Von der Leyen warned:
Don’t slap the bill for climate and industry on consumers

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The influential Brussels think-tank Bruegel has sent a ‘memo’ to Commission President-designate, Ursula von der Leyen, warning her of over-burdening consumers during her likely second term.

Few economic think tanks get as much attention from decision-makers as Bruegel – one of the longest-standing non-affiliated Brussels-based research centres, the views the group shares tend to make their way into EU policy.

The think-tank sent a “President memo” – authored by director Jeromin Zettelmeyer and senior fellows Maria Demertzis and André Sapir – to von der Leyen on Thursday 4 July, outlining its ideas on the tasks awaiting her in the upcoming mandate.

“The best way to understand this is the trade-offs,” Demertzis, also a professor of economic policy at the European University Institute, told Euractiv.

The first trade-off the Commission will face is on the need for money: re-armament, climate protection, digital infrastructure, and Ukraine reconstruction.

“But fiscal space is tight, and raising own resources or agreeing to new EU borrowing will be difficult and divisive,” the experts note.

The second trade-off is on the need to accelerate decarbonisation, at a time when opposition is heating up against what is seen as too-pervasive regulation .

“We know that decarbonisation is probably going to hamper growth, at least in the short run,” said Demertzis, “but we have to do it anyway.”

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