One of the most politically sensitive topics in Brussels, the €1.2 trillion budget governs spending on anything from support to Ukraine to film subsidies. Hawkish Eastern European and Nordic countries including Poland and Sweden are keen to boost EU spending on defense, while Southern ones such as Italy and Greece would like more cash to stem migrant departures from Africa.
One of the big questions is how many hoops countries will need to jump through to access their cash. The Commission would like capitals to implement key economic reforms in exchange for access to their share of EU money. But countries receiving the bulk of the funding — mainly in Eastern Europe — are no fans of this approach.
In 2025, EU countries will set their red lines for the negotiations. But if the past is anything to go by, leaders will squabble and only reach a final agreement at the last moment.
Clean tech vs. toxic risk
Countries and companies are rushing to develop new technologies in an effort to halt catastrophic climate change — but many such solutions are manufactured with chemicals with unforeseen side effects that pose grave risks of their own. That includes “forever chemicals” or PFAS, the risks of which science is only beginning to understand. Concerns over PFAS have led to an EU effort to phase out the chemicals in a range of sectors the bloc is counting on for the green transition. The EU executive is also due to come up with a revision of the EU’s chemicals safety framework to better protect its citizens from harmful substances.
While the European Commission pledged to reduce the bloc’s pollution to levels “no longer considered harmful” to human health and the environment by 2050 — that was back in 2021. Three years, two wars and an energy crisis later — and with a debt crisis potentially brewing — there are other priorities in play.
Over the next few years, EU lawmakers and countries will fight over how to make sure a tighter regulatory framework for chemicals doesn’t impede the clean energy transition while still (and, in theory, primarily) keeping the population and environment safe from toxic pollution.
Jacopo Barigazzi, Douglas Busvine, Leonie Cater, Federica Di Sario, Carlo Martuscelli, Francesca Micheletti, Barbara Moens, Gregorio Sorgi and Nicholas Vinocur contributed to this report.
