments next year. If you ask me, how much of the proposed funds can be spent towards green objectives: my answer is “as much as you want”. In each programme, the importance of aligning the projects to the Green Deal is inbuilt and we commit to do no harm with regard to our climate ambitions. I think this principle of do no harm should be guiding all of us as of now.

Now, many of us here will agree on the direction but I hope you also reach out to your colleagues in government to realise a green recovery. And to the Commission to see how we can help. We have proposed a reinforced “Technical Support Instrument” that can help you in the reforms and I hope you will make good use of it.

Last but not least, allow me to thank the Croatian Presidency for the good progress made on the climate law so far. I have heard Minister Schulze already pronounce the ambitions of the German Presidency, which I highly welcome. More than ever, investors need certainty; this is why we need to have the climate law adopted as soon as possible to make the path to climate neutrality irreversible. Therefore, I hope that when we meet in October you will indeed be able to adopt a general approach. This would be very important.

Let me stress one more thing. We are not going back to business as usual. You see it everywhere in your countries. We all see that we cannot just recover on the basis of where we were before. Restructuring will be an essential part of all the efforts we do, nationally and at the European level. So let us make sure that restructuring goes into the right direction, so that there will be jobs for our kids, sustainable jobs, so that we will limit the rise of the temperature to 1.5 degrees and so that we will save biodiversity in Europe and worldwide. Let us also make sure that we will lead with a circular economy and other parts of the economy in the world, so that we become an example for transition also elsewhere.

Thank you very much.