DG Climate: at the levers of EU climate protection policy

On the international climate stage, Frans Timmermans‘ voice carries weight. Not only because the European Commission’s Vice President for the Green Deal can express himself perfectly in five languages, but because he is the EU’s chief negotiator.

For the highly complex negotiations, Timmermans relies on his team – the staff of the Directorate-General for Climate. A central figure is Jacob Werksman, special advisor to the Directorate General for International Climate Relations and head of the EU delegation to the UNFCCC. Werksman coordinates with the Czech government – the Czech Republic currently holds the rotating EU presidency, explains a senior EU climate official. „In this way, we ensure the representativeness of our negotiating team in the various international processes.“

„Climate,“ as it is called in the Berlaymont, was founded in 2010 following COP15 in Copenhagen. The Copenhagen conference went down in history as the COP of all disasters, but it was also the starting point for a new dynamic that eventually led to the Paris Agreement. The Danish Commissioner in charge at the time, Connie Hedegaard, was very involved: „She was really instrumental in reviving the climate summit after Copenhagen,“ it is said at the Berlaymont.