Europe Is Losing Leadership On Climate Change

12.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 8th Sep 2009

The outgoing Commission must make an early proposal to the Council and Parliament to help developing countries meet the challenge of climate change if the EU is to keep its leadership in the battle to slow climate change.

So say the Union of European Federalists who met on the Italian island of Ventotene on 5 September.

The bureau of the UEF deplores the lack of will displayed by the European Council to finance the effort to reduce global warming. The UEF urges the European Commission to make an early proposal about its own financial contribution towards the costs of mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.

Speaking at the meeting, Andrew Duff MEP, President of the UEF, said:

"The EU has a moral responsibility to assist poorer countries to embrace clean technology. An increasing volume of Europe's industrial goods are manufactured in developing countries. European business has a good opportunity to develop markets in these new clean technologies, helping our own economic recovery.

"Federalists insist that a new finance mechanism on a global scale is needed, under the auspices of the United Nations, as the world learns to share the burden of cost and encourage democratic solutions to the challenge of climate change.

"President Barroso needs to make his proposal to the Council now if there is to be any chance of the EU making a vital contribution to the success of the Copenhagen talks".

The UEF, meeting symbolically on the island where Altiero Spinelli was imprisoned by Mussolini, also emphasised the need for the successor protocol to Kyoto to include ways and means of monitoring its effect and enforcing its implementation.