The International Spectator, Vol. 56, No. 3, September 2021

Europe’s Transition to Sustainability: Actors, Approaches and Policies
Guest Editors: Rosa Fernandez, Jonas J. Schoenefeld, Thomas Hoerber and Sebastian Oberthür

Europe’s Transition to Sustainability: Actors, Approaches and Policies
Rosa Fernandez, Jonas J. Schoenefeld, Thomas Hoerber and Sebastian Oberthür
In 2019, the European Commission launched the European Green Deal (EGD) as a strategic framework for policy development to achieve the aims of the Paris Agreement and the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The EGD offers an opportunity to reflect on the complexity of achieving long-term sustainability through enhanced public action in a number of relevant EU policy areas. Amidst a plethora of policy challenges (such as the refugee crisis or Brexit and Covid-19), this Special Issue uses the new context created by the EGD to engage in the debate on key topics related to this transition towards sustainability. The EGD may become the extension of ecological modernisation, where environmental protection became a perceived chance rather than a cost. By delivering the EGD, the EU may put its action and money behind this idea. […]
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Role Perceptions in Global Environmental Negotiations: From Reformist Leaders to Conservative Bystanders
Frauke Ohler and Tom Delreux
How ambitious, active and influential are countries and regional groups in global environmental negotiations? We construct eight ideal types of their roles based on ambition, activity and influence. We then examine how the roles of countries and regional groups are perceived by participants in these negotiations through a large-scale online survey. The European Union, Norway and the African Group are perceived as the most prominent reformist leaders, being highly ambitious, active and influential. On the contrary, India, the Russian Federation and many regional groups are mostly perceived as conservative bystanders, with low levels of ambition, activity and influence.
Keywords: environment; international negotiations; leadership; perceptions; roles
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The Challenging Paths to Net-Zero Emissions: Insights from the Monitoring of National Policy Mixes
Jonas J. Schoenefeld, Kai Schulze, Mikael Hildén and Andrew J. Jordan
To achieve its ambitious climate targets, the European Union (EU) must adopt new policies, increase the impact of existing policies and/or remove dysfunctional ones. The EU has developed an elaborate system to monitor national policy mixes in order to support these challenging requirements. Data that member states have reported to the EU over the last ten years reveal that the average expected per-policy-instrument emission reduction has declined, while national policy mixes have remained generally stable over time. This is strikingly discordant with the EU’s ambitious commitment to become carbon neutral by 2050 (‘net zero’).
Keywords: climate policy; policy monitoring; policy mixes; policy change; policy sectors; EU
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Towards Ego-Ecology? Populist Environmental Agendas and the Sustainability Transition in Europe
Thomas Hoerber, Kristina Kurze and Joel Kuenzer
The concept of Ego-Ecology captures environmental agendas that challenge a shared European environmental conscience in many respects. In fact, diverse populist actors such as the gilets jaunes movement and the extreme right of the Rassemblement National in France, or the right-wing populist party Fidesz in Hungary, do not reject environmental protection and climate action completely, but rather utilise them for their own agendas. The populist re-framing of environmental agendas challenges comprehensive problem-solving and supranational decision-making at the EU level. This potentially undermines a swift sustainability transition in Europe.
Keywords: populism; sustainability transition; climate policy; Fidesz; gilets jaunes
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When the Accession Legacy Fades Away: Central and Eastern European Countries and the EU Renewables Targets
Matúš Mišík
Renewable sources of energy are considered to play a crucial role in the transition towards a decarbonised economy. Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries’ positions vis-à-vis the European Union’s (EU) renewables goals do not form a homogenous group and have changed over time. After joining the Union, these countries initially supported the EU’s renewables targets due to post-accession compliance; however, once this accession legacy faded away, they started to pursue their preferences in a more assertive way, which resulted in different strategies and priorities. The development of CEE countries’ positions towards renewables targets is thus connected to the ‘emancipation’ of these countries and a more assertive way of pursuing their preferences at the EU level, once they were ‘freed’ from the influence of post-accession conditionality.
Keywords: Central and Eastern Europe; climate change; compliance; national preferences; renewables
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Discourses about EU Transport Decarbonisation: Towards a Paradigm Shift?
Helene Dyrhauge
The development and introduction of new technologies are central to achieving sustainable transitions. Policymakers are important in enabling a successful transition. However, discourses about EU transport decarbonisation reveal multiple policy approaches to technology innovation, both in terms of decarbonising the car and building new alternative fuels infrastructure for transport. A discursive institutionalist analysis of these two separate but interdependent communicative discourses on road transport decarbonisation shows the complexities of facilitating transformative change. This shift requires coordination at all levels involving different actors and sector coupling to successfully decarbonise road transport.
Keywords: EU road transport policy; transport decarbonisation; sustainable transition; discursive institutionalism; alternative fuels infrastructure
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Community Renewable Energy Projects: The Future of the Sustainable Energy Transition?
Rosa Fernandez
The Energy Union and the European Green Deal advocate the participation of citizens and communities in the energy transition, which encourages a bottom-up approach in the implementation of sustainable energy initiatives. Both are in tune with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, which attempt to involve all members of society in the sustainability path. The reality in EU member states, however, is that community energy still lacks the necessary regulatory framework to compete with large utility companies. This may indicate that the governance framework is lagging behind, still not ready to include communities (collective citizens) as full participants in the energy transition.
Keywords: citizens’ ownership; community renewable energy; co-operatives; energy citizenship; sustainable energy transition
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Cutting Deals: Transnational Advocacy Networks and the European Union Timber Regulation at the Eastern Border
Simona Davidescu and Aron Buzogány
The European Union’s (EU) Green Deal gives increased attention to the sustainability of international product cycles by implementing ‘due diligence’ requirements. We examine the difficulties in the implementation of the European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR) in two countries with weak management capacities such as Romania and Ukraine. We find that domestic and transnational civil society actors can support the implementation of due diligence requirements mainly by challenging the dominant position of private and state actors engaged in cutting deals with the EU-based wood industry, as well as contributing to increasing politicisation, raising awareness and public mobilisation.
Keywords: corruption; illegal forest activities; civil society; Green Deal; Ukraine; due diligence
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Environmental Justice and Just Transition in the EU’s Sustainability Policies in Third Countries: The Case of Colombia
Gabriel Weber and Ignazio Cabras
The European Union (EU) is globally recognised as a sustainability leader and has implemented various climate policies such as the European Green Deal. However, it is also one of the largest importers of fossil fuel resources from developing countries, as in the case of coal from Colombia. From a political ecology and environmental justice perspective, it is possible to argue that the EU has benefited for many years from cheap Colombian coal, while the local population has suffered from the related social and environmental impacts. Colombia and Europe are connected not only through ‘ecologically unequal exchanges’, but also through anti-coal activist networks, which highlights the challenges ahead for the EU and its (former) suppliers of fossil fuels in terms of sustainability transitions.
Keywords: climate justice; European Green Deal; ecologically unequal exchange; Latin America
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Self-Betrayal: How the West Failed to Respond to China’s Rise
Jonathan Holslag
From the 1980s, it was clear that a rising China would challenge the interests and core values of the United States and the European Union. Cables and intelligence reports that were recently disclosed reveal numerous warnings about a future Chinese authoritarian pushback. The Western political leadership, however, brushed them aside. While paying lip service to constructive engagement, it was business first. The downside of that policy became clear too. But it took several years for the Western political leadership to recognise it and shift to balancing. Early balancing efforts, though, again seem inconsistent.
Keywords: China; United States; Europe; balancing; constructive engagement
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Book Reviews

The Big World of Small States: An Introduction
Christos Kourtelis
Review of: Handbook on the politics of small states / edited by Godfrey Baldacchino and Anders Wivel, Edward Elgar, 2020
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How Civil Wars Turn into Quagmires
Marina Calculli
Review of: Quagmire in civil war by Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl, Cambridge University Press, 2020
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