The European Union’s (EU) climate diplomacy aims to align the European Green Deal’s goals with energy autonomy since the Ukraine war. This has led the EU to refocus on Latin America (LATAM) for strategic investments and cooperation in energy transition after a decade-long hiatus. The Global Gateway, launched during COVID-19 and effective since June 2021, signifies Europe's investment strategy in developing countries where China's Silk Road had already expanded. Following the Ukraine conflict, the EU resumed partnerships with LATAM, launching the EU-Latin American and Caribbean Global Gateway Investment Agenda (GGIA) (JOIN/2023/17 final, 2023). This paper maps two phases of EU climate diplomacy: from the Paris Treaty (2015) to the initiation of the Green Deal in 2021, and post-2022, marking a shift in the European energy transition. The hypothesis posits that the EU, seeking energy autonomy from Russia, reconnects with South American nations in its climate diplomacy. The research tracks policies and strategies, emphasizing the EU's legitimacy through support and coherence with regional policies. It includes a historical overview of energy transition changes since 2015 and assesses regional policies concerning investment, cooperation, and trade, particularly with Brazil and Chile—key players in lithium and green hydrogen reserves. Preliminary findings indicate the EU exports its regulatory standards through diplomatic strategies, not only discursively and persuasively, but also by promoting its international image as an actor committed to norms and values. These are included in international association clauses and bilateral trade agreements, as in its various comprehensive free trade agreements and interregional associations, such as the EU-Mercosur and EU-Chile agreements.

The Strategic Partnership Agreement of 2020 between the EU and India established 2025 as a significant milestone in bilateral relations, with trade, technology, and security identified as key areas of mutual interest. The Clean Energy and Climate Partnership (CECP), founded in 2016, is a significant test case for the Green Deal's external dimension, and will enter its third phase from 2025 to 2028. However, the geopolitical and geoeconomic circumstances have shifted dramatically since 2016, compelling both partners to refocus and reprioritise their domestic policy goals. The European Union will use resilience, economic security, and competitiveness as new parameters for its current tenth legislation. Despite a deteriorating climate, sustainable transformation remains a fundamental issue for European societies and businesses. India is under increased competition from PR China as it attempts to manage its rise to become one of the world's main powers. At the same time, the government must continue strong economic growth, reduce widespread poverty, and achieve its climate targets of net-zero emissions by 2070.

As a result, 2025 is a significant date for assessing the current condition of EU-India relations in the area of green and sustainable transformation. The bilateral relationship has faced challenges, not least due to India's involvement in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. On the other side, India sees the establishment of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) as a major impediment to strengthening its trading connections with the EU. With anticipated trade confrontations with the United States, diversification and derisking are becoming critical challenges for the EU and India.

The analysis will be viewed as a contribution to the European Union's climate diplomacy as part of its idea of normative power in international relations. Given the harsh reality of a growing new world (un)order, the possibility for bilateral cooperation in the sphere of transformation requires deeper investigation. Asia and the EU, as important trading partners and innovation hubs, will be critical in managing the global transition to sustainability.

Based on an examination of important policy papers, debates in the European and Indian Parliaments, and interviews with experts, the existing status of cooperation will be critically evaluated, and recommendations for a reformed framework of EU-India ties will be created. The contribution is timely, as the newly elected European Commission is now updating its policy framework to account for a drastically transformed external set of global actors and internal political factors, threatening the 2030 and 2050 transformation goals.

Green-tech security has recently become intertwined with EU-China relations, reflecting a multifaceted and evolving dynamic. While the EU is struggling to unify its stance on achieving climate neutrality, the fragmented approaches of its member states (MS) toward green technology have underscored the challenges of articulating a cohesive position amid diverse national interests. This fragmentation was especially evident in the automotive sector. In October 2024, the EU voted on tariffs for China-made electric vehicles (EVs): 10 member states supported the measure, 12 abstained, and 5 voted against. While much research has focused on the countries voting against or in favor of the tariffs, the abstaining nations—representing the largest group—remain understudied.

This article aims to contribute to a better understanding of the motivations behind the abstentions through a comparative study of Spain and Sweden. After a general introduction on security in the green-tech sector, this article will broadly present the case of the abstaining countries, before analysing the matter through a case-study approach, focusing on the specific cases of Spain and Sweden. Both countries shifted from their initial voting intentions on tariffs to abstentions, influenced by strategic economic considerations. Spain’s concerns over a Chinese investigation into EU pork exports and its growing collaboration with China on EV and green technology initiatives on Spanish soil, along with the prominence of Volvo in Sweden’s auto industry and the nordic nation’s experience with Chinese retaliation in the last decade, provide compelling cases for study. After comparing the evolving relationship between China and each case study, this article will examine the potential impact of Chinese investigations and potential retaliations on SPain and Sweden’s decision to abstain, considering domestic pressures from affected industries. By addressing both countries’ positions on potential EU investigations into electric vehicles, the article aims to clarify the case of abstaining states and contribute to a broader understanding of the EU’s fragmentation on China-related green technology issues which, given the rise of additional EU investigations into other Chinese green tech, continues to be of great relevance.

In April 2024, the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRM Act) was finally signed, highlighting the need to secure and diversity supply chains of critical raw materials. As a number of these materials are fundamentally important to the green and digital transition, the supply of raw materials is often framed as components in the EU’s wider aspiration as an environmental leader. One proposal to supply more CRMs closer to Europe lies in Norway’s opening for exploring deep-sea mining off its northern coasts and along the Arctic archipelago Svalbard. On the supply side, Norway frames the European market as the main destination for minerals mined on the seabed. This triggered reactions from the European Commission and the Parliament, which prefers a prohibition of deep-sea mining in spite of the Draghi report’s cautiously optimistic view. This is a case where one would expect tension between two value-laden positions of the EU – that of the actor aiming to pursue an agenda of competitiveness by securing supply lines to enable a green transition one the one hand, and the normatively anchored, precautionary actor arguing for reduced interventions in vulnerable nature on the other. Yet, as I show in this article, the European discourse has been surprisingly unambiguously opposed to exploring the seabed for minerals. In this article, I show that role-based discussions enable a continuation of value-anchored stances despite shifting geopolitics.

In recent years, the European Union (EU) has introduced a series of new unilateral trade instruments, such as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). These unilateral measures are intended to complement environmental standards and conditionality incorporated in the EU bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs), fostering enforcement and policy coherence in enhancing environmental sustainability in trade. However, the rise of geoeconomics in the EU’s trade policy introduces a critical dynamic in assessing the interplay between these two approaches, particularly in the context of more balanced EU-Global South power relations. Using the EU-Indonesia FTA negotiation as a case study, this article explores whether geoeconomic objectives in EU-Global South trade relations reinforce or weaken the complementarity between the EU’s unilateral trade instruments and the environmental conditionality within its bilateral trade agreements with the Global South. It draws on semi-structured interviews with executives, parliamentarians, and civil society organizations in both the EU and Indonesia, as well as documents. This article argues that the EU’s geoeconomic turn will likely undermine the complementarity between these two approaches. First, as EU’s trading partners in the South are more aware of their geoeconomic positions and increasingly adopt more assertive stances, they leverage bilateral FTAs to negotiate for greater policy flexibility and exemptions from EU unilateral trade regulations, as seen with Indonesia. Second, the introduction of unilateral regulations fragments and complicates the negotiation and implementation of environmental standards within bilateral trade agreements. Discourses around unfairness and the perception of unilateral trade barriers diminish the Global South’s accountability in environmental sustainability, and reduce pre-ratification legitimacy pressure regarding environmental commitments in the EU FTAs.