ABSTRACT
The White Paper on European Futures produced in 2017 reflects the priorities and preoccupations of the Juncker Commission: economic governance, the refugee crisis, the relative economic and political weight of the European Union (EU) on the global stage and Brexit. The environment and climate change barely feature at all. Fast-forward two years to late 2019 and new Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, made the environment and climate change a key part of her Presidential mandate in her Green Deal for Europe, which seeks to make the EU carbon neutral by 2050. While at first glance this development seems like a radical shift, a close reading reveals that the EU’s environmental ambitions will continue to be shaped by the same policymaking dynamics, in which some states are keen to ‘do much more together’ but others want to do the minimum or be compensated for taking action. The creative tension between these two impulses has been fundamental in shaping the EU’s environmental acquis communautaire and looks likely to continue doing so for the foreseeable future.
