A potential conservative government between right-wing Partido Popular (PP, EPP) and far-right VOX (ECR) would slow down the country’s speedy green transition, as the parties propose to water down targets and repeal key legislation.
With snap elections scheduled for Sunday, polls suggest a possible change of government from the current left-wing coalition between PSOE (S&D) and Unidas Podemos (Left) to a right-wing coalition with PP and VOX.
“The elections will certainly impact the pace of green transition in Spain, and Spain’s projection at EU level,” senior researcher at E3G think tank Roxana Dela Fiamor told EURACTIV. “The transition is already underway and will carry on, albeit at a potentially lower pace”, Dela Fiamor added.
Under Sánchez’s mandate during the last five years, the socialists passed ambitious climate and environmental legislation such as the Climate Change Law and the Clean Energy Law and have also committed to the EU’s green and sustainable agenda.
However, the elections risk hampering the progress made so far, as the programmes of the right-wing parties propose to relax and even stall current ambitious green legislation.
PP, for instance, seeks to water down targets and give more time for businesses to adapt.
“We will work to rationalise targets and make the timetable for implementing the European Green Deal and the European ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy more flexible, pushing for measures that are achievable and without setting unattainable targets’,” PP’s electoral programme reads.
The EPP, PP’s political group at the EU level, is increasingly closing ranks with the conservative ECR group, of which VOX is a member, against key green legislation, namely the contentious EU Nature Restoration Law.
In May, the EPP also sided with PP and VOX in defending a regional irrigation law that undermined the viability of a nature reserve in Spain – protected by EU law – and accused the European Commission of campaigning for Sánchez.
As for VOX, the party has vowed to bring any law related to the environment from Brussels to Madrid to avoid any “interference from external bodies”, adding that Spain cannot remain subject “to the ideological prejudices of the lobbies that currently direct Brussels policy”.
At the same time, the party wants to protect the environment, with man as the “main protagonist”, and is also pushing to overturn the Climate Change Law passed by the Socialists in 2021, arguing that it hinders Spain’s ability to use its “own resources” and that Spaniards bear the burden of paying for the green transition through “green taxes”.
The potential shift of government comes at a time when some Fit for 55 and Green Deal files are yet to be approved at the EU level, while the biggest chunk of legislation in the form of directives are already approved and are now in the hands of member states to be transposed and implemented – apart from regulations which have a direct legal effect.
Such an implementation may be watered-down by a possible future right-wing government, as directives typically offer some flexibility to member states.
However, “for some central Fit for 55 files, the flexibility is quite limited,” Philipp Jaeger, Policy Fellow at Jacques Delors Centre and Hertie School, told EURACTIV.
“For instance, member states have no wiggle room when it comes to the emission trading scheme, the most important pillar of EU climate action. For other files, especially directives, there is typically more”, he added.
Dela Fiamor also points out that Spain’s green transition will not stop and that “there is a relatively strong societal agreement on the fact that renewable energies and the production of green hydrogen are strategic opportunities for Spain”.
Water politics
As Spain now faces potential desertification across 74% of the territory, droughts, and agricultural losses due to climate change, all electoral programmes and political discourse, more generally, now put special emphasis on water.
Water and agriculture have also become key to the political discourse of PP and VOX, with both parties favouring irrigation systems at the expense of environmental protection.
However, while PP seems to embrace a “sustainability” narrative, VOX sticks to an “agriculture first” discourse, disregarding environmental protection.
VOX rejects what they call “the climate religion” and proposes an “investment in the necessary hydraulic infrastructures to store and bring abundant water to all corners of Spain” to ensure “the interconnection of all the basins that will allow for more efficient water management and can serve to economically reactivate our primary sector”.
(Max Griera| EURACTIV.com)