EU summit
October 30, 2009
European Union leaders meeting in Brussels have reached a breakthrough compromise on climate control, strengthening their position ahead of a global summit on climate change to be held in Copenhagen in December.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the EU is prepared to offer up to 50 billion euros ($74 billion) in public funds to aid developing nations in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
"We can now look the rest of the world in the eyes and say we Europeans have done our job," said Barroso at the summit's closing press conference. "It was essential that the European Union kept its leadership role, and we have done that."
Anticipation is building around the world ahead of the Copenhagen summit, which is to seek to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the anti-climate change treaty that expires in 2012.
Particular attention is on the United States, a heavy polluter that did not participate in the Kyoto agreement, and rapidly industrializing nations like China and India.
Who will foot the bill?
The details of which countries would pay for the aid were not immediately available. Earlier reports said a split between western and eastern European nations on who would pay for the aid could threaten the bloc's ability to reach a compromise.
Developing nations will need about 100 billion euros a year by 2020 in order to effectively tackle climate change, said Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency.
He also said EU member states would not be required to contribute to the aid before 2013, in an apparent concession to the bloc's less affluent countries.
Poland joined eight other eastern EU states in opposing the idea of linking each country's contribution to its own level of greenhouse gas emissions. Instead it suggested sharing the cost according to gross national income. The dispute has not yet been resolved.
"We don't think you can make an assumption that Bulgaria or Romania will pay more thank Denmark or the Netherlands because it would be purely absurd," said Polish EU affairs minister Mikolaj Dowgielewicz.
Lisbon Treaty gets a boost
The Brussels summit also bore good news for the Lisbon reform treaty when members agreed to an opt-out for the Czech Republic on a human rights charter.
Czech President Vaclav Klaus had withheld support for the treaty until he secured the exemption. The Czech government had voiced concerns over the possibility that the charter would allow ethnic Germans expelled after World War II to sue Prague for lost property.
Klaus said in a statement that he accepted the summit's decision "with satisfaction," and that he would not further block the treaty's ratification.
The Czech Republic is the only country that has not yet ratified the treaty, which would create a high-profile EU presidency to increase the bloc's global influence and streamline decision making. A decision on who will get the new post was put off until another meeting.
The last remaining hurdle lies with the Czech Constitutional Court, which is scheduled to rule on a legal challenge to the treaty next Tuesday.
acb/dpa/AP/Reuters/AFP
Editor: Chuck Penfold