BRUSSELS, June 10 (Reuters) - A more rightward-leaning European Parliament will make it harder to pass ambitious EU climate policies, but the majority of Europe's current world-leading green policies are likely to stay put, lawmakers, officials and analysts said.
Provisional results in the European Parliament election on Sunday night showed centrist parties holding a majority, but gains for right-wing and far-right parties sceptical of the EU's "Green Deal" package of environmental policies, and heavy losses for Green parties.
"I don't think that we'll be rolling back on (climate) policies. But I do think that it will be more complicated to get new policies off the ground," Bas Eickhout, head of the European Parliament's Greens lawmaker group, told Reuters.
EU climate measures over the next five years will depend on the incoming European Commission, which is responsible for proposing EU laws. But the newly-elected European Parliament will get a say on every new green policy.
Sunday's election result signals tougher maths to approve new EU climate measures.
"All new policies will be harder to pass. But backsliding is very unlikely," Krzysztof Bolesta, Poland's secretary of state for climate, told Reuters.
"It is possible that new ambition will be delayed, mostly for populistic reasons," agreed Julian Popov, who until April was EU member Bulgaria's environment minister.
That could have consequences for an upcoming 2040 EU climate target, needed to steer the EU towards its 2050 net zero emissions target. The EU Commission has suggested the 2040 goal should be an ambitious 90% emissions cut, but it needs approval from both EU countries and the Parliament.
The upcoming European Commission and Parliament will also face tough decisions on whether to introduce new policies to push industries towards that 2040 target.
That includes farming, a sector whose emissions have barely fallen since 2005. But after months of protests across Europe by angry farmers, there is little political appetite to target the sector with new rules, especially if the cost of complying with them would drive up food prices for citizens already dealing with the biggest jump in living costs in a generation.
Shares in renewable energy companies were knocked lower by concerns the election results could slow the green energy transition.
Wind turbine makers, Vestas (VWS.CO), opens new tab and Nordex (NDXG.DE), opens new tab, were down more than 3% on Monday. Orsted (ORSTED.CO), opens new tab was down 0.5%.
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