PM ‘90% satisfied’ by almost all EU members on carbon neutrality

  • Lusa
  • 13 December 2019

Prime minister Antonio Costa said that there are good reasons to be 90% satisfied with the conclusions adopted at the European Council on the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.

Portugal’s prime minister Antonio Costa on Friday said in Brussels that there are good reasons to be 90% satisfied with the conclusions adopted at the European Council on the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, given that almost all member states have joined Portugal.

“On the climate change commitment, I would say that we have good reason to be 90% satisfied, as 26 of the 27 member states have committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. Therefore, Portugal, which had been the first country in the world to make this commitment, is now quite well accompanied within the EU,” he said.

Costa, who was speaking at the end of the first day of work of the European Council in Brussels, noted that there is still one country that does not yet feel able to make this commitment, but the question will be discussed again by European leaders in June to see if this country is then in a position to make this commitment.

Asked whether the lack of unanimity among the 27 – the outgoing United Kingdom is no longer in the ‘books’ – compromises in any way the European Green Pact presented on Wednesday by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, Costa stressed that until now no consensus had been possible and now there has been a very clear position of 26 countries to make this commitment already.

At the end of the first day of the summit, the new president of the European Council, Charles Michel, announced an agreement on carbon neutrality by 2050, after intense discussions between European leaders, with Poland left out, but without blocking the Council’s conclusions.

EU leaders had sought to reach an agreement on achieving carbon neutrality by mid-century at the summit last June, but at the time this objective was vetoed by Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Estonia.