No to the blocking coalition against the Green Energy and Climate package

The European Green Party welcomes with satisfaction the near unanimous vote of 07.10.2008 by the European Parliament Environment Committee in favour of effective EU rules for delivering the necessary reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. This sends a strong message to the Council that the European Parliament is serious about delivering on the EU's climate commitments. We are glad that attempts to undermine the automatic increase of the target were not successful.

However the European Green Party is deeply concerned about the possibility of a boycott of the E.U. Energy Policy by Poland, Greece and other countries like Hungary, Romania and Czech Republic. 

Bearing in mind recent international media reports, as well as the declarations of Polish officials themselves, who admitted the existence of an oral agreement between Polish and Greek ministers of environment to delay the enforcement of the EU energy policy, the European Green Party calls the respective governments and all others tempted to follow such a disastrous example, to officially deny these alleged plans and to put instead all their efforts in service of the enforcement and success of the Energy and Climate Package.

We Greens regard the EU regulations as being on the right direction, although inadequate if we want to avoid a climatic chaos and we call for more ambitious goals and stricter measures. Any attempt to undermine the Energy Plan would be disastrous not only for Europe but for the whole World.

Bearing in mind that Greece is a country with some of the poorer records on lowering greenhouse gas emissions, a country where, like in Poland, one of the worst polluting energy recourses, the lignite, is still used, although there is a huge potential for alternative energy sources, such an “unholy alliance”  would result to even more serious environmental damage on agriculture, water resources,  forests and coastal regions.    
The European Greens call the Greek and Polish Governments to fully clarify this matter, to abandon any idea of such a “dirty pact” and to support the EU Energy and Climate Package.