No sugarcoating: losing one-third of the seats in the European Parliament elections last week, the Greens tanked.
The European Union in recent years has emerged as the most ambitious frontier in the world to fight climate change. This is done through major policy changes such as setting high targets to reduce emissions, equipping combustion engines, encouraging nature restoration and preventing the effects of agriculture on the environment. Green parties in the 27 EU member states have successfully led the agenda.
But over the past few years, something has become very clear to many European voters.
European voters are concerned about the war in Ukraine and its impact on defense and the economy. The cost-of-living crisis fueled by the coronavirus pandemic is still plaguing core members of the European Union. Eliminating immigration has emerged as a voter preoccupation. Under these new priorities, the appeal of the Greens seems to have faded – or worse, made them untouchable.
“Europe is really doing a lot of climate action,” Bas Eickhout, a prominent Green politician from the Netherlands who is vice president of the European Greens, said in an interview. “But especially after the war in Ukraine and the inflation that led to the cost of living crisis, I think now a lot of people are concerned and asking, ‘OK, can we afford this?'”
Post-Mortem
Several explanations emerged as to why the Greens did such a bad election.
Centrist parties called for the Greens’ support by incorporating many of their agendas into their own policies. But the Greens’ own identity failed to develop sufficiently. That makes the Greens seem too focused on an issue – the climate – that has slipped down the ranks of voters’ priorities.
But there’s also a broader trend that doesn’t like European greens. A backlash against climate change policies as part of a wider culture war has gained momentum.
In many places, the nationalist agenda of right-wing parties is complemented by populist appeals to economically stressed citizens. The right has risen among voters by targeting the Greens in particular, painting them as ill-suited to protect the working poor in a rapidly changing society.
For many voters, the Green Party has failed to show that its proposals are not just expensive, anti-growth policies that will harm the poorest. And some see them as elitist city dwellers shunning the costs of transitioning to a less climate-threatening way of life.
Mr. Eickout said that the line of attack on the party has been taken continuously. “He describes this transition as a very elitist transition, just for ‘Tesla people,'” he said. “And I can tell you, Tesla doesn’t have a good image anymore.”
Then there are European farmers, who protested strongly against the green policy in the last two years, especially rejecting those who want to limit the use of chemicals in agriculture and introduce the protection of nature that will feed on agricultural land. The protests have left moderate voters and politicians reeling.
In Europe, the Green Party is polling mainly in countries where it is part of the ruling coalition – especially in Germany.
The huge youth movement that powered the Greens to win one in five votes in Germany five years ago has been stung for being part of the ruling coalition. “The party cannot please the younger progressive voters it wants to welcome and, at the same time, please the more affluent moderate voters,” said Sudha David-Wilp, regional director at the German office in Berlin. The Marshall Fund.
As Germany is the most populous country in the European Union – and is also allocated the most seats in the 720-seat assembly of the European Parliament – the poor performance of the Greens is there.
Green Peak
The image for the Greens is not supported anywhere. Green parties do well in Nordic countries like Denmark, Finland and Sweden, partly because of higher prosperity and longer debates on climate change.
And they are making impressive inroads in eastern and southern Europe, including Italy and Spain, places that typically have weak Green parties and, in some cases, have never elected a Green representative to the European Parliament.
Perhaps the most complicated political picture for the Greens is emerging in the Netherlands, a country with a particularly strong climate change movement; a uniquely organized and strong peasant movement’; and the very successful far-right movement that won the national elections late last year.
There, the Greens officially ran alongside Labour, the social democratic party, and won the election, relegating the far-right party to second place.
For the Greens, this kind of successful collaboration could serve as a model for coalitions in upcoming local and national elections elsewhere in the European Union, Mr. Eickhout said.
“It is important that the Green Party has more credibility, not only in terms of climate,” he said, adding that collaboration with social democratic parties could help create a progressive alternative for conservatives and the right, while remaining loyal to the climate Greens. root
Who Pays?
A poor showing for the Greens has led to a chorus of regrets that the EU’s Green Deal – a collection of policies adopted by the bloc to fight climate change and limit its own contributions – is dead.
Experts say those concerns are unrealistic: Many policies intended to set ambitious targets for reducing carbon emissions have already become law.
But the procrastination and dilution of policy due to the loss of Green momentum is a very real risk, warns Simone Tagliapietra, an expert on EU climate policy with Bruegel, a major Brussels-based think tank.
And defunding Green Deal policies could also undermine their effectiveness. To prevent it, he added, the European Union should push for a shared budget to invest in the green transition and protect the poorest from the economic fallout.
“The radical transformation of the Green Deal raises difficult questions about who will pay,” Mr Tagliapietra said. “If these costs fall disproportionately on ordinary workers – let alone the poorest and most vulnerable communities – the transformation will increase inequality and become socially and politically untenable,” he said. “It’s not an option.”
Christopher F. Schuetze contributed reports from Berlin.
