One of the key ways of analysing the EU’s green agenda is to focus on the evolving institutional features of the current policy itself. Scholars discuss the degree of ambition in the face of the planetary challenges of our time and assess the complexities of negotiation and policy-making at EU level. There is attention to the impact of various domestic and external variables, reflecting geopolitical, economic and populist dynamics. Nonetheless, what needs further investigation is the quality of implementation of the EU environmental acquis in predicting the trajectories of green change in Europe. While there is a growing consensus that the green agenda requires a holistic approach, which transcends the boundaries of policy sectors and resonates with every aspect of life, this observation does not translate into understanding the complexities of environmental reform within EU Member States.

This paper scrutinises the strength of the adaptational pressures and change in compliance with European rules and practices by revisiting the ‘goodness of fit’ concept utilised in the Europeanization literature (Risse, Cowles and Caporaso, 2001: 7). In its heyday this concept helped problematise EU-driven reform in member states with attention to the dynamics between the EU policy and domestic structures. Despite some of its critiques, the concept can be reutilised with greater attention to the impact of domestic factors.

The paper applies this framework to unpack the patterns of change in green domestic reform by investigating how the quality of domestic performance has evolved with the change of EU policy. In particular, it investigates whether poor performance in 1990s environmental reform is a predictor for implementing the Green Deal policy given the shifts in adaptation pressure and in domestic contexts. How do states who were laggards move along the green ladder? In doing so we take the case of the 1990s EU waste policies and its implications for transition to circular economy paradigms. Would states lagging behind in compliance with more environmentally suboptimal policies, like the ones on landfills, be performing better with respect to the EU circular economy provisions? And if not, why? Who are the gatekeepers of the green reform?

As global politics witnesses the rise of populist leaders and parties, the consequences concern several areas of EU policy adaptation, including the European Green Deal. The arguable imposition of common environmental goals is yet another motive for populist factions to frame it within Euroskeptic and climate denialist narratives. Italian and French populist parties (chosen following the PopuList periodical classification) are promoting their stances about climate change science as well as climate change policies in several sites. The present analysis draws on both the literature on the formation of public opinion and the available sources on its present state (such as the surveys conducted by YouGov on lively topics like the environmental policies), selecting a list of keywords and phrases typical of the political debate on the topic. At the core of this work, however, there are these parties’ manifestos (their electoral programs for the 2024 European Elections) and some of their most prominent politicians’ X (Twitter) activity. Are there significant differences between the occurrence of selected keywords and the sentiment orientation between the official manifestos and the communication of the relative leaders? This paper also examines the ways in which these parties appeal to values like moral responsibility and the legitimacy of development, and assesses whether their rhetoric leans toward conspiracy theories or "what-aboutism”. Do these communicative choices relate to the state of public opinion on the Green Deal, gauged in aforementioned European surveys? Answering such questions provides insights on the different ways the EU green policies are discussed and opposed by the most significant populist parties.

This paper rests on the assumption that the EU has sustained hegemonic structural power in the European political economy. Its unique mix of supranationalism with enduring intergovernmentalism has forged a unique form of ‘regional hegemony’. It is argued that there has been an intrinsically liberal quality to this, given its multilevel, flexible, pluralist and consensual mode of operation, and the fact that the core dynamic of integration has been the construction of the Single Market.

As widely noted, a series of events have moved the regional and global political economy in a more geoeconomic (less neoliberal) framework. This paper focuses on how the EU’s response to some key changes (Brexit, the Trump effect and systemic rivalry with China) have affected the EU’s hegemony in Europe. Embedded in a mid-level constructivist ontology, it offers a framing analysis and policy analysis of some key recent EU initiatives made in response to these challenges. As such, it hopes to contribute to our understanding of the impact of the response to geoeconomic pressures on the supranational-intergovernmental balance, relations with non-member European states and the liberal character of the EU system.