European leaders focus on climate change in their meeting in Brussels
The heads of state and government of the 27 member states of the EU will look at ways of reactivating the process of climate change talks, after the failure of negotiations in Copenhagen summit last December.
After having discussed the general areas of a plan aimed at relaunching the European economy yesterday, along with other issues such as economic governance, coordination of national policies, and discrepancies between levels of competitiveness, both within and outside the EU, EU leaders are now dealing with climate change in their meeting in Brussels.
Led by the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, the leaders of the EU-27 will analyse strategies for ensuring greater efficiency in international negotiations and achieving greater visibility within the UN, particularly with a view to the climate change summit to be held in Cancún (Mexico) from 29 November to 10 December.
One of the major areas of concern for the EU is to ensure that commitments on CO2 emissions announced by various countries become a reality, through the kind of legally-binding agreements that could not be reached at the summit in Copenhagen last year.
The conclusions document that the European leaders will approve at the end of the second working session will also make reference to the Europe 2020 Strategy, which the EU intends to use to launch the European economy back onto a path of sustainable growth and job creation over the next decade.
A limited number of quantitative objectives at an EU level could be approved, which will subsequently be translated into different national targets. These are the five objectives proposed by the EU executive body in relation to investment in R&D, employment, energy, the battle against climate change, and training.
The aim is for the Europe 2020 Strategy to be definitively approved during the June meeting of the European Council, at which Spain's Presidency of the EU will come to an end.