The EU leaders are under pressure from environmentalists and lawmakers to apply conditions to state aid packages to protect climate goals. The EU agreed on Thursday to set up a trillion-euro pandemic economic recovery fund and so far authorized state aid worth 1.8 trillion EUR (1.94 trillion USD).

So far, the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, has not attached the so-called “Green links” to its approvals for assistance from national budgets, as crisis management takes priority over the other objectives of the Union. Green activists, however, insist on guarantees that any forthcoming state aid will support the bloc’s climate ambitions.

“We cannot afford to make the same mistake we did after the financial crisis in 2009 and use public money to invest in the economy without complying with the goals of the Green Deal”, said Pascal Canfin, who chairs the committee on the European Parliament’s environment.

Pascal Canfin said EU approvals should be made conditional on a promise from companies that within six months of receiving state aid, they would come up with a plan to bring their businesses in line with the global Paris agreement on climate change.

EC President Ursula von der Leyen said on Thursday that the new trillion-euro package would boost the introduction of the Green Deal to reduce EU net emissions to zero by 2050, but did not give further details on how this would happen.

A letter sent to the Commission on Thursday by a group of environmental organizations, including WWF, Greenpeace and the European Federation for Transport and Environment, called for “stringent sustainability conditions” on state aid approvals.

“High-carbon industries should only be supported if they set climate targets and promise to spend more on low-carbon assets”, the group said in a letter. “We are convinced that for the time being, the Commission does not seem to want to make full use of the single most powerful tool at its disposal to guide the direction of recovery: its powers to scrutinize state aid”, adds the letter.

“It is up to the Member States to decide whether they wish to grant state aid and to develop measures in line with EU state aid rules and their political objectives, such as to enable the green and digital transformation of their economies”, said a spokesman of the Commission.

Last week, Austrian Environment Minister Leonore Gewessler said that the state aid to Austrian Airlines should depend on climate action.