The bill aimed at accelerating the production of renewable energies (EnR) sees the headwinds receding. Five days before the solemn vote on the project, which will be held on Tuesday December 10 in the Assembly, environmentalists and socialists announced on Thursday that they will not vote against the text of the executive, which needs the votes of the left. to hope to pass.
A positive signal for the Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, whose cabinet has called on a number of deputies one by one in recent days to read the meters. “You should never claim victory before the battle,” says the minister’s entourage. But what we can say is that the text, as it stands today, meets the demands that have been expressed by ecologists and socialists. To vote against would be a political fault on their part. »
On the side of the ecologists, it is not really what we say, even if, in a unanimous decision, the group made it known this Thursday that its deputies will abstain so as not to block. “We will not oppose the text, but the copy is not good”, confides to the Parisian Charles Fournier, deputy and leader of the group on the text, who recognizes that “there have been debates on the strategy to adopt and the message we wanted to send to the government”.
“Abstention is a message that we send”
Thirty-six environmental amendments have been retained in the final text. However, this one “is still not up to the challenge”, regrets the group in a press release listing its complaints: “no objective, no measure to strengthen the capacity to do, an unfinished planning mechanism…”
The ecologists nevertheless remain hopeful of arriving at a “reinforced” text during the joint joint commission (CMP, a group of seven deputies and seven senators responsible for reaching an agreement when the Assembly and the Senate each voted for a different version of a text of the law) or in second reading. “Abstention is a message that we send to the CMP. We could change our position if there are improvements” specifies Charles Fournier.
On the side of the Socialists, we adopt more or less the same position, even if the group will definitively arbitrate only next Tuesday in a group meeting. “What is certain is that we will not vote against at first reading, announces Arthur Delaporte, spokesman for the Socialist group in the Assembly. It will be at least abstention. »
Among the Insoumis, the position of the group, which hesitates on the other hand between voting against and abstaining, will be known the same day, during the group meeting. “When we take stock of this text, it is difficult to find the slightest improvement that will make it possible to develop the production of renewables, in particular in terms of planning, regrets the deputy LFI Matthias Tavel. Therefore, for us, it is excluded to vote for this bill. »