The European Green Deal has matured: the path forward

No man, or woman, steps in the same river twice, for both the person and the river will have changed.

Pieter de Pous is Programme Lead, Fossil Fuel Transition Programme at E3G

This certainly holds true for Ursula von der Leyen and her flagship agenda, the European Green Deal, in the wake of European Parliament elections. Her party came out on top, while liberals and greens lost significantly in France and Germany. Despite lower-than-expected results, the far-right made gains and von der Leyen has come one step closer to securing a second term.

The electoral success of her political family, which visibly pulled the break on her green ambitions before the elections, and the far-right’s relative win are seen by many as putting EU climate ambition at risk.

However, this overlooks a key point: a European Green Deal 2.0 was always going to be a very different agenda, especially if the original European Green Deal succeeded.

And a success it was. Two events often cited as having thrown the EU’s green agenda off course, the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war against Ukraine, in fact never acted as a break on EU climate and energy ambition. On the contrary, they shocked governments into more action.

Instead of stalling, the EU raised its ambition for clean pending clean energy legislation, now committing to over 70% renewable power by 2030. Maintaining this growth after 2030 could lead to a completely fossil-free power system by 2035, essential for achieving the 1.5 degrees temperature goal and reducing electricity costs across the EU.

If there was a moment that the EU, once founded as a community of coal countries, risked becoming a community hooked on gas, it is clear now it will be a community powered by wind, solar and storage.

And it wasn’t just policy action. Since 2019, a fifth of fossil generation was replaced by wind and solar, not just in North-Western Europe, but especially in the South and increasingly in the East.

Citizens flocked to purchase electric vehicles and heat pumps, leading to bottlenecks in the supply chain and new factories opening across the continent to keep up with demand.

At the start of von der Leyen’s first term, securing jobs for fossil industry workers was a primary concern. Now, labour shortages in clean tech sectors are a bigger imperative, with Germany’s eastern coal regions struggling to attract enough skilled workers outside the coal industry.

The realisation that power grids, not gas pipelines, are the critical energy infrastructure that the EU needs to get in place fast came late. A Grids Action Plan was only published late last year, but the topic has rapidly moved up the political agenda, receiving strong backing from Energy Ministers in May.

In short, the challenges for a political agenda succeeding the European Green Deal are very different from those five years ago.

Another overlooked aspect is that the bipartisan support behind this success story.

European conservatives didn’t exactly advertise it during the election campaign, but they played a central role in pushing through key pieces of legislation, whether it was the Emission Trading System, a new Renewables Directive or new Power Market legislation, working alongside Social Democrats, Liberals and Greens. This political coalition still holds a comfortable majority in the European Parliament after the elections that just concluded.

There will still be plenty of issues for parties to disagree about and the negotiations about the next Commission’s political priorities will be critically important to the future success of the European Green Deal.

Some within this coalition argue for a narrower approach to the European Green Deal, focused on delivering the fossil to the renewable energy transition, citing the far-right win as justification. Other groups in such a prospective coalition are likely to drive a hard bargain seeking to avoid unnecessary trade-offs.

At the same time there is potential for common ground, in particular where addressing climate change overlaps with other core EU interests such as competitiveness and security.

Priorities include implementing existing clean energy legislation to provide industry with affordable electricity, developing  industrial policies for resilient supply chains and access to finance, and creating a labour and social policy approach that addresses labour shortages in key sectors and ensures equitable access to cheaper, fossil free alternatives.

Progress in these areas aligns with the political priorities of those committed to forming a majority without the far-right, as well as the expectations of their voters. Crucially, it would send a clear message that despite the relative success of pro-Russian parties at the polls, the EU is staying the course.

Throwing their collective weight behind a more mature European Green Deal is the responsible course of action now.