Europe Is Moving Away from Its Green Agenda

Summary

The European Union’s Green Deal aims to make the bloc car­bon neu­tral by 2050 through var­i­ous poli­cies tar­get­ing sec­tors like food, indus­try, energy, and trans­port, but recent polit­i­cal shifts have led to a back­slide in the imple­men­ta­tion of envi­ron­men­tal ini­tia­tives, includ­ing the with­drawal of the Green Claims Directive pro­posal. Despite chal­lenges like eco­nomic uncer­tainty and geopo­lit­i­cal issues, the younger gen­er­a­tion in Europe remains con­cerned about cli­mate change, high­light­ing the impor­tance of address­ing envi­ron­men­tal issues in pol­icy-mak­ing deci­sions to avoid dis­il­lu­sion­ment.

The European Union has been a long-time advo­cate of envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, launch­ing its first envi­ron­men­tal action pro­gram in 1973.

In 2020, the E.U. adopted the European Green Deal, a com­pre­hen­sive set of rules aim­ing to make the bloc car­bon neu­tral by 2050 and ensure a sus­tain­able future for all Europeans. 

More than 150 poli­cies have been intro­duced so far under the Green Deal in sec­tors such as food, indus­try, energy and trans­port. The poli­cies are designed to mit­i­gate envi­ron­men­tal impact and reduce pol­lu­tion in these eco­nomic sec­tors. 

However, after the June 2024 elec­tions, when Europe’s green polit­i­cal par­ties lost ground to right-wing con­ser­v­a­tive par­ties in the European Parliament, there has been a notable back­slide in the appli­ca­tion of the bloc’s green agenda.

The shift in the bloc’s pri­or­i­ties became more evi­dent after back­ing down on the Green Claims Directive, a rel­a­tively minor rule tar­get­ing cor­po­rate green­wash­ing—a prac­tice through which com­pa­nies falsely present them­selves as more sus­tain­able than they are. 

While nego­ti­a­tions on the direc­tive between the par­lia­ment and the Council of the European Union had started in January, the European Commission sud­denly announced last month it would with­draw its pro­posal to imple­ment the direc­tive. 

The commission’s announce­ment came two days after the European People’s Party (EPP), a con­ser­v­a­tive cen­ter-right party and the largest group in the par­lia­ment, sent a let­ter to the E.U.’s law-ini­ti­at­ing body request­ing the direc­tive pro­posal be revoked. 

“The com­mis­sion obvi­ously wanted to ful­fil the wishes of the right, and this is what is so scan­dalous,” said Tiemo Wölken, a mem­ber of the parliament’s cen­ter-left Socialists and Democrats party. ​“The EPP is again work­ing with the far right to get rid of Green Deal files, but is pre­tend­ing they are still in the mid­dle and work­ing with pro-European demo­c­ra­tic forces.”

The European Commission, the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament are the three cen­tral deci­sion-mak­ing bod­ies in the E.U. Among them, only the com­mis­sion can ini­ti­ate new leg­is­la­tion, while the coun­cil and the par­lia­ment either adopt or reject it.

In another case, the European Parliament asked the Commission to revise its sys­tem for cat­e­go­riz­ing coun­tries world­wide accord­ing to the risk of defor­esta­tion and allow for ​“regional dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion.” 

Currently, the ​“high-risk” list of coun­tries includes North Korea, Russia, Belarus and Myanmar. Other coun­tries that expe­ri­ence high rates of defor­esta­tion, such as Brazil and Indonesia, have been labeled ​“stan­dard risk” by the com­mis­sion.

Starting next December, com­pa­nies look­ing to import goods to the E.U. from coun­tries in the high-risk defor­esta­tion cat­e­gory are expected to undergo stricter con­trols regard­ing envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and human rights vio­la­tions. 

The facts sug­gest that the E.U.’s Green Deal, which was intro­duced in 2020 dur­ing Ursula von der Leyen’s first term as the European Commission boss, is being chipped away in her sec­ond term.

“The fact that the Green Deal became the poster child of the first von der Leyen Commission was received with sur­prise by civil soci­ety, indus­try and lob­bies,” said Marco Contiero, Greenpeace’s direc­tor for the EU’s agri­cul­tural pol­icy. ​“In a very sim­i­lar man­ner, so has her deci­sion to change her approach rad­i­cally.”

Other diverse affairs, such as the ongo­ing Russo-Ukrainian war and the farm­ers’ protests that shook the bloc in 2024, have also led Brussels to pri­or­i­tize the secu­rity and via­bil­ity of house­holds and indus­try sec­tors at the expense of envi­ron­men­tal action.

However, the most sig­nif­i­cant cause of shift­ing away from large-scale green projects is the amount of spend­ing asso­ci­ated with such poli­cies: decar­boniz­ing indus­tries, tran­si­tion­ing to renew­able energy, and adopt­ing strict envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions require mas­sive invest­ments that are dif­fi­cult to imple­ment in times of eco­nomic and geopo­lit­i­cal uncer­tainty.

“The Green Deal often over­looked chal­lenges like high energy costs or lengthy and com­plex per­mit­ting pro­ce­dures,” said Markus Breyer, the direc­tor gen­eral of the indus­try asso­ci­a­tion BusinessEurope.

Nonetheless, a sur­vey con­ducted in February among Europeans aged 16 to 30 years found that cli­mate change is their sec­ond most press­ing con­cern, after the high cost of liv­ing.

“Young peo­ple today are wor­ried about ris­ing prices, cli­mate change, secu­rity and their chances of find­ing a good job,” said Roberta Metsola, pres­i­dent of the European Parliament, after the sur­vey results were released.

“These are con­cerns that we must address in every deci­sion we take and every law that we pass,” she added. ​“Otherwise, we risk los­ing a gen­er­a­tion to dis­il­lu­sion­ment.”

• The Guardian
• Impact Loop