Driving the European Green Deal in Turbulent Times

Abstract

The European Green Deal (EGD) is an ambitious strategy. However, significant events, incidents, and demands, from democratic backsliding in the EU to the Covid-19 pandemic, are causing the ground to shift underfoot. These events go beyond ordinary changes or even individual crises, cumulatively fuelling a “new normal” of turbulence for the EU, encompassing rapid, unpredictable changes. This turbulence can help and hinder policy design and implementation, requiring policy actors to think outside the box and beyond the status quo. This article investigates how the European Commission and other key actors can engage effectively <em>with</em> turbulence to ensure the successful delivery and implementation of the EGD. The first half of the article strengthens and adapts turbulent governance literature (Ansell & Trondal, 2018). It delineates how turbulence differs from crisis; expands the forms of turbulence to include horizontal scalar and policy turbulence, as well as its transversal attribute; and shifts the focus to governing <em>with</em> turbulence rather than against<em> </em>turbulence. The second half undertakes an initial analysis of the EGD in light of turbulence and provides a springboard for further investigations within this thematic issue and beyond. It is apparent that the EGD is both responding and contributing to a varied landscape of turbulence. Policy actors must identify and understand the sources of turbulence—including their transversal nature and the potential for responses to increase turbulence—if they are to effectively govern <em>with</em> turbulence.

The european green deal: shaping the future of the eastern partnership

“…Instead, such authors as: Dobbs M., Gravey V., and Petetin L. highlight the problem of implementation the EGD in the conditions of turbulent changes and outline the prospects for its implementation [8].…”

Understanding environmental politics in a turbulent era

“…Intercurrence refers to the "unexpected" ways that institutions interact, intertwine, influence each other, and produce uncontrolled outcomes (Ansell and Trondal 2018: 45, 47). This is especially likely to intensify when the number of institutions is growing, interdependence is increasing, and man-dates are shifting and expanding (Ansell and Trondal 2018;Dobbs et al 2021;Rosenau 1990). In such situations, a single event can unleash "restless commotion, which reverberates in fast-paced and unexpected ways" (Rosenau 1990: 9).…”

“…Technological innovations, legislative changes, political conflicts, policy gaps, and events such as war, pandemics, disasters, uprisings, and terrorist attacks can all trigger turbulence (Ansell and Trondal 2018;Dobbs et al 2021). Environmental change can cause turbulence too, as Ekta Patel and Erika Weinthal in Chapter 4 caution is happening as climatic instability (e.g., longer droughts, more frequent storms) disrupts freshwater supplies and intensifies disputes over the allocation, use, and management of water.…”

“…In addition, leadership and staff turnover within corporations, organizational restructuring, conflicts within government departments, and domestic political compromises have the potential to create turbulence at both a micro and macro scale (Ansell and Trondal 2018;Dobbs et al 2021). Organizations and institutions may also inhibit multilateral efforts to ease global turbulence.…”

The relationship between income and assets in farms and context of sustainable development

“…At present, the operation of agricultural holdings in EU countries is being implemented in conditions that increasingly take into account the context of sustainable development. Therefore, the analysed issues correspond in practical terms currently with a set of initiatives of European Commission to achieve climate neutrality in Europe, the so-called European Green Deal [ 27 ]. From the perspective of the relationship, the approach to resource management can be discerned [ 28 , 29 ].…”