The European Union’s European Green Deal (EGD) is an ambitious endeavor seeking to address the urgent need to combat climate change, biodiversity loss and the range of problems flowing from these. Importantly, it expresses the desire to tackle these challenges in a democratic way. The scale of the changes required mean that without democratic consent the green transition is likely to fail, with disastrous consequences. The central aim of this proposed panel is to open up a critical examination of the complex relationship between democracy and the EGD.

Current literature on the EGD has focused for the most part on its scope, the adoption of specific packages and pieces of legislation, implications for particular sectors and technologies, and reflections on implementation (Giuli and Oberthür 2023). What discussion there has been to date on questions of democracy and the EGD has concerned the broad political narrative of the EGD (Samper, Schockling and Islar 2021), and growing research on just transition (e.g. Sikora 2021). A further trend in the emerging literature has been discussion of the role of citizens in the EGD (Machin and Tan 2022; Torney 2021). At the same time, claims from different actors about the content and decision-making processes around the climate and biodiversity crises are clear. Yet threats are also clear and present: climate change skeptics’ claims and actions, which may hinder the EGD, are on the rise in Europe. Actors on the populist radical right wing have begun to backtrack on environmental policy agendas (Buzogány and Mohamad-Klotzbach 2022).

Against this backdrop, the proposed panel consists of a set of papers that reflect upon conceptual and empirical dimensions of the relationship between the EGD and democracy. A conceptual paper will focus on the dimensions of the climate challenge and its contestation in democracies. Empirical papers range across governance levels, focusing on inter-institutional negotiations at EU level in the context of agreement on the European Climate Law and Fit for 55 Package, public participation in EU-mandated climate policy planning at Member State level, and the potential of democratic innovations to transform democracy, with a focus on Ireland’s Children and Young People’s Assembly on Biodiversity Loss. The papers included are a subset of a set of papers that will form part of a forthcoming special issue of Journal of European Integration, along with one paper from a new Horizon Europe project RETOOL: Strengthening Democratic Governance for Climate Transitions.

The task of achieving rapid, sustained and equitable responses to the climate emergency poses significant challenges for decision-makers around the world. Established systems of decision-making and governance, including in Europe, have failed to deliver appropriate policy responses at sufficient scale and speed. This paper will present initial research undertaken within a new Horizon Europe RETOOL project - Strengthening Democratic Governance for Climate Transitions, which is commencing in February 2024. The project seeks to answer two overarching questions: (i) What systems of democratic governance enable and underpin fair, inclusive, and effective climate transitions? and (ii) How can responses to the climate crisis be used to strengthen and reinvigorate democratic governance?

Drawing on a wide-ranging review and analysis of the literature on democratic theory and deliberative democracy, climate change and democracy, multilevel and polycentric climate governance, and challenges to democracy in Europe, the paper will undertake three main analytical steps. First, we will review the main conditions and characteristics of effective climate transitions, focusing on the roles that governance institutions play across types of democracy. Second and building on the previous step, we will identify the main conflicts arising from the climate challenge in terms of the key framework concepts of the RETOOL project: participation; knowledge; justice; accountability; and effectiveness. Third, we will examine the implications of these conflicts for democratic governance in the context of major challenges to democracy such as the rise of authoritarianism and populism. The paper will conclude by mapping the research terrain of the RETOOL project, discussing how the conceptual work presented will underpin our planned empirical research across diverse domains of democratic institutions.

In passing the European Climate Law and unveiling the Fit for 55 package, the EU has signaled its commitment to the climate objectives of the European Green Deal. By making the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 legally binding, the EU may have broken from the incrementalism that has characterized previous climate policy developments. This paper focuses on the Council of the European Union, which has historically delayed or diluted climate ambition. We ask the research question: how have negotiations between ministers sitting in the Council allowed for the passage of the European Climate Law and roll-out of the Fit for 55 Package of proposals? To answer this question, we conduct a narrative analysis on data collected from 20 semi-structured interviews with policymakers in Brussels. We find that the east/west member state divide on climate policy may have become less pronounced as a result of a combination of external processes and events and internal institutional features of the Council itself. External factors contributing to member state support of enhanced ambition include: the Commission’s development of policy mixes, pressure felt by member states through policy monitoring, and geopolitical events/natural disasters increasing a sense of urgency. Internal structures of the Council which have facilitated effective climate decision-making are: strong rotating presidencies, qualified majority voting (QMV) on climate matters, informal alliances made between member states depending on the dossier, and diplomatic horse-trading. This study therefore demonstrates the complexity of closing the east/west divide on climate policy in the Council and the fragility of staying the course on raising targets further.

This paper examines the EU provisions for public participation in development of National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) foreseen under the EU Regulation on the Governance of the Energy Union and Climate Action. We address two main questions: First, is it possible to identify differences in the effectiveness of public participation for different climate policy related EU planning requirements? Second, to what extent can this variation be linked to differences in the respective EU rules and accompanying measures for public participation? We develop an analytical framework to compare and assess frameworks for public participation with respect to three basic functions: enhancing the knowledge base, mobilization of support and resources, and facilitating acceptance. The empirical analysis focuses on the NECPs, the national long-term climate strategies (LTS), Territorial Just Transition Plans, and the EU Cohesion Policy’s Partnership Agreements. We present and compare the respective EU provisions and accompanying measures. In a second step we draw on existing literature to assess the quality of participation in the preparation of these plans at national level. Finally, we draw on this analysis to derive hypotheses concerning links between specific EU provisions on public participation and accompanying measures on the one hand, and (un)successful participation practices in the various plans at national level.

The European Commission’s Communication on the European Green Deal (EGD) pledges to place citizens at the heart of the EU’s green transition, stating that “game-changing policies only work if citizens are fully involved in designing them” and that “[c]itizens are and should remain a driving force of the transition”. Curiously, the EGD Communication does not mention children or young people, despite the prominence of young climate activists—such as Fridays for Future—in creating the conditions in which the EGD was born. Deliberative mini publics such as citizens’ assemblies have emerged in recent years as an innovative approach to involving citizens in environmental policymaking across a variety of European countries, and have been the subject of increasing academic attention. Typically, however, these democratic innovations have allowed for participation by members of the adult population only. This paper examines the experience of a recent democratic innovation that sought to give a voice to children and young people on environmental issues—Ireland’s Children and Young People’s Assembly on Biodiversity Loss. Taking place over two weekends in October 2022, the Assembly consisted of 35 participants aged 7-17 years, selected through a process of random stratified sampling, and produced a set of 58 calls to action. Using the Lundy model of child participation as well as the deliberative democracy literature, the paper draws on data collected during the Assembly and during a one-year reunion event in October 2023 to identify implications of this model for deliberative democracy on environmental issues in the context of the European Green Deal and, in turn, the realisation of children’s political and environmental rights more broadly.