France, Germany and Poland must advance key EU transition policy ahead of 2027 elections – NGO
Clean Energy Wire
France, Germany and Poland should use the remaining months ahead of national elections next year to advance crucial energy and climate policy reforms at the European Union level, said NGO Germanwatch.
“The governments of the Green Weimar Triangle should now, whilst they are still able to act before the elections, set the course to ensure that EU climate policy remains on track,” said Sylwia Andralojc-Bodych, EU climate policy officer at Germanwatch. The environment ministers of the three countries, whose regional alliance is known as the Weimar Triangle, will next meet on 29 September.
As the three countries were responsible for nearly half of the EU’s emissions and also represented a large proportion of its population, “France, Germany, and Poland have a shared responsibility to lead a resilient and just transition to climate neutrality,” said Germanwatch in a paper.
The European Union has started to overhaul its framework of climate and energy policy in line with the new 2040 climate target – with the reform of the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) at the centre – and is currently also debating the next long-term budget. The coming months will bring difficult negotiations among member state governments and the European Parliament about how to reach future targets.
The situation is further complicated by major national elections in key member states like France, Poland, Italy, and Spain where parties critical of the EU and ambitious climate and energy transition policy increase the pressure on incumbent governments. The elections could turn into a key test of the EU’s resilience, wrote Stefan Lehne, senior fellow at Carnegie Europe.
Germanwatch called on the Weimar Triangle governments to ensure that the EU continues to set national emissions reduction targets, which are currently in place for sectors which have so far not been covered by emissions trading – transport, buildings, and agriculture.
They should also ensure predictable carbon prices in the current emissions trading reform to give companies the confidence to invest in electrification, hydrogen, and efficiency upgrades. The emissions cap should decrease at the speed the current legislation stipulates until 2035, contrary to proposals by the European Commission to weaken the system. The three countries should also coordinate a joint position on how ETS revenues are used “to prevent these funds from being absorbed into general budgets and to ensure they remain dedicated to climate and industrial objectives.”
The day after taking office in May 2025, German chancellor Friedrich Merz had visited France and Poland, calling for a restart of relations and seeking deeper integration on investment policies, security, energy, and space travel.