Taraba: Slovakia Will Not Support Changes to Green Deal

Bratislava, 17 September (TASR) - Slovakia will not vote in favour of changes to the Green Deal in Brussels, TASR reported on Wednesday based on a social media post published by Environment Minister Tomas Taraba (a Slovak National Party/SNS nominee) on the same day. The changes are scheduled to be discussed by the EU Environment Council on Thursday (18 September). "The council is due to decide on further aspects of the Green Deal, with one of them being that emission standards, which were to apply as of 2050, should be made even more stringent and apply as of 2040. This is yet another way of driving European industry out beyond our borders. Slovakia will not support this," said Taraba. The strength of states in Brussels must be shown by their ability to defend the interests of their citizens, without passively accepting the ideas thought up by bureaucrats in Brussels, he stated. According to Taraba, the ban on the sale of combustion engines could be scrapped. This was one of the core elements of the Green Deal, forcing carmakers to invest millions of euros in electric vehicles, he said. "Now, seeing the weak economic performance among European carmakers, they've come to the conclusion that this needs to be scrapped," said Taraba, describing the Green Deal as an ideological political concept without a scientific or economic basis. jrg/df