The European Commission today unveiled a major new design project for Europe known in EU jargon as a “taxonomy”, involving billions of litres of green paint and several very broad brushes.
Under a new delegated act aiming to make Europe look greener and more attractive, every single area of the economy, including gas and nuclear energy, will be repainted a particular shade of green.
The new proposals create a new classification range for the colour green, ranging from the barely visible “Greener Than the Grass In Chernobyl,” to “Rue de La Loi Phlegm,” and finally the greenest shade: “Greenpeace Activist’s SUV Envy.”
The proposal, set out in a fresh green paper published today, says that all lumps of coal will be repainted red but renewable energy sources like wind, solar and hydroelectricity will only be coloured in with pencils (unleaded, natch).
The changes form part of a wider spectrum overhaul, rolling out new colours across the continent. The new chart includes a specific kind of grey reserved for use by the EU institutions, a new puce colour called Timmermans' Rage, a type of builders’ paint meant for whitewashing called McGuinness’ Mauve, and one called Ursula’s Transparency, which is the darkest shade of black visible by the naked eye. Implementation of the new rules will be aided thanks to an ambitious recruitment of over 1,000 new lilac-book trainees.
The new colour code is not limited to energy: the Hulk will turn blue, France can do whatever tinkering it wants to its flag, and carrots must go back to being purple, despite pressure from the Dutch.
The European Parliament announced that all the weeks in its calendar would now be “green weeks,” leading to hopes it could become entirely carbon neutral by doing nothing all year round.
The controversial move to randomly substitute colours has made many NGOs see teal, as they argue that gas is not green, but colourless. At a press conference, one NGO activist farted to prove the point, but produced a distinctly green cloud and hurriedly left the stage.
The Commission defended the move, saying that dinosaurs, from which fossil fuels derive, were all famously green, and that’s because they ate so many leaves. “They existed for millions of years purely on a rich diet of jurassic spinach, rocket and broccoli. Is it any wonder their remains should count as green too?”
“We don’t see colour,” a Commission spokesperson said. “But having said that, gas and nuclear are definitely green.”
“The European Commission represents all colours from white to slightly off-white to eggshell and back to A4 paper.”
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