EU’s green funds are under the guillotine

A massive investment plan designed to help fight climate change is at risk of being beheaded.

Billions of euros earmarked to boost renewable energy and slash emissions are on the cutting block after EU leaders proposed moving them over to fund immigration and defense efforts instead.

The move came during this week’s EU leaders’ summit in Brussels, where European Council President Charles Michel proposed axing nearly all of a €10 billion fund meant to help Europe build out energy networks of the future — wind turbines, hydrogen plants, carbon capture. The effort is a crucial part of the EU’s response to the U.S. spending splurge on renewable energy incentives, which includes hundreds of billions in subsidies.

While countries like France, Italy and Spain have publicly backed the €10 billion initiative, Brussels is facing criticism from more frugal European capitals, particularly in the north, that want to limit their EU budget contributions and ensure there is money for competing priorities like curbing illegal immigration and rising military expenditures.


Michel’s compromise would drop the renewables fund — officially dubbed the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform, or STEP — to just €1.5 billion. The remaining money initially meant for the effort would get rolled over into a cash pot for military investments, according to the latest proposal.


In exchange, Brussels would offer countries more flexibility in how they can use payouts from the EU’s “cohesion” fund — budgetary injections for lower-income states designed to reduce economic inequality. In theory, that would enable countries to continue some needed renewable energy investments.

“This allows countries with access to European funds to use them in a simple and flexible way,” said one diplomat granted anonymity to comment on the negotiations.

Yet the potential cut is a foreboding signal of Europe’s mounting struggle to source the massive investments needed to hit its climate goals. Germany, Europe’s largest economy, also had to drastically scale back its climate budget recently after a court ruling. And railing against the EU’s green transition costs has proved a winning political talking point for some on the right.

“We know that it’s not enough money,” said a second diplomat with knowledge of the talks, who acknowledged the diminished fund will only provide enough cash for “targeted” measures.

The “reality is really tough,” the diplomat added. “Budgets are tough everywhere.”

Ukrainian troops fighting on Dnipro river say official claims of success are misleading: 'There are no positions. It's a suicide mission'

Alia Shoaib
Dec 17, 2023, 5:30 AM PSTShare
Savehttps://i.insider.com/6553723836d588dc55cfc5e9?width=700A Ukrainian serviceman jumps out of the boat onto the shore of the Dnipro river near Kherson, Ukraine, 15 October 2023.Alex Babenko/AP Photo

• Ukrainian soldiers and marines told The New York Times that the Dnipro river front is brutal.
• They contradicted official reports that they have gained a foothold on the eastern bank.
• They said that Ukrainian soldiers are dying in huge numbers and that it is a "suicide mission."

In recent months, the banks of the Dnipro river have taken center stage in the war in Ukraine, with Ukrainian officials claiming that their forces have gained a foothold on the eastern bank.

However, marines and soldiers on the ground told The New York Times that these claims are overstated and that Ukrainians are dying in huge numbers, often before they even reach the other side of the river.

"There are no positions. There is no such thing as an observation post or position," Ukrainian soldier Oleksiy said. "It is impossible to gain a foothold there. It's impossible to move equipment there."

"It's not even a fight for survival," he said. "It's a suicide mission."

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said in November that Ukrainian forces had gained a foothold on the eastern river, which would mark a significant advance in Ukraine's counteroffensive.

Russia has held control of the eastern bank after having retreated from the western bank last year.

There were also optimistic reports of Ukrainian forces taking armored vehicles across the river for the first time, and the Ukrainian army posted a statement claiming to have established "several strongholds."

However, soldiers on the ground described a grim scene, telling The Times about difficult conditions, brutal fighting, and growing casualties.

Oleksiy spoke to The Times out of frustration at the high rate of soldiers dying.

"I did not see anything like this in Bakhmut or Soledar," he said. "It's so wasteful."

The battles of Bakhmut or Soledar, in the country's east, are known to have been among the most intense of the war.

Soldiers speaking to The Times said that the bodies are literally piling up. Oleksiy described how troops arriving to fight often had to step on soldiers' bodies lying in the mud.

A deputy company commander, Volodymyr, told The Times that some dead marines have been lying on the river bank for as long as two months because intense shelling makes it difficult to collect the bodies.

Oleksiy also criticized the Ukrainian command for poor preparation and logistics, which meant that in some cases, wounded men had to be left behind because there were not enough boats.

"People who end up there are not prepared psychologically," he said. "They don't even understand where they are going. They are not told by the command that sends them there."

Earlier this month, a Ukrainian soldier told the BBC that marines sent to help defend recent Ukrainian advances on the Dnipro river were so inexperienced they couldn't even swim.


In the BBC News report, the soldier said Ukrainian forces were experiencing serious shortages in equipment and reinforcements as they defended their positions, which were under relentless Russian attack.

The troops also described difficulties with the landscape, with the river bank being muddy and swamp-like and scattered with craters filled with water.

The environment means that in most places there is nowhere to dig in, soldiers told The Times.

Despite the difficult conditions, Ukrainian soldiers and marines are continuing to put up a fight, and Russia has also suffered high casualties.

The cross-river mission is currently not striving for a major breakthrough, but is prioritizing eliminating as many Russian soldiers as possible and taking out Russian artillery, Yevhen Karas, deputy commander of the 14th Separate Regiment, told the paper.

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Ukrainian forces continue operations on the east (left) bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast amid reported difficult conditions in the area as part of an apparent effort to set conditions for future Ukrainian operations and the resettlement of west (right) bank Kherson Oblast. The New York Times published a series of interviews with Ukrainian military personnel operating on the east bank and along the Dnipro River on December 16, wherein the commander of a Ukrainian regiment stated that Ukrainian drone strikes have heavily suppressed Russian long-range artillery on the east bank in recent months.[1] Ukrainian officials previously stated that Ukrainian forces established several bridgeheads on the east bank as part of an operation that aims to push Russian forces out of artillery range of west bank Kherson Oblast.[2] The reported suppression of long-range Russian artillery may allow Ukrainian forces to operate more freely in near rear areas in west bank Kherson Oblast, which may partially explain intensified Russian glide bomb strikes against Ukrainian targets on the west bank.[3] The much more abundant 152mm tube artillery systems that Russian forces widely operate in Ukraine have an approximate range of 25km, although Russian forces are unlikely to deploy these systems to immediate frontline areas due to the threat of Ukrainian counterbattery fire.

The withdrawal of tube artillery beyond 25km from the west bank and the suppression of long-range Russian artillery would remove consistent threats to populated areas on the west bank and allow the many Ukrainians who fled the Russian occupation of west bank Kherson Oblast to return more safely. The reduction of Russian artillery fire on the west bank would also allow Ukrainian forces to operate more freely along ground lines of communication (GLOCs), deploy more critical counterbattery and air defense systems within the vicinity of the Dnipro River, and more securely launch operations across the Dnipro River. A bridgehead is meant to provide security for crossing forces to continue operations, and the withdrawal of Russian artillery further from the Dnipro River would establish a safer position from which to conduct future operations if the Ukrainian high command so chose.[4]

The Ukrainian commander also reportedly stated that Ukrainian operations on the east bank of the Dnipro River currently aim to draw Russian forces to the area and inflict heavy losses upon them.[5] The Ukrainian commander reportedly added that the effort to draw Russian forces to the area has been successful as the Russian command transferred unspecified Russian Airborne (VDV) elements from western Zaporizhia Oblast to east bank Kherson Oblast.[6] Russian officials have acknowledged that elements of the 7th VDV Division are operating in Kherson Oblast, and it is possible that limited elements of the 7th VDV division operating near Robotyne in western Zaporizhia Oblast (the 247th VDV Regiment, the 108th VDV Regiment, and the 56th VDV Regiment) have redeployed to defend on the east bank, although ISW has observed elements of those units still committed to defending and counterattacking in western Zaporizhia Oblast.[7] Ukrainian military officials previously reported that Ukrainian operations on the east bank between October 17 and November 17 killed 1,126 Russian personnel and wounded 2,217, suggesting that Ukrainian forces may be inflicting significant losses on Russian forces in the area.[8] Russian President Vladimir Putin similarly described Russian defensive operations on the east bank as an intentional attempt to lure and attrit Ukrainian forces, however, and ISW cannot currently assess if there is an asymmetrical attrition gradient in this sector of the front. The degradation of defending Russian forces on east bank Kherson Oblast may be an immediate operational objective, but one that can facilitate the wider stated operational objective of pushing Russian forces out of artillery range of west bank Kherson Oblast.

The New York Times also published interviews with Ukrainian soldiers who have fought on the east bank who described difficult conditions in operating across the Dnipro River and in establishing positions on the east bank.[9] These difficulties are to be expected for what is an economy of force operation with limited positions on a riverbank and may continue until Ukrainian operations set conditions for a more secure Ukrainian bridgehead if the Ukrainian high command chooses to seek to establish one. The expressed Ukrainian objective to push Russian artillery away from the Dnipro River would partially address some of the difficult conditions that Ukrainian personnel described if fully achieved.

In a sign of the escalating demands on the Bundeswehr, one of the units making up the new brigade is Panzerbatallion 203 from Augustdorf in North Rhine-Westphalia, but that armored unit has handed all of its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and is waiting for newly built replacements.

Pistorius said that the order for replacement tanks for the 203rd is in — and once built, they'll be shipped directly to Lithuania.

But without an adequate long-term funding plan and without their main Leopard 2 combat systems, the Lithuania brigade "won't even be ready for defense," warned Roderich Kiesewetter, a politician with the opposition Christian Democrats and a retired colonel in the Bundeswehr with 27 years of service.

"The conclusion is that either [Leopard 2] replenishment is accelerated" before deployment, Aylin Matlé, a fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, said, or Panzerbattalion 203 could be sent to Lithuania "without their main battle system."

There are also worries about how the deployment fits with Germany's strained public finances. Pistorious said a unit like the one being sent to Lithuania — called Panzerbrigade 42 — costs between €25 million and €30 million a month to maintain in Germany. The first elements will deploy next year and the full brigade is supposed to be in place by 2027.

"We will have to clarify from 2027, when the special fund has been used up, how the 2 percent [NATO spending target] will be achieved," Pistorius said. "Sustainability is the decisive factor if we want to remain capable of deterrence and defense in a few years' time, which we must be."

But whatever the equipment and money worries, Berlin is committed to the deployment, which the German government calls a "lighthouse project," signaling its willingness to protect NATO allies and to transforming the Bundeswehr into a "war ready" force.

“The eastern flank has now moved to the east, and it’s the duty of Germany to protect it,” Pistorius said.