On the radar

A new set of commissioners have taken their place in Brussels, a pan-European 28-person team who will spend the next five years shaping the over-arching policy of member states.
Just a week before they took their seats, it was confirmed the Council of Ministers had agreed a key driver from the previous Commission, pledging emissions cuts by 40 per cent by 2030, an important and, if successful, groundbreaking target.
Since then China and the US  - responsible for 40 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions made their own promise on cutting carbon ahead of December’s UN climate change conference in Lima and yet, closer to home, new Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has faced questions over whether his group of officials has the environment at the top of the agenda.
Alyn Smith, an SNP MEP and previously a member of the European Parliament’s agriculture committee said: “Everything we do is connected to climate change in one shape or form. We have a global food supply chain that is under unprecedented stress.
“All the world is getting more climatically unstable.  Meanwhile we’ve got a growing population that needs to be fed and we’re reliant on food imports from pretty unstable bits of the world.
“Yet the way that the Commission has now organised itself is taking the environment right down the pecking order in terms of how it does business.”
Under the new structure, portfolios from the José Manuel Barroso Commission have been merged into different directorates. 
Environment and fisheries are under the care of Malta’s Karemenu Vella and both climate action and energy are under the stewardship of Spain’s Miguel Arias Cañete. Both those areas are in the same directorate of ‘energy union’ under Vice President Maroš Šefčovič from Slovakia.
The rules on appointing a new Commission mean MEPs vote for all 28 en-bloc, or are faced with another three months while the process starts again.
Smith says: “As much as I supported Mr Juncker personally and I supported the Commission in the vote, we’re seeing a number of the roles have been downgraded.
“We remain to see how they actually behave in their actions but it is quite clear that Mr Juncker will not prioritise the environment in the way the Barosso commission did.” He adds: “Even then it was pretty much down to the work of the likes of [Climate Action Commissioner] Connie Hedegaard in pushing for actual climate change targets. I’m not sure we’re going to see that sense of urgency from the Commission going forward.”
Cañete has been particularly singled out for scrutiny as a former director of two oil companies and Smith says “he’s not going to have climate change as any sort of priority – much less top priority.”
But he adds it is not just about the individual personalities behind the roles, “the extent to which environment and fisheries were lumped in together in one person , Juncker’s had 27 people to choose from. That was a deliberate downgrading.”
More will be known on exactly what direction the Commission will take on 16 December when it publishes its work programme, but Ian Duncan, Scotland’s Conservative MEP said Europe now was at a point in terms of the environment of “getting it right or getting it very wrong”.
Duncan, a member of the ENVI committee, which covers a wide-ranging brief including the environment and public health, will be part of the European Parliament’s delegation to Lima in Peru next month.
There are a wide range of environmental issues coming up for consideration, such as the Habitats and Birds Directive, not just the overarching topic of climate change and Duncan said it was essential environmental issues were not seen as a political football.
A scientist by training, he said it was important policy was informed by the evidence.
Hours after speaking to Holyrood, it was confirmed Juncker had scrapped the role of Chief Scientific Advisor, which had been held by Scotland’s Professor Anne Glover. It had followed a concerted campaign from groups including Greenpeace, saying the role had too much power and influence within Europe and criticising her position over GM crops.
“She’s not an advocate of GMOs,” he says. “But she is an advocate of science. Time and again she has said ‘I’m not here to tell you the rights and the wrongs of the issues, I’m here to tell you about the science.”
Following the move by Juncker, Duncan accused him of breaking an earlier promise made to Conservative MEPs and caving to a small and politically motivated group. He said: “Anne Glover is a remarkable scientist who has dedicated herself to provision of rigorous scientific advice, facilitating credible policy decision making in the European Union.” 
At a time when discussion has moved swiftly away from the Scottish independence referendum to the possibility of a referendum on whether the UK should stay within the EU, the issue of who has the strongest say on issues is important.
Duncan says the environment is one of the areas where there is a need to think beyond our own shores and Scotland and the UK have to recognise there is a need for a common approach, but he adds there are politicians who push for things they would never be able to pass at a domestic level, “who believe they can skirt round the member states and secure the same programme at a European level.”
Smith adds though that the situation in Europe means Scotland, which has its own targets on areas like climate change, needs to work harder than ever to lead by example.
“If we were looking for the EU to solve our problems for us we’re going to be disappointed,” he says.
“We’re going to need to see much more political leadership at home, which we can then use to spur the rest of the EU into better efforts – which in truth was how it was working.
“If we were relying on the EU to come up with tougher climate change targets than we’d otherwise see from the UK I just don’t see that’s going to be the agenda anymore.”
One of Smith’s concerns is that the priorities over energy are all about ensuring security of supply and the Commission’s aim to have an ‘energy union’ - a one-size fits all plan for all member states - and less about sustainable and renewable sources. Scotland, he says has a role in demonstrating how “Green Growth” can work. 
Interaction between Scotland, the UK and Europe is still uncertain as well. The SNP and Scottish Government were outraged when Scottish Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead was not allowed to speak at fisheries negotiations, when his UK counterpart Liz Truss was unable to attend with Lord de Mauley representing the UK instead.
Additionally Smith says the questions over the UK’s overall involvement in EU mean there is doubt over whether it is a “credible partner”.
The flames have been further stoked by a row over an additional £1.7bn payment required from the UK after economic conditions had picked up.
Duncan says these do not affect the big issues like climate change, but adds it does make people “less amenable” to seeing Europe as part of the solution.
He adds: “Anything that undermines the trust that we have in any of our representatives in this situation is a bad thing. The European Commission are particularly guilty here of seemingly making announcements which shake the earth and recognising that that’s what they’re going to do.”