Brussels’ EU leaders’ summit on Thursday is reported to have descended into “chaos” over a building row regarding the bloc’s climate rules.
The meeting, which was meant to focus mainly on the union’s upcoming seven-year budget, instead saw leaders spend hours bickering on whether to loosen or even abolish upcoming reforms to the EU emissions trading system.
Designed to put a market-flexible price on climate-impacting emissions, Brussels had planned to tighten the regulations further under plans drafted in 2023, with the additional green agenda controls set to come into full effect by 2028.
But Thursday’s closed-door meeting reportedly saw a rebellion against the trading system, with Giorgia Meloni’s Italy joining multiple Eastern European nations demanding that the plans either be delayed or scraps over fears they will make the EU’s current energy crisis worse.
This was met with outrage from pro-green agenda Nordic countries at the summit, with both Belgium and the Netherlands also insisting that the bloc should ramp up its climate rules as planned.
Talks are said to have subsequently broken down into a war of words lasting three hours, with insiders describing scenes as both “chaotic” and a “mess”.
A subsequent press conference with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Council President António Costa was subsequently cancelled in what made for an unusual end-of-day conclusion for the summit.
Following Thursday’s infighting, member-state leaders are said to have turned on Costa, blaming the Eurocrat for failing to keep control of the meeting.
Some officials appear to believe that he should have acted to surpress Italian dissent over the climate rules in favour of sticking to the pro-green agenda programme.
“They just went on with Italian drafts and disregarded texts that were handed in before by others, seemingly not understanding the political nuances of the whole ETS discussion,” one unnamed official said on the sidelines of the summit.
Talks are set to resume on Friday, with discussions expected to focus on Ukraine and European defence.