Winds of change: The EU’s green agenda after the European Parliament election

Summary

• The next European Commission and Parliament are likely to place security and competitiveness at the centre of their quest for a more geopolitical Europe.
• With concerns about the costs of the green transition, growing trade tensions between the US and China, and uncertainty surrounding the outcome of the US presidential election and Russia’s war on Ukraine, the EU will probably find it much harder to make further progress on climate action over the next five years.
• These geopolitical developments – and the way the EU responds to them – will have far-reaching consequences for the EU’s trade and technology decisions, fossil fuel phase-out, and climate diplomacy.
• The case for climate action remains clear, including its role in European security and competitiveness. In this challenging context, climate progressives will have to deploy compelling narratives, strategic resourcing, and diplomatic engagement to advance the best possible climate agenda during the EU’s next institutional cycle.

In the 2019 European Parliament election, the centre right and centre left lost votes in multiple directions. There was a surge in support for the far right and for the liberal parties that make up the Renew Europe (RE) group in the European Parliament, as well as for parties campaigning on a climate and environmental protection platform – the so-called green wave. The European public’s support for the climate agenda not only strengthened the Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) group in the parliament, it also moved the green transition up the list of priorities for mainstream parties.

This paved the way for a European Commission which put the green transition at the centre of its mandate. During its term it launched the European Green Deal in 2019, spearheaded by its newly elected president Ursula von der Leyen; adopted the European Climate Law in 2021, making the European Union’s target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 legally binding and setting an emissions target for 2030; and approved the Fit-for-55 package of measures to work towards these targets.

There are several factors that could support further climate action in the coming years, such as the lower costs of green technologies, public awareness of extreme weather events, and efforts to reduce energy dependency on authoritarian regimes. But progress during the EU’s next institutional cycle will likely be more difficult than in 2019-2024.  

Ahead of the 2024 European Parliament election, the continued implementation of the European Green Deal is hanging in the balance for four main reasons.

Firstly, following their gains in 2019 and in many national elections since then, far-right parties – which are typically anti-climate policy action – look set to increase their share of seats in the European Parliament after this summer’s election, making new ambitious EU climate and environmental legislation more difficult.

Secondly, the populist right is capitalising on cost-of-living concerns among the population and framing the climate agenda as the latest imposition on member state governments by an internationalist conspiracy. This is making governments…