2 Written explanations of Benedek JÁVOR

Today, the plenary voted on the effort-sharing regulation, which covers the majority of the EU’s total GHG emissions and thus is a key instrument in the achievement of the EU’s climate goals and its commitments made under the Paris Agreement.The result of today is less than satisfying despite my efforts on the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy and that of my colleague on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety to substantially raise the ambition and close the loopholes in the draft legislation to have a fair and more effective regulatory framework for 2030 and ensure its environmental integrity. The PPE, ECR and ALDE ensured that LULUCF flexibilities remain at the level proposed by the Commission and the ‘early action reserve’ was increased. These can slow down the energy transition and the emission reduction efforts in the agriculture, transport, building and waste sectors.At least, the baseline for linear reduction was set at 2018 which better reflects reality and avoids that non-complying or slowly moving Member States are rewarded. This is a real improvement compared to the Commission proposal that can lead to almost 300 million tons of extra emission cuts and thus hopefully will be maintained at the next stages of discussing the legislation.

We voted on a series of important legislative proposals on the circular economy. The reports including the one of the waste framework directive were adopted with a strong majority. The European Parliament has called for higher ambition - in line with the previous resolution of the EP, the ENVI position as well as previous proposal by the European Commission.I especially welcome that the maximum amount of waste to be landfilled was reduced and the targets on municipal waste to be recycled were increased by 5% up. Targets of preparation for reuse and on packaging to be recycled and packaging waste to be reused are also important. The new package will trigger more action in terms of decreasing waste generation and moving up the waste hierarchy as a whole, reducing food waste and marine litter as well as the separate collection of bio waste. These will bring clear benefits for the citizens - in terms of health, more liveable environment and savings and will create a huge number of new jobs.