'Delivering on the European Green Deal. Paradigm shift or window dressing in the European Commission’s implementation strategy

Abstract: Being described as a ‘master plan’, ‘a new European growth model’ or the ‘Europe's man-on-the-moon-moment’, the European Green Deal (EGD) has been expected to mark a paradigmatic shift not only in the EU’s strategy for sustainability but in the European integration process as a whole. However, little is known about the extent to which the concept of ‘just transition’ it has launched actually replaced the consolidated ecological modernisation approach beyond the Commission’s communication that released the EGD.

By deploying textual and qualitative analysis techniques, the presented research investigates a set of 65 communications of the European Commission, laying out the agenda of the EGD legislative package between January 2020 and December 2022, with a two-fold objective. First, the analysis elaborates on whether the new strategy ensures a more balanced combination of social, ecological and economic goals as compared to the EU’s past strategies for sustainability. Second, it aims at unveiling the degree of politicisation of the Commission’s new strategy by scrutinising legal documents as well as the speeches of the Commission’s Chief Officers, which were delivered on the occasion of numerous institutional and public debates on the EGD.

Ekaterina Domorenok is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Department of Political Science, Law and International Studies, University of Padua, where she co‐directs the Observatory on Sustainability, Equality and Justice (OSES). Her research interests mainly lie in the field of policy design, implementation, learning and capacity‐building in multi‐level settings, with particular regard to EU policies for climate, regional and urban development, sustainability and eco‐social transitions.