*[Enwl-eng] Protect our green recovery
ENWLine
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WeMove members fought to get a green recovery. Now fossil fuel industries are exploiting a loophole in our democracy to get their hands on the funds. Tell politicians on Facebook or Twitter: don’t let them get away with it - keep our COVID recovery green. |
Hi,
We’re so close. WeMove members convinced European leaders to kick fossil fuel companies out of our COVID recovery funding. But now powerful lobbyists are exploiting a loophole in our democracy to access the money - and we don’t have long to stop them.
In October, we had a huge win when European politicians voted to back a green recovery at a crucial committee meeting. [1] But now their lobbyists have convinced the decisive finance committee to adopt a pro-fossil fuel plan as the official position of the Parliament. That’s bad news because it could stop a full vote at parliament, giving just a handful of MEPs the final say.
We have a plan to make sure the fossil fuel industry doesn’t derail our democracy and get their hands on billions of Euros meant for our COVID recovery. We’ll contact the leaders of four main groups of MEPs via Facebook and Twitter, asking them to back a full session of Parliament to vote against fossil fuels coming back into the recovery plan. Then they’ll know: no matter how much pressure comes from lobbyists, people power is stronger.
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Here are some examples of messages you can easily use on their Facebook walls (but a personal message will have a much stronger effect so please use your own words if you can):
- Fossil fuel companies are powerful. But they shouldn’t be more
powerful than our democracy. If the decision on how we spend our recovery
money is moved to the next stage of negotiations without a full vote in the
European Parliament, it will be a bad day for democracy and a disastrous day
for our climate. Every MEP should get a chance to have their
say.
- The recovery package is huge: 670 billion Euros. It’s no surprise
fossil fuel companies want a big share of the money. But their industry is
putting the climate - and the lives of hundreds of millions of Europeans in
the future - in grave danger. Every MEP should get a chance to say
no.
- The European parliament said that all member states must become
climate neutral by 2050. But this won’t happen if the money from European
recovery plan goes into the pockets of the fossil fuel industries. Every MEP
should have a chance to vote on this.
- Gas is just another dirty fossil fuel. New fossil gas infrastructure
would lock in emission increases for decades. Every MEP should have their say
on the recovery plan.
- No parliament that has declared a climate emergency can afford to bail out fossil fuel industries again, including gas. The compromise on the recovery plan is just not enough. All MEP’s should vote on this.
There is a process we can use to make sure the Parliament gets to have their say. 10% of MEPs have to object to the idea that the committee's decision goes to negotiations without a full vote of the Parliament. Then, once MEPs have permission to vote, we need a majority to reject the plan to hand money to fossil fuels, making the climate crisis even worse. Then MEPs will have a chance to come back to Parliament with a better plan next time. [2]
Can you share a message - using Facebook or Twitter - to key MEPs, telling them to act fast to ensure the plan gets a proper, democratic process at the European Parliament?
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WeMove members have already shown that when we work together, we can convince MEPs to back a green recovery. In October, we persuaded the environment committee to kick fossil fuels out of the recovery plan. Now we need to do it again with all MEPs to make sure our recovery plan defends our climate, as well as our economies.
In solidarity,
David (London), Alex (Marseille), Mika (Bordeaux) and
the entire WeMove Europe team
References:
[1]
https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/lawmakers-vote-to-exclude-fossil-fuels-from-eu-recovery-fund/
[2]
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/RULES-9-2020-02-03-RULE-059_EN.html
WeMove Europe is an independent and values-based organisation that seeks to build people power to transform Europe in the name of our community, future generations and the planet.
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