WARSAW—The European Union must reach a consensus on climate
policy if it wants to play a leading role in UN-led talks on a new pact to cut
greenhouse gases, a Polish official said on Tuesday.
A package of climate measures proposed by the European
Commission – the EU executive – aims, among other things, to cut carbon dioxide
emissions by a fifth by 2020 compared with 1990 levels. However, it faces
opposition from some member states and from the car industry.
France, holder of the rotating EU presidency, hopes to forge
a compromise among the 27 member states by December when negotiators meet in
Poznan, Poland, to discuss a new global deal on limiting greenhouse gas
emissions.
"For Poland, the current proposal is still more a threat than
an opportunity, I think. If the EU wants to set an example in Poznan, it has to
work out a consensus within the bloc first," Piotr Serafin, a deputy head of the
Office of the Committee for European Integration, told a climate change panel
organized by a pro EU think-tank on Tuesday.
"Only then will it be able to act as a role model on the
world stage. Tension in the global negotiations will be between rich and poor.
And you cannot force China or India into a deal. Europe must work out its own
consensus in order to exert pressure on the global stage."
Poland fears ambitious EU goals for curbing emissions would
result in energy price increases of up to 70 percent. With fellow ex-communist
states Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, it has signed a statement
calling for more debate on Brussels’ plans.
Some political analysts have seen the declaration of the five
ex-communist countries as an attempt to build up a blocking minority in the EU
that would force the Commission to seek a compromise on its plans.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in June Warsaw might try to block the
plan if Warsaw’s demands were not met.
