2023-09-13 06:14:00
This Wednesday is Ursula von der Leyen’s highly anticipated speech on the state of the European Union. What results for her and her commission? François Gemenne, political scientist and researcher specializing in migration and climate issues, was on LN24 this morning to analyze the major decisions of the last legislature.
For the Belgian academic, it is a speech that does not receive enough attention. The moment is important, and the results are not brilliant. “It’s even a very, very meager assessment on asylum and migration,” he believes. “No lessons have been learned from the Syrian refugee crisis. Of course, there is always this new pact on asylum and migration on which we found a compromise. But in reality, shipwrecks continue at an unsustainable rate.”
The positive point, according to François Gemenne, is obviously the “Green deal”. “This is a major piece of legislation for the climate in the European Union,” he rejoices. “The first problem is that it has not yet passed Parliament. We will still have to fight against the conservatives for it to pass. The second problem is that its main architect, Frans Timmermans, who was number 2 on the commission, has just left to campaign in the Netherlands. It says a lot when a person prefers to leave the key position at the Commission on the Issues of this Century to go and scrap national elections in the Netherlands… I find that the signal given is quite disastrous.”
Can the “Green deal”, a major project of von der Leyen’s commission, still make a splash? “Unfortunately, it risks being planed again. This is the whole story of European construction. We ensured a careful balance of powers between the Commission, the Council and Parliament, but the result is that the decisions of the commission are systematically overturned by the other two.”
“Every year lost makes the goal harder to achieve”
The objectives of the Paris agreements will more than likely not be respected. We are not on time to avoid two additional degrees within 80 years. And when asked if Europe respects its own, François Gemenne is very frank: “no […] And, every year lost makes the goal more difficult to achieve.”
What will the Belgium of our children look like in 30 to 40 years? “It will be a Belgium with a much more unstable climate with an increase in extreme phenomena,” describes the ULiège researcher. “Like floods, like heat waves, like forest fires, for example in the Ardennes. We are leaving a period of climatic stability for one that is increasingly unstable.”
One of the richest countries in the world, Belgium will have the means to develop certain adaptation strategies, specifies the political scientist. “We should not say that it will become completely unlivable, but our lifestyles will radically change.”
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