The cornerstone of the European Union's sustainable finance system has got off to a rocky startwith business reluctance and a lack of ambition.

The Sweden Democrats are the party that votes most against the EU Green Deal out of all of the right-wing populist and nationalist parties in the EU. "The EU should slow down all new climate legislation", says SD parliamentarian Johan Nissinen to SvD.

The Swedish government has started to falter concerning the climate goals and it is the Sweden Democrats that are pushing for that in the background. Sweden is about to embarrass itself", says Roger Hildingsson, a Swedish political scientist. Since 2020, the Sweden Democrats have voted the most against environmental regulations regarding or involving the Green Deal. Out of the 222 times the Sweden Democrats voted, 69.4 percent of the votes were against these green legislation.

We all know the scale on washing machines and other household appliances that indicates the energy classes A to G from green to red. The EU now wants to introduce something similar for buildings. And: in the next few years, the lower classes are to disappear completely - through extensive renovations. Owners' associations are already criticising the fact that the reconstruction of Europe after the Second World War was no different. But there seems to be no other solution in the fight against climate change.

36 per cent of CO2 in the EU - that is the proportion caused by housing and heating every year. It is therefore clear that a climate-neutral Europe needs climate-neutral buildings. The EU wants to achieve this goal by making renovation mandatory for house and flat owners. Millions of homes are to be renovated by 2030 in Germany alone. But will tenants be sufficiently protected?

In recent years, a family from Schmalkalden has experienced for themselves just how time-consuming and costly an energy-efficient renovation can be. It was not without reason that the family often discussed whether it was really worth installing a heat pump - after all, the money could have been used to buy oil for at least another fifteen to twenty years. This is an issue that will affect millions of homeowners in the coming years.

The Dutch fishing company Parlevliet & van der Plas (P&P) is commissioning a new super trawler in Germany this year. Environmentalists criticise this in view of dwindling fish stocks.