EsadeGeo Daily Digest, 13/04/2024

Financial Times - Alice Hancock / Greens to back Ursula von der Leyen if she revives climate policies
 

• Green parties took a drubbing in last week’s European parliament election, but they say they still have a shot at reviving some of the bloc’s climate policies put on hold to placate angry farmers and powerful industry groups. 

• The so-called Green Deal, aimed at transforming Europe’s economy to reach net zero emissions by 2050, was a priority for Ursula von der Leyen in her first term in office. It is now shaping up as the main ask for the Greens in the EU assembly to back her re-election at the helm of the European Commission. 

• Bas Eickhout, the Greens co-lead candidate in the EU vote, on Wednesday said the group’s priorities in upcoming talks were “the Green Deal and the continuation of the Green Deal”. 

• “We have presented our vision . . . to make sure that our industry in Europe can be part of the green transition,” he said.

   

The Guardian / Argentina: violent protests as senators back austerity measures of President Milei
 

• Police in Buenos Aires have used water cannon and teargas to tackle violent protests as Argentina’s Senate narrowly voted to approve the first set of harsh austerity measures proposed by President Javier Miliei. 

• The result came after protesters urging senators to reject Milei’s programme of cuts and economic deregulation hurled sticks, stones and molotov cocktails at police, and overturned cars. 

• Dozens of protesters were treated by medics in the streets and police said 20 officers had been injured in the clashes. At least five opposition lawmakers said they were hospitalised after police pepper sprayed them. 

• Thousands of bankers, teachers, truckers and workers from a range of other unions had converged around Congress throughout the day, banging drums, blasting trumpets and chanting, “Our country is not for sale!” and “We will defend the state!”

   

Politico - Rory O'Neill / Get tough on 4 killer industries, WHO tells governments
 

• Tobacco, ultra-processed foods, fossil fuels and alcohol cause a quarter of all deaths in Europe, the World Health Organization (WHO) has revealed in a major report laying bare the harms caused by these products and the alleged tactics used by industry to avoid regulations. 

• These four industries, which cause around 2.7 million deaths in the WHO Europe region every year, have used their significant power to shield themselves from regulation, the WHO warned in the report published on Wednesday. 

• As Europe's health systems struggle under swelling demand from aging populations and soaring rates of chronic ailments from heart disease to cancer, obesity and liver disease, the WHO is pushing for countries to take firmer measures against industries that are causing the most harm. Last month, for example, the U.N. body urged countries to ban high-salt foods. 

• “We need to re-frame the problem as a systemic problem, where policy has to counter ‘hyper-consumption environments,’ restrict marketing, and stop interference in policymaking,” said Vandenbroucke.

   

SCMP - Finbarr Bermingham / ‘The whole supply chain is subsidised’: inside the EU’s blockbuster Chinese EV probe
 

• It was just before lunchtime in Brussels, but the working day was creeping towards its end in Beijing, when phones pinged and screens flashed with the numbers that have threatened to upend China’s ties with Europe. 

• Car companies, lawyers, business groups and journalists all received the news at once. After seven months of speculation: 17.4 on BYD, 20 on Geely, 38.1 on SAIC and 21 on nearly all others - the tariff percentages the EU would slap on electric vehicle imports from China landed with a bang. 

• In the Belgian capital, officials set about briefing reporters on what had been uncovered in an investigation that saw dozens of case handlers spend 250 mission days on the ground in China, conducting 100-plus company visits, piecing together thousands of pages of evidence, which cumulatively tore a new rift in an already fraught relationship. 

• “The whole supply chain is subsidised,” said a senior official, who read through the charge sheet on a case that many predict could launch a trade war.

   

Our opinion reads for today:

• Project Syndicate - Philippe Legrain / Europe Must Fight the Far-Right Surge 
• The Guardian - Mariam Lau, Paul Taylor, Alberto Alemanno, Wojciech Orliński, Rosa Balfour and Cas Mudde / EU elections: earthquake in France and a rightward policy lurch? Our panel responds