Habeck: Climate protection can fail from incompetence, unwillingness

Euronews

20-03-2025

Germany's parliament on Tuesday passed a historic bill unlocking a record level of state borrowing for defence and infrastructure through amending the country's constitutionally enshrined fiscal rules.
The Greens were originally reluctant to offer their support of the bill until they received guarantees last week that €100 billion of the special fund would be directed to supporting climate economic transformation measures.
After the vote, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stressed the close connection between climate protection, energy policy, and security at the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue (BETD).
"This is a strong and powerful signal, also to our friends in Europe and the world. Germany stands ready to face the epochal challenges posed by the security and climate crises with full force," she said.
"This €100 billion for climate action is a direct investment in our future and thus also in our prosperity and security. To be clear: climate policy is security policy."
Outgoing Vice Chancellor and Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, Robert Habeck, warned that it was now up to politicians to implement the special fund.
"Climate protection in Germany will no longer fail due to money. It can only fail due to inability or unwillingness," he said.
Although climate change was still a prominent topic at last year's Munich Security Conference, current geopolitical conflicts have pushed the issue off the political agenda. In snap federal elections in Germany in February, climate change was only a marginal topic.
At the BETD, Habeck told Euronews it was important to put the climate crisis back on the political agenda.
"The lessons are all there. The Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue has expanded on this once again. Security, prices, climate neutrality – everything speaks in favour of bringing this issue forward now and building on the success," he said.
"We need politicians who continually explain (this issue) to the people, to the public. And we also need these people in the media, who continually ask the right questions."
In their criticism of the first draft of the financial package, the Greens initially accused the SPD and CDU of wanting to use the package to finance their election promises.
The Greens complained that the package lacked sufficient commitments to climate protection and only after talks with the SPD and the CDU/CSU was an agreement reached on allocating specific climate funds.
When asked how the rise of right-wing and anti-democratic forces in Germany and Europe can be countered, Habeck explained that adopting the attitude of right-wing populism in a watered-down form is the wrong strategy.
Where this had already happened, populism and right-wing radicalism had always won - especially to the detriment of the conservative parties, which would be 'eaten up.'
'That's why the opposite is true,' emphasised Habeck. 'You have to focus on your own values and clearly explain what democracy, freedom of opinion and a diverse society offer in terms of added value and wealth. But it is not enough to simply proclaim these values. Democracy must also be successful and solve the pressing problems.'
Habeck referred to the recent reform of the debt brake by the German parliament and the increase in security and defence spending, which were already overdue.
'The traffic light coalition would certainly not have collapsed if the CDU/CSU had behaved as statesmanlike as my party did,' he added.
'But the traffic light government is perhaps not the decisive factor,' Habeck continued.
'The important thing is that we have simply lost years. People have become unemployed, companies have gone bankrupt. We have done too little, too late for Ukraine because the CDU/CSU did not take the step that we took yesterday as the upcoming opposition party. They will have to live with this guilt - for decades to come.'
Europe's defence industry is highly fragmented, with the market dominated by major players from France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden, and more than 2,500 SMEs – often leading to overlap and duplication.
'We are producing very many expensive products, but in small numbers," MEP Riho Terras (Estonia/EPP) told Euronews in an interview. "What we need is for the market to provide the necessary quantities of ammunition, missiles, and various defence equipment."
'Countries must consolidate and buy together, giving small- and medium-sized enterprises the opportunity to operate equally on the market,' said Terras, who is vice-chair of the European Parliament's committee on security and defence.
The EU has quadrupled production since the start of Russia's military aggression in Ukraine, but no single member state has the capacity to scale up the European defence industry and compete with global players such as the US and China.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen envisions establishing a true single market for defence products and services by the end of her mandate, enhancing Europe's production capacity, fostering joint production, and reducing dependencies on third countries.
However, some argue this vision will not be easy to achieve by 2029.
"Defence is essentially a single monopoly customer, which is the state, and if not monopoly, then rarely more than a couple of companies, so there isn't really the scope for a competitive market where you have many customers using their consumer choices and many providers competing for those customers,' Paul Taylor, senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre, told Euronews.
Taylor also argued that national security concerns can also be invoked by member states to avoid competitive tendering in joint public procurement.
In recent months, the EU has repeatedly called on its members to increase defence spending and address critical capability gaps in areas such as ammunition production, drones, air missile defence systems, and AI.
According to Mario Draghi's landmark report on competitiveness, the most cost-effective way to rebuild European defence is through demand aggregation and joint procurement.
To date, the EU is heavily dependent on US arms imports, which accounted for 64% of the total in 2020-2024, up from 52% in 2015-2019 - so fostering more collaborative procurement would help cut Europe's dependencies towards global competitors, also including China.
'We need to encourage countries to buy equipment together in larger quantities, which would help consolidate the market, Terras said, adding that tenders should also be opened to companies from other like-minded countries such as the UK, Norway or Turkey.
Collaborative procurement will also be key to unlocking pan-European flagship projects like a planned air defence shield and strengthening NATO's eastern border with Russia and Belarus - which will be particularly relevant to ensure Europe's ability to defend itself from potential future aggression.
In a white paper on the future of European defence, the European Commission warned on Wednesday (19 March) "Europe cannot take the US security guarantee for granted and must substantially step up its contribution to preserve NATO's strength" with Washington increasingly focusing on the Indo-Pacific region.
'Will member states, who are clearly spooked by the international geopolitical situation, really put the money there in a sustained effort? I think that's the fundamental question,' Taylor asked.
'We need European defence, and it takes a decade of effort, a decade of spending to get there,' he argued.