As Europe’s energy ministers meet in Brussels this week, they are weighing legitimate concerns around energy security, affordability, and the pressures facing businesses and households.

The European Commission’s proposal to delay selected EU Methane Regulation requirements for fossil-fuel importers is now moving quickly through the legislative process. Ministers have an opportunity to keep any adjustment tightly focused, while preserving the policy stability that companies and investors need to plan, invest and manage risk over the long term.

Investors need a stable framework against which companies can plan, manage risk and allocate capital with confidence.

For investors, the question is not whether implementation should be practical. It should. The question is whether a response to current pressures becomes a wider change to a framework that companies have already begun to implement.

Sixty investors, representing over €9.5 trillion in assets under management, have called for the EU Methane Regulation to be maintained and implemented as adopted. That statement pre-dated the Commission’s proposed one-year delay. Its central concern, however, is more relevant now: investors need a stable framework against which companies can plan, manage risk and allocate capital with confidence.

The regulation was designed with phased implementation. It gave companies, importers and national authorities time to prepare for stronger measurement, reporting and verification of methane emissions. It has helped bring methane from the margins into boardroom discussions, where it belongs.

Why methane matters to investors

For investors, methane performance can offer a useful view of how a company is run. It is an indicator of operational discipline, process safety and the quality of management oversight. By setting requirements for measurement, reporting and verification, the regulation can also improve the availability, consistency and reliability of methane data. That gives investors a stronger basis to compare companies and assess whether they are managing risks that could affect long-term value. Maintaining the regulation’s core provisions and avoiding any further delay would protect the progress already under way.

The EU’s position as a major oil and gas importer gives the Methane Regulation particular weight. Clear import requirements can improve the quality and comparability of emissions information across global supply chains. They can help create a more level playing field for companies supplying the European market, rather than allowing weak data or weaker controls to become a commercial advantage.

The choice is not between competitiveness, affordability and effective methane management. Europe can support all three.

This matters for competitiveness as well as climate-related financial risk. Energy affordability is a legitimate concern, particularly for businesses and households facing continued market volatility. But well-designed, practical rules can reward operational excellence, support informed investment decisions and give companies a clearer basis on which to plan, while implementation can be managed in ways that preserve market flexibility and limit unnecessary costs for consumers.

The choice is not between competitiveness, affordability and effective methane management. Europe can support all three. A three-year postponement, however, would not serve institutional investors, companies or Europe’s competitiveness.

Methane is often treated as a narrow technical issue. It is not. Reducing emissions from oil and gas operations is one of the quickest and most cost-effective ways to limit near-term warming. For companies, stronger measurement and reporting can also identify avoidable losses, improve operational performance and strengthen confidence among lenders and investors.

Companies and investors have already begun to respond to the direction set by the impending regulation. Investors are looking more closely at the quality of companies’ emissions data and the systems behind it. A predictable regulatory framework supports that work. Repeated changes to the timetable would do the opposite: they would make it harder to judge preparedness, compare performance and distinguish between companies that are acting now and those that are waiting for the rules to move again.

A longer delay would not remove the work needed to implement the regulation. It would postpone it, weaken incentives for companies and suppliers to prepare, and leave investors with less visibility over how methane-related risk will be managed. It could also disadvantage businesses that have already invested in stronger measurement and reporting, while slowing the development of the market for independent verification services needed to support credible implementation. When the requirements eventually return, the adjustment may be sharper and more costly. That uncertainty carries a cost for companies, investors and the wider market.

Practical implementation, not prolonged delay

The practical challenges facing importers are real and should be addressed through consistent implementation. This includes clear guidance from national authorities, practical ways to link relevant methane data to imported fuels, and clear standards for countries outside the EU whose methane rules are recognized as comparable to EU requirements. This approach would preserve market flexibility and help limit unnecessary costs, without weakening the regulation’s purpose.

If a one-year adjustment is judged necessary, ministers should keep it tightly defined, with a clear end date and no reopening of the regulation’s core provisions. They should use the period to provide the guidance that companies, importers and national authorities need to implement the rules consistently.

The choice facing ministers is not whether Europe should address methane emissions, but whether it does so through a stable framework that rewards preparedness and investment. A limited adjustment may be manageable. A prolonged delay risks creating uncertainty, slowing preparation and leaving Europe less competitive.

Stephanie Pfeifer, CEO, Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of all IIGCC members.

Disclaimer

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BRUSSELS — Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

The European Commission updated its approach to dealing with climate change along those lines on Tuesday with a package aimed at improving the bloc’s response to mounting disasters such as extreme heat, supercharged storms and worsening wildfires. 

Unveiling its first-ever law to boost the bloc’s resilience to global warming, the EU executive conceded that merely slashing planet-warming emissions is insufficient as climate extremes wreak havoc across the continent. 

“There is no alternative to continue to cut emissions more forcefully and to move full-frontal into clean energy,” Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told reporters. “But at the same time, we do have to acknowledge that the problems we’re facing have morphed into something that is so large that just doing that alone unfortunately no longer is good enough.” 

The Commission’s proposed Climate Resilience Law asks governments to draft plans to prepare for a world that’s 2 degrees Celsius hotter in 2050 and 3C hotter by the end of the century, aligning with the United Nations’ latest projections that current global climate policies can only limit warming to 2.8C. 

The same U.N. report also warned that the world can no longer limit warming to 1.5C, the lower bound of the Paris Agreement’s dual goals, and that steep emissions cuts are needed to achieve the best-case scenario of halting the rise in global temperatures at 1.8C. 

The Commission insisted that Tuesday’s package did not amount to Brussels resigning itself to catastrophic levels of warming. 

“Let me just be crystal-clear on the 1.5C, that remains our goal,” said Hoekstra. “At the same time, it would be unwise not to prepare for… the current trajectory the world is on.” 

Regulation for the deregulation era

Under the proposed law, governments are “encouraged” to take the 3C scenario into account when designing policies, budgets and investments. 

Countries will have to carry out national climate risk assessments every five years starting in 2029, and subsequently draw up climate-proofing plans by the end of 2030. These strategies should also indicate which public authorities are in charge of managing certain climate risks to avoid inaction and finger-pointing among ministries and agencies.  

The fairly light-touch legislation reflects the prevailing mood in the EU. Brussels itself has committed to a deregulation agenda, and national governments have called for fewer rules, not more, particularly where climate and the environment are concerned. 

Efforts to improve resilience to weather extremes, such as flood prevention or urban greening, are also largely a national and even local responsibility, with the EU holding limited powers. 

Even the limited rules proposed on Tuesday are already raising eyebrows. 

“I strongly support a clearer allocation of responsibilities,” said Peter Liese, the lead climate lawmaker of the center-right European People’s Party. But, he added, “we need to examine whether the plans, in the form proposed by the Commission, are necessary. Plans alone do not protect people and could tie up resources unnecessarily if we do not design them pragmatically.” 

Others argued the law was too limited. “The danger is a framework that tells us exactly how exposed we are and then commits us to nothing,” said Greens-affiliated lawmaker Kai Tegethoff. “Europe needs binding resilience targets and clear, measurable goals for the sectors most at risk.”

The Commission, for its part, has sought to appeal to governments’ concerns over the EU’s economic competitiveness by emphasizing the wealth-destroying threat of climate disasters and the business potential of climate-proofing technologies. 

“Some may say resilience is expensive. But the right question is, what is the real cost of being unprepared,” said Teresa Ribera, the Commission’s executive vice president in charge of the green transition. Both she and Hoekstra cited data showing the impact of heat on GDP as an example. “Europe cannot be competitive without being resilient,” she added. 

In the wider package presented Tuesday, the Commission also highlighted the emerging market for climate technologies such as drought-resilient crops and cooling solutions, casting European industry as a front-runner in that sector. 

As the EU is currently negotiating its next long-term budget, the package does not come with any funding attached, despite financing often acting as the biggest barrier to climate-proofing efforts. The bloc needs to invest around €70 billion a year by 2050 to adapt to a warmer world but currently only spends €29 billion. 

More where that came from

While presenting new obligations for governments, the Commission also promised to push ahead with work in Brussels. 

The European Environment Agency will draw up bloc-wide climate risk assessments, with the next one due in June 2028, and the Commission will present an EU “strategic plan on climate resilience” by the end of September 2028. 

Progress will be assessed regularly based on four criteria — climate-related deaths, economic losses attributable to global warming, the share of uninsured losses, and related fiscal costs. The Commission’s Eurostat agency will start compiling EU-wide statistics on climate-related deaths and economic losses by the end of 2030, according to the regulation. 

Beyond the legislative efforts, the EU executive also presented a wider package that includes several digital tools, including a “climate viewer” that converts the new warming scenario into local projections policymakers can use.

The Commission also vowed to take into account the new 3C warming scenario in all its future policy proposals. Further steps, including a heat wave action plan and a climate insurance alliance, are planned for next year, it said. 

“I wouldn’t say that we’re nearly done,” said Hoekstra. “Much of this is going to be work in progress.” And if climate change continues getting worse, he added, “this package might well need to be beefed up.” 

LONDON — U.K. Chancellor John Healey is set to deliver an unexpected increase in defense spending at his first budget on Wednesday, as Britain strains to reach its NATO commitment to spend 3.5% of GDP on defense by 2035.

Healey — who quit as defense secretary in the dying days of Keir Starmer’s government over a funding row — hopes he can show how Britain will start to reach that target now that he’s safely ensconced in the powerful Treasury.

Until last week, it was assumed that the top finance minister would defer decisions on ramping up funding until next year’s multi-year, government-wide spending review. So Wednesday’s move could represent an early win for the Ministry of Defence in Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s new government.

But with regular warnings in the press and in public about Britain’s unpreparedness for conflict, there’s much more to watch for beyond Wednesday’s headline hike. POLITICO walks through the seven key details and defense industry demands.

1) How will Healey play the numbers game?

Healey’s government-rocking resignation back in June was explicitly over a refusal in Downing Street and the Treasury to commit to spending 3% of GDP on defense by 2030.

Now that he is leading the Treasury, Healey is under pressure to deliver on that. But even that keeps Britain shy of the bigger NATO aim.

On existing plans, U.K. defense spending is set to rise to 2.7% next year and remain flat until 2030. Healey’s first move will be to fill the £4.7 billion black hole in defense funding in the Defence Investment Plan — meant to overhaul the armed forces and improve readiness — published earlier this year.

More money is now expected beyond this, briefed to the media in recent days as a “down payment” towards spending 3% on defense by 2030.

But two government officials, granted anonymity like others in this article to discuss internal thinking, said the pathway to meeting NATO’s larger, 3.5% target will only come in next year’s spending review, not the budget.

Even on the smaller measure, the margins for the chancellor are tight, with government spending rules and debt targets leaving little room for maneuver. Mike Martin, an MP on the House of Commons Defense Committee, told POLITICO: “They have got themselves into a straitjacket over defense spending and none of this will be resolved before the next election. This is why I think an early general election is inevitable.”

2) Will the chancellor move to funnel private capital into defense?

Britain’s defense industry has long called for more direct government spending on domestic contracts. But the sector also wants more private capital flowing into U.K. firms, and will be looking to Healey to set the conditions.

The Financial Times reported last week that Healey will allocate £15.4 billion to the country’s National Wealth Fund and £5 billion to the British Business Bank — a share of which could end up with defense companies.

Two key details to watch here are whether the government claims this money counts towards its wider defense spending commitments, or whether any cash is allocated purely for defense firms. Potential reforms to and incentives for pools of private capital, such as pension funds and venture capital funds, to invest in defense would also be welcomed by the sector in this budget — but the industry may be left waiting.

One of the government officials cited above said that a Defence Finance and Investment Strategy is slated for December, with a Defense Investment Summit coming December 1.

3) Where does Healey stand on global defense team-ups?

On Sunday evening, the Treasury disclosed that it would not join the Canadian-led Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB) — a proposed multinational financial institution with its own AAA credit rating that aims to provide cheap loans for countries to invest in defense.

The U.K. had previously considered joining the bank, or merging it with its own separate initiative, the Multilateral Defence Mechanism (MDM) — a planned scheme for joint defense procurement, stockpiling and supply chains for member countries.

But a joint statement with Ottawa said that the institutions will now work in partnership.

The MDM currently has £400 million allocated from June’s Defence Investment Plan, while none of the other member nations — the Netherlands, Finland and Poland — have confirmed whether they have contributed capital to the project.

Now that uncertainty over Britain’s membership of the DSRB has gone, the government will be looking to flesh out its plans for its own MDM.

4) Can the chancellor slash energy and manufacturing costs?

Two industry figures told POLITICO that one of the biggest barriers to doing defense business in Britain — making it less attractive than other nations — is the country’s comparatively high energy costs.

However, slashing costs for energy-intensive industries, including the industrial base of the defense sector is expensive, and schemes aimed at reducing costs — such as the British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme – already exist. Measures reportedly under consideration this time around appear to focus more on reducing households’ energy costs than on supporting businesses.

A third industry figure predicted that ministers would not offer immediate support for business energy bills because “every possible option” for instant help “is too expensive.” But a defense industry investor said the Treasury is, however, looking at reducing the financial burden of machinery — which they said is a key issue for small firms wanting to ramp up production as part of the supply chain.

5) What does Buy British actually mean?

The government has been consulting with the defense sector and wider British industry over what exactly constitutes a British company under its plans to implement a new “Buy British” scheme.

The plan aims to bring together Andy Burnham’s pledges of re-industrialization and more evenly-spread growth across the country, and comes after the EU proposed its own Made in Europe procurement plan to try and boost the bloc’s own firms.

The push is also designed to build sovereign capability, which has become increasingly important to Britain amid fears that the U.S. is an unreliable ally. The recent row over Ukraine’s constrained access to the Starlink satellite system has exacerbated such concerns.

Early suggestions indicate the government will take a broad definition — in a potential boost for multinational defense giants. Rupert Pearce, the Ministry of Defence’s National Armaments Director, told a recent industry event that, from his perspective, French defense company Thales, which has a headquarters in the U.K., “is a British company.”

6) Will Healey move further on AI and hybrid defenses?

Ahead of the budget, Healey’s Treasury announced a series of AI-specific policies with potential defense applications.

These include £165 million for AI-driven detection and surveillance of biological threats — a move first teased by the boss of Britain’s MI5 intelligence service.

The government will also put £60 million into its Sovereign AI fund to invest in British tech companies, including autonomous systems, robotics, and advanced manufacturing.

Watch to see whether the chancellor waves around more promises of boosting British resilience to malign actors on Wednesday.

7) Will Donald Trump even notice?

Britain’s comparatively slow progress on defense spending has already caught the eye of the Trump administration.

Warren Stephens, the U.S. ambassador to the U.K., warned earlier this year that Britain must make “sustained investment” in defense, rather than focusing on “other spending priorities,” and warned against “backloading” defense spending to a later date. 

A lack of a meaningful movement on defense spending — or at least eye-catching claims from opposition parties that Healey has fumbled it — could grab the attention of Trump’s team this time around. The timing is tricky: the Pentagon is currently undertaking a review of American military assets stationed in mainland Europe and the U.K.

Ist Deutschland wirklich der kranke Mann Europas oder steht ein wirtschaftliches Comeback bevor? Nach einem milliardenschweren Investitionsgipfel „Invest in Germany“ mit Tech-Größen wie Nvidia-Chef Jensen Huang zieht Martin Blessing, der persönliche Beauftragte des Bundeskanzlers für Investitionen, eine optimistische Bilanz. Es bleibt die entscheidende Frage, wie viel von den zugesagten Milliarden tatsächlich frisches Geld ist und ob die deutsche Bürokratie das Tempo der KI-Revolution überhaupt mitgehen kann.

Als ehemaliger Vorstandsvorsitzender der Commerzbank weiß Blessing, wie man durch existenzielle Krisen navigiert. Auf einem Spaziergang mit Gordon Repinski durch das herbstliche Berlin erklärt der Ex-Banker, warum das deutsche Rentensystem dringend eine Kapitaldeckung nach skandinavischem oder auch US-Vorbild braucht und wie ausländische Geldgeber auf den Aufstieg der AfD blicken. Dabei wird deutlich, warum der drohende Fachkräftemangel und überbordende europäische Regulierungen derzeit die größten Bremsklötze für den Standort sind.

Im Gespräch liefert Blessing einen Einblick in die wirtschaftspolitische Strategie der Regierung und fordert ein Ende der deutschen Larmoyanz. Am Beispiel der LNG-Terminals oder auch der Finanzkrise 2008 zeigt er auf, dass politischer Wille durchaus zu rasanten Genehmigungs- und Gesetzgebungsverfahren führen kann. Ein Tempo, das nun auch für den Ausbau der digitalen Infrastruktur und die Sicherung der globalen Wettbewerbsfähigkeit zwingend notwendig ist.

Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Rixa Fürsen, Maximilian Stascheit und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig.

Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren.

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BRUSSELS — The center-right European People’s Party joined forces with far-right lawmakers Thursday to push through a vote delaying a key EU climate law governing the methane emissions of oil and gas companies.

It was the latest example of the European Parliament’s biggest group ignoring old taboos and working with the far right to pass legislation weakening environmental rules.

The EU Methane Regulation requires fossil fuel companies to monitor and report emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that’s a major cause of global warming.

The requirements were due to come into force in 2027, but the Commission last week proposed delaying implementation by a year following intense lobbying from the oil and gas lobby and the U.S. government.

The EPP proposed going further, calling for a three-year delay. The amendment passed by 326 votes to 244, with the support of far-right groups Patriots for Europe, the group of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally; and Europe of Sovereign Nations, the group of the German far-right party the AfD. Giorgia Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists also backed the proposal.

Most lawmakers from other centrist and center-left groups, including Renew Europe, Socialists and Democrats and the Greens, opposed the three-year delay.

The right-wing majority also voted for an amendment that would force the Commission to review the law and propose any necessary changes by mid-2029.

It comes a year after the EPP — the group of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — set a new precedent when it sided with the far right to vote to weaken environmental reporting rules for companies, breaching the so-called cordon sanitaire. Since 2024, right wing groups have made up a majority in Parliament.

Thursday’s vote, if adopted by other EU institutions, would move the deadline for implementation of rules to 2030 — well beyond the Commission’s proposed delay to 2028.

It comes after a months-long pressure campaign by oil and gas companies, which claimed that key elements of the rules requiring them to monitor and track leaks of the potent greenhouse gas were unclear, risking compliance failures that could deter critical supplies from reaching Europe.

The Parliament’s position aligns it with industry’s own call for a three-year delay, and lawmakers echoed the sector’s concerns about the risk of supply disruptions linked to hasty implementation of the rules.

“The postponement of the requirements for oil and gas importers in the Methane Regulation is a matter of political responsibility … We need legally certain rules in place … to safeguard Europe’s energy supply and competitiveness,” MEPs Andrea Wechlser and Christian Ehler, both in the EPP, said in a statement to POLITICO.

“The crisis in the Middle East is already putting massive pressure on energy markets—about 20 percent of global LNG trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz,” they added.

The Parliament’s position could empower national delegations — which failed to agree on a joint position Wednesday after pushback from Germany, Italy and Poland — pushing for a longer delay. Member countries hope to find a compromise next Wednesday after failing to find agreement earlier this week.

CORRECTION: This article has been updated to reflect that Parliament voted to delay the rules until 2030.

BRUSSELS — Center-right lawmakers in the European Parliament are intensifying efforts to weaken two EU climate laws, a campaign that could undermine the bloc’s push to cut planet-warming emissions.

The European People’s Party, the largest group in Parliament, will this week push for a three-year delay to rules on emissions of the climate pollutant methane, a change the fossil fuel sector and the U.S. government have lobbied hard for.

A growing number of EPP lawmakers now also want to delay — or scrap altogether — a new carbon price on transport and heating, known as ETS2, according to a document obtained by POLITICO. That puts them in line with several EU member countries, including Italy and Poland, which pushed for a delay to the new carbon price at a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels last week.

Both policies are central pillars in the EU’s effort to reduce its planet-warming emissions. A successful repeal of ETS2 in particular would be a blow to EU climate goals, as it covers around 40% of the bloc’s greenhouse gas emissions.

But it would also be a major victory for conservative and pro-business lawmakers and national governments that have been campaigning for less stringent EU climate laws in the name of industrial competitiveness.

Ax the tax

The EU Emissions Trading System, launched in 2005, requires power plants and factories in sectors like steel, chemicals and cement to acquire carbon allowances for every ton of carbon they emit. The total number of allowances is reduced each year, eventually reaching zero.

ETS2 applies the same idea to suppliers of fuel for transport and heating from 2028.

The cap-and-trade scheme will be a powerful tool for reducing emissions from these highly polluting activities. But many policymakers worry it will raise the cost of gasoline, diesel and natural gas and add to voters’ cost-of-living pressures.

Nine national delegations of the EPP — the Polish, Spanish, Italian, French, Romanian, Croatian, Slovenian, Slovak and Estonian — are now calling for ETS2 to be repealed, according to draft amendments obtained by POLITICO. “ETS2 should be deleted,” the amendment, sponsored by Polish EPP lawmaker Adam Jarubas, argues.

Another amendment in the same draft, backed by 10 national delegations, takes a softer approach and asks for ETS2 to be “postponed until 2031.”

EU legislators are already reviewing a proposed reform of the EU’s original Emissions Trading System, which makes amending ETS2 — which is contained in the same legislation as the first ETS — much simpler.

No majority in Parliament or among member countries currently supports delaying or repealing ETS2, but a string of elections next year raises the likelihood that more right-wing governments will be in power before ETS2 comes into force, adding momentum to the push to scrap or delay it.

Methane delay

Last week, the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, proposed a year-long delay to rules that will require oil and gas importers to monitor, report, and eventually reduce emissions of the potent greenhouse gas.

The delay — which affects monitoring requirements and later obligations on methane intensity — followed months of lobbying from industry and member countries, which claimed the Commission provided insufficient clarity on how to comply. The U.S. government also pushed to delay the rules, which are currently due to come into force on Jan. 1, 2027.

But the proposed delay requires support from both governments and lawmakers, some of whom want to go well beyond the Commission’s revised timeline.

On Tuesday, European lawmakers voted to fast-track parliamentary discussions around the Commission’s proposed delay, laying the groundwork for a fresh vote Thursday. At that vote, the EPP is expected to campaign for a three-year delay of the rules, as well as possible further adjustments, according to one lawmaker familiar with the matter.

Dimitris Tsiodras, a European lawmaker, echoed industry concerns that compliance risks could deter cargoes from Europe if left unaddressed. “We cannot afford to put our energy supplies at further risk,” he told lawmakers.

Right-wingers against the rules will still face opposition from left-leaning lawmakers. Jutta Paulus, a German Greens lawmaker who steered the parliament’s position on the legislation in 2024, announced on Tuesday that her party would table an amendment to reject the delay altogether.

However, the EPP could reach an outright majority if it joined with right-wing and far-right groups.

The party is already exploring a deal with those groups if the Socialists and Democrats — the Parliament’s second-largest group — don’t cooperate with its push for a longer postponement, according to two people familiar with the matter. S&D lawmakers opposed extending the delay earlier this month, but a group spokesperson said the party has yet to adopt a formal position in negotiations.

A parliamentary push for a three-year delay could also invigorate member countries’ efforts to delay the rules further.

Member countries are currently divided, though many, including heavyweight France, support the one-year delay proposed by Brussels, according to two diplomats briefed on the matter.

Poland, Slovakia and Czechia, meanwhile, would prefer a three-year delay, but their luck in campaigning for an extension may depend on where Germany lands, the people said. Berlin is currently split between its socialist-controlled environment ministry and its center-right-controlled energy ministry, leaving countries uncertain whether they can formulate a joint position tomorrow, they added.

Italy is also trying to decide whether to opt for one year or more, two diplomats familiar with the matter said.