Slovenia Promises EU Action on Climate

The new EU President Slovenia has promised that it will use its stewardship of the EU over the next six months to try and steer the EU’s proposed package of energy and climate change reforms towards approval by mid-2009.

Prime Minister Janez Jansa told a news conference he would aim by the end of the Slovene presidency on June 30 to have had a first reading in the European Parliament of proposals that include wider use of renewable energies and targets for CO2 reductions.

“Europe must show that we are serious about climate change,” Jansa said of new rules due to be part of a raft of post-2012 proposals covering issues including national emissions targets and clean energy subsidies.

It would be interesting to see if Slovenia succeeds in securing radical EU action on climate, where Britain and Germany, in their recent presidencies, basically failed.