European Green Deal

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 11th of December 2019, the European Commission presented what its president called Europe's "man on the moon moment." Ursula von der Leyen was speaking about the European Green Deal. Its aim was simple to state and staggering in scope: make the European Union climate neutral by 2050. Two days later, the European Council voted to press ahead. Poland negotiated an opt-out, an early signal of the divisions to come. The following January, the European Parliament added its endorsement, calling for still higher ambition. Within a year, a dedicated climate law had set a binding midpoint. Greenhouse gas emissions across the EU would need to fall 55% below their 1990 levels by 2030. By 2019, those emissions had already fallen 25% from 1990 levels. Reaching 55% would mean doing far more, far faster, than the bloc had managed in three decades. What followed was a cascade of policy proposals touching nearly every corner of European economic life. How would the EU pay for it all? And could the bloc's most fossil-fuel-dependent nations be brought along? Frans Timmermans was the man von der Leyen chose to drive it forward. She appointed him Executive Vice President for the European Green Deal in 2019.

• 2. Fit for 55

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  In July 2021, the European Commission released a large bundle of legislative proposals known as "Fit for 55." Each element was designed to help the EU hit its 2030 emissions target. Among its instruments was ETS2, a new Emissions Trading System set to enter into force in 2027. ETS2 would, for the first time in history, put a price on carbon dioxide from fuels burned in buildings and road transport. Those two sectors had previously been exempt from carbon pricing entirely. Road transport accounts for 71.7% of all transport-related emissions in the EU, and transport as a whole generates 25% of the bloc's total greenhouse gas output.

  The Fit for 55 package also contained the framework for a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, known as CBAM. A detailed plan was leaked in June 2021 and officially presented a month later. CBAM allows the EU to impose carbon tariffs on goods from countries that do not cut their emissions at the same pace. China, India, Japan and the United States all expressed strong opposition. Research suggests the mechanism poses particular difficulties for developing economies with large shares of energy-intensive exports.

  Almost half of all European residential buildings were constructed before 1970. Energy efficiency was not a consideration in their design. At the present refurbishment rate of approximately 1% per year, fully decarbonizing the building stock could take more than a century. The Green Deal's ambition is to at least double, and ideally triple, that rate.

  From 2035, under the Fit for 55 rules, all new cars sold in the EU must be zero-emission vehicles. That single deadline prompted automotive planners across Europe to reconsider decades of production strategy.

  A meta-analysis published in 2023 found that investment needs in power plants, electricity grids and rail infrastructure alone ran roughly 87 billion euros above planned budgets for the near-term period of 2021 to 2025.

• 3. Land, Food and Sea

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  The Farm to Fork strategy was presented on the 20th of May 2020. It named specific, measurable targets for every major dimension of European food production. By 2030, a quarter of EU farmland must be under organic cultivation. Chemical pesticide use must fall by 50%, fertilizer use by 20%, and antimicrobials in agriculture and aquaculture by 50% as well. Nutrient depletion must be cut by at least 50%. Food waste must fall by 50% by the same year. The EU itself acknowledges that 20% of its food production is wasted. Meanwhile, 36 million Europeans cannot afford a quality meal every second day. Research and innovation spending of 10 billion euros was dedicated to these goals.

  The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 was presented on the same day and formally adopted by the European Parliament on the 9th of June 2021. The EU wants to protect 30% of its land and 30% of its sea, with stricter safeguards for old-growth forests. Three billion trees will be planted by 2030. At least 25,000 kilometers of rivers will be restored to a free-flowing state. Organic farming will increase, pollinators will be protected, and at least 20 billion euros per year will flow toward these goals.

  Florika Fink-Hooijer, Director General of the Directorate-General for the Environment, said the EU had the ambition to be a "standard setter" for global biodiversity policy. Within the EU, an estimated 40 trillion euros in economic activity depends on nature and its services. The wild species population across Europe has declined by more than 50% on average within just two generations.

• 4. Counting the Cost

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  In May 2020, European Commission leaders announced a 750-billion-euro recovery package called Next Generation EU, alongside a one-trillion-euro budget. Both were tied to the European Green Deal: money would flow only to projects meeting green criteria. Twenty-five percent of all funding was earmarked for climate change mitigation. Fossil fuels and nuclear power were excluded. In July 2020, EU leaders agreed, and the share allocated to climate action grew to 30%.

  The European Commission's investment plan, InvestEU, projected at least one trillion euros in total investment over the deal's lifetime. Even that projection fell short of what the EU's own estimates suggested was necessary. Reaching the 2030 goals would require approximately 260 billion euros in annual investment. Green investment for sustainable industry alone was projected to cost a further 350 billion euros per year.

  For regions least prepared for the transition, Frans Timmermans promised a support package worth "at least 100 billion euros" through the Just Transition Mechanism. Its first pillar, the Just Transition Fund, offered 17.5 billion euros in EU grants to the most affected territories. A national co-financing requirement of around 10 billion euros accompanied those grants. Countries with higher concentrations of coal and oil shale workers would receive the largest shares.

  By 2023, greentech had become one of the few sectors where EU venture capital investment matched levels in the United States. The Green Deal and accompanying government policies had channeled significant private capital into energy storage, circular economy projects and agricultural technology.

  On the 21st of December 2024, the European Union Green Bonds Regulation came into force. Companies, regional authorities and supranational bodies within the European Economic Area could now issue standardized "European Green Bonds." The instrument was designed to reduce greenwashing and direct investor capital toward verified green projects.

• 5. A Deal Under Fire

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  It has been documented that American oil company ExxonMobil had a significant impact on early negotiations of the European Green Deal. The company worked to steer the deal away from emphasizing reductions in carbon-intensive transport. Environmental advocacy groups reached the opposite conclusion. Greenpeace called the deal "too little too late." The Institute for European Environmental Policy found that most prospects for meeting policy objectives "lacked clear or adequate" goals. Greta Thunberg offered the sharpest summary: "It seems to have turned into some kind of opportunity for countries to negotiate loopholes and to avoid raising their ambition."

  Between 2019 and 2023, the EU recorded more than 853,000 job losses in manufacturing. The largest falls came in Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Germany. Trade unions warned the broader programme could put 11 million jobs at risk. The Commission itself predicted that 180,000 coal mining jobs could disappear by 2030. A 2021 study estimated the automotive industry could lose half a million positions. Within Poland alone, another study projected losses of up to 41,000, with the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Romania each facing possible losses of around 10,000.

  European farmers launched protests in 2024, opposing proposed carbon taxes, pesticide bans and nitrogen emissions curbs. They also objected to competition from agricultural imports from Ukraine and the South American Mercosur bloc. In July 2023, European People's Party leader Manfred Weber moved to block the Nature Restoration Law. He argued it would destroy farmers' livelihoods and threaten food security.

  Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were the most persistent opponents of the deal, all three being heavily reliant on coal. At the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki argued that the EU carbon pricing system unfairly disadvantaged poorer countries. His Czech counterpart, Andrej Babiš, argued at the same summit that the EU could do nothing effective without China and the United States. He cited those two countries as responsible for 27 and 15 percent of global emissions respectively. In August 2023, Poland filed complaints with the Court of Justice of the European Union against three Fit for 55 provisions. In February 2024, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk declared he would advocate for changes in the deal.

  In 2024, nickel mining and processing was cited as one of the main causes of deforestation in Indonesia. Nickel is a basic component of nearly every electric vehicle battery. Open-pit cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo has similarly caused habitat destruction. In 2021, mass protests erupted in Serbia against a planned lithium mine in western Serbia. The mine was to be built by the Rio Tinto corporation. The Serbian government revoked the project's licences in January 2022. On the 19th of July 2024, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz signed an agreement with Maros Sefcovic. Sefcovic, then European Commission Vice President overseeing the Green Deal, secured EU access to critical raw materials from Serbia. If the Jadar project is completed, it could cover 90% of Europe's current lithium needs. The signing immediately triggered renewed environmental protests in Serbia.

• 6. The New European Bauhaus

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  Ursula von der Leyen personally initiated the New European Bauhaus, an artistic movement designed to give the Green Deal a cultural dimension. The movement takes its name from the historical Bauhaus. That German design school was founded by architect Walter Gropius, who aimed to unify art, craft and industrial production. A multicultural Research Committee, currently headed by artist Alexandre Dang, is still shaping the movement's identity. The name itself has drawn criticism in some artistic communities, where it has been described as "inherently not inclusive."

  Three phases structure the initiative's rollout. The Design phase, running from 2020 to 2021, focused on identifying ideas capable of advancing the movement's goals. A High-Level Roundtable of 18 thinkers and practitioners was convened during this period. It included architects Shigeru Ban and Bjarke Ingels, Francesca Bria of the Italian National Innovation Fund, and activist and academic Sheela Patel. On the 15th of September 2021, the European Commission released the communication "New European Bauhaus Beautiful, Sustainable, Together," marking the transition to the Delivery phase. That phase began with five flagship pilot projects. Their purpose was to demonstrate a sustainable transformation in housing, architecture, transportation, and urban and rural spaces.

  The first New European Bauhaus prizes were awarded on the 16th of September 2021 in Brussels. Commissioners Ferreira and Gabriel recognized 20 projects at the ceremony. A second edition of prizes followed in 2022. The NEB LAB, a working space for the movement's growing community, now counts more than 450 official partners. They include High-Level Roundtable members, national government contact points, and prize winners and finalists.

  The first New European Bauhaus Festival opened in Brussels on the 9th of June 2022 and ran for four days. Based on that experience, the European Commission announced it would create a yearly festival from 2023 onward, with locations inside and outside the EU.