Ailing airline and automotive industry pose biggest hurdle for European Green Deal in post Covid-19 scenario

POLITICO reports that “Berlin and Paris are under enormous pressure to save their airlines and carmakers from the coronavirus pandemic, but they are struggling to make their support for national champions contingent on green makeovers. Campaigners worry that many of those green strings aren’t very meaningful, or cover things companies were planning on doing anyway.”

While senior politicians in the EU’s two biggest economies insist the recovery is the right time to chart a greener economic model post the coronavirus, Henrike Hahn, a German Green lawmaker in the European Parliament, stressed that state bailouts give governments a rare chance to “influence climate issues” and shift transport away from planes and cars to greener trains and bikes.

Airlines and cars are strategic industries, employing millions of people. Politicians know the immediate stakes in the coronavirus crisis will be about headlines and job losses, rather than longer-term environmental targets.

POLITICO