What remains at stake in the last remnants of the European legislature

Brussels – With the European legislature coming to an end, it’s time to do some initial stocktaking. From 2019 to date, Ursula von der Leyen’s European Commission has finalised 305 proposals, and just under 100 dossiers remain close to adoption. Of the six policy priorities outlined in the mandate (Green Deal, Digital Europe, a people-supportive economy, a stronger EU in the world, the promotion of the European way of life, and a new impetus for EU democracy), almost all of the most important deliverables still in the balance are within the scope of the ambitious Green Pact.

“Most of the initiatives envisaged in the 2019 communication on the European Green Deal have been implemented, and many have already been approved and become law,” the EU Executive claimed in the policy document for 2024 adopted last October. At the same time, it warns that “it is imperative to quickly reach agreement on the remaining proposals to keep the Union on the path to climate neutrality.”

Green Deal, the crux of the Nature Restoration Act remains unresolved

Among the files in the home stretch, on which parliament and council have already signed a provisional agreement, there is the reform of the electricity market, the revision of the air quality directive, the packaging directive, and the revision of CO₂ emission standards for new heavy-duty vehicles. On all these, the European Parliament is expected to formally approve the texts that came out of the trialogues during the two April plenary sessions, the last before the run-up to the June 6-9 election.

The European Wildlife Restoration Act merits its own discussion, as member state ambassadors have yet to approve the November 2023 interinstitutional agreement despite the text’s formal acceptance in Strasbourg.

Although the Belgian rotating chair of the EU Council has assured that it will “work hard in the coming weeks to find possible ways out of this impasse,” the implementation of Europe’s first legislation on natural ecosystem restoration is far from certain.

After withdrawing the proposal to reduce pesticide use amid farmers’ uprisings, the commission also backed down on the targeted revision of the REACH chemicals regulation, new animal welfare legislation, the Food Sustainability Framework, and the much-discussed Nutriscore particularly disliked by Italy. The 2024 work program also included a water resilience initiative to “ensure access to water for citizens, nature, and the economy while addressing catastrophic flooding and water shortages.” But Executive von der Leyen has removed it from the agenda for the coming months.

The other files to be closed: first of all, the Pact on Migration and Asylum

At the second plenary session in April, Brussels hopes to see the chapter on the new Migration and Asylum Pact finally close. The fifteen packages of the new common migration management system spanned the entire legislature, and the European Parliament will now have to give its final blessing to the remaining ones—although very little remains of the texts on which the parliament’s negotiating mandates were based. It will also be the moment of truth for the EU directive  on corporate sustainability due diligence: member states have changed the game after the agreement had already been reached, and its final approval by MEPs is therefore not so obvious.

As for Digital Europe, the announced proposal for a European space law, establishing rules for managing space traffic and keeping the EU’s critical space infrastructure secure, is still missing. Finally, an initiative to open the capacity of European supercomputers to ethical and responsible artificial intelligence start-ups.