Polish candidate: Green Deal’s communication was Commission’s ‘biggest mistake’

Failing to communicate the Green Deal properly was the current European Commission’s “biggest mistake”, Joanna Kamińska, an EU elections candidate for the Polish Greens, told Euractiv.

Kamińska, a security and defence expert and former advisor to the European Commission Secretary General and president of the European Parliament, criticised the EU executive for withdrawing many of the planned regulations regarding the European Green Deal, calling it “a bad thing for all Europeans.”

“I find it the biggest mistake by the Commission that it failed in the area of communication of what the Green Deal is and inclusion of all stakeholders, like farmers and consumers, in the consultations,” Kamińska said.

Under pressure from farmers and other actors, the Commission decided to scrap the most controversial elements of the Green Deal, including the 50% reduction of pesticides until 2030.

“There is no other climate policy, and climate policy is what we should have already had a long time ago,” the candidate added.

Referring to the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) candidate and Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, Kamińska said in the first half of her term, she “did a lot of good things”.

“Then, the Commission started withdrawing from it under the lobbyists’ pressure, which was not good,” she noted.

No support for von der Leyen with far right in sight

As for the support for von der Leyen to be reelected, Kamińska said it will depend on whether she will collaborate with the far-right.

“If she decides to cooperate with the far right, I would definitely oppose it, as I believe a romance of democratic parties with the far right to be bad for European democracy,” she said, echoing the Berlin Declaration ruling out cooperation with the far right which the European Greens signed.

According to Kamińska, the rise of the far right after the European elections would pose a major threat to progressive parties and to Europe as a whole.

“The far right feeds people with illusions, while it is we, the progressive parties, that have the solutions to people’s problems, like poverty, for instance.”

(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | Euractiv.pl)

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