Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

A Green New Deal beyond growth

Éloi Laurent 8th October 2019

A genuine European Green New Deal must place social justice and ecological protection ahead of fiscal discipline and economic growth.

Green New Deal
Éloi Laurent

Following a remarkable breakthrough in the United States, the ‘Green New Deal’ is fast gaining momentum in the European Union. In her speech on July 16th in Strasbourg, the then candidate for president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, made it one of her priorities: ‘I will put forward a Green Deal for Europe in my first 100 days in office.’ Again on September 10th, as president-elect, she said: ‘I want the European Green Deal to become Europe’s hallmark. At the heart of it is our commitment to becoming the world’s first climate-neutral continent.’

For anyone interested in preserving the planet’s hospitality for humanity, this sounds like good news. But as people across the EU are starting to make it happen, it may be the right time for a word of caution.

To begin with, this is not the first time the EU has aimed for a Green New Deal. The last time was ten years ago when the great recession hit—and it failed miserably because the austerity embedded in the European treaties and institutions took over and delayed recovery by a number of years.

Nor is this the first time the EU has promised to reinvent its economic model. The last time was 20 years ago, when it trumpeted that it would ‘become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world’ (in the words of the ‘Lisbon strategy’)—it also was a resounding failure, because of the same rigid rules governing European economies.

Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content.


We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Thank you!

Please check your inbox and click on the link in the confirmation email to complete your newsletter subscription.

.

As these two reminders show, there will not be anything green nor new achieved in the coming months and years by the EU if its leaders do not get rid of the broken compasses of economic growth and fiscal discipline.

The EU is indeed still largely governed by flawed numbers, by which it is being gradually devoured. The leaders who decided, in the Maastricht treaty and its successors, that fiscal disciplines defined as percentages of budgets and gross domestic product should be the ultima ratio of the European project are responsible for a compound error—whose consequence has been the atrophy of European co-operation and the mutilation of prosperity for tens of millions of Europeans (just ask the Greeks).

Look carefully at von der Leyen’s appealing speech and you will see the old grey Europe creeping behind the green smokescreen: ‘If we want to succeed with this ambitious plan we need a strong economy. Because what we want to spend we need to earn first,’ she declared, only to add that ‘we need to work within the Stability and Growth Pact’.

And yet, it is obvious that a ‘green new deal’ that did not get rid of the current European fiscal rules would be neither new nor green—just the same tired old deal that is slowly choking the EU. For Europe not to waste another opportunity at making history, a closer look at the US New Deals, the original one and the green one, might be useful.

Ultimate goal

Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal, as president in the 1930s, certainly did restore growth in GDP, but that was never its intention (GDP was in fact invented in 1934 by Simon Kuznets to measure the magnitude of the great depression). So what was the purpose of the original New Deal? ‘In 1932 the issue was the restoration of American democracy,’ said FDR in 1936. In the same speech, he defined peace at its ultimate goal.


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

Peace also happens to be the reason why the European Union (and, before it, the European Economic Community) was founded and member states agreed to pool their sovereignty—not growth or fiscal discipline. Because of the twin crises of inequality and the biosphere, peace is now threatened within each European nation. The restoration (and consolidation) of democracy should be the first guiding principle of a European Green New Deal.

And what is the purpose of the 2019 US Green New Deal? The bill submitted to the House of Representatives last February—remarkable for its precision, analytical clarity and political lucidity—can be read as an attempt to go ‘beyond growth’ in the country of growth. The US recession which many fear today, the authors of the text tell us, is already here: it is a recession of well-being measured not by GDP loss but by plummeting health, declining education, corroded fairness and degraded ecosystems.

The US Green New Deal does not aim at increasing economic growth but at curbing the social inequality which is eating up the American fabric like acid. It identifies as the root cause of the US malaise ‘systemic inequalities’, both social and ecological. Accordingly, it intends to implement a ‘fair and just transition’, which will benefit as priority ‘frontline and vulnerable communities’.

Climate shocks

This is also what the EU should aim for. Our inequality may seem less of an emergency, but this is only true of income and wealth and for some countries. Keep in mind that it was in Europe—not in the US—that extremist parties set in motion the democratic recession now spreading around the world. And we are far from prepared to bear the shocks of climate change: the summer heatwave in France alone killed 1,500 people, the third deadliest natural event in the country since 1900.

Our version of the Green New Deal should not be about investment for growth under fiscal discipline. It should be about sustainability for human wellbeing under a justice imperative. In other words, a strategy fit for the 21st century.

Éloi Laurent

Éloi Laurent is a senior research fellow at OFCE, the Centre for Economic Research at Sciences Po in Paris, professor at the School of Management and Innovation there and visiting professor at Stanford University. He is the author most recently of The New Environmental Economics: Sustainability and Justice (Polity Press).

Home ・ Economy ・ A Green New Deal beyond growth

Most Popular Posts

schools,Sweden,Swedish,voucher,choice Sweden’s schools: Milton Friedman’s wet dreamLisa Pelling
world order,Russia,China,Europe,United States,US The coming world orderMarc Saxer
south working,remote work ‘South working’: the future of remote workAntonio Aloisi and Luisa Corazza
Russia,Putin,assets,oligarchs Seizing the assets of Russian oligarchsBranko Milanovic
Russians,support,war,Ukraine Why do Russians support the war against Ukraine?Svetlana Erpyleva

Most Recent Posts

Sakharov,nuclear,Khrushchev Unhappy birthday, Andrei SakharovNina L Khrushcheva
Gazprom,Putin,Nordstream,Putin,Schröder How the public loses out when politicians cash inKatharina Pistor
defence,europe,spending Ukraine and Europe’s defence spendingValerio Alfonso Bruno and Adriano Cozzolino
North Atlantic Treaty Organization,NATO,Ukraine The Ukraine war and NATO’s renewed credibilityPaul Rogers
transnational list,European constituency,European elections,European public sphere A European constituency for a European public sphereDomènec Ruiz Devesa

Other Social Europe Publications

The transatlantic relationship
Women and the coronavirus crisis
RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?
US election 2020
Corporate taxation in a globalised era

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

Towards a new Minimum Wage Policy in Germany and Europe: WSI minimum wage report 2022

The past year has seen a much higher political profile for the issue of minimum wages, not only in Germany, which has seen fresh initiatives to tackle low pay, but also in those many other countries in Europe that have embarked on substantial and sustained increases in statutory minimum wages. One key benchmark in determining what should count as an adequate minimum wage is the threshold of 60 per cent of the median wage, a ratio that has also played a role in the European Commission's proposals for an EU-level policy on minimum wages. This year's WSI Minimum Wage Report highlights the feasibility of achieving minimum wages that meet this criterion, given the political will. And with an increase to 12 euro per hour planned for autumn 2022, Germany might now find itself promoted from laggard to minimum-wage trailblazer.


FREE DOWNLOAD

ETUI advertisement

Bilan social / Social policy in the EU: state of play 2021 and perspectives

The new edition of the Bilan social 2021, co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), reveals that while EU social policy-making took a blow in 2020, 2021 was guided by the re-emerging social aspirations of the European Commission and the launch of several important initiatives. Against the background of Covid-19, climate change and the debate on the future of Europe, the French presidency of the Council of the EU and the von der Leyen commission must now be closely scrutinised by EU citizens and social stakeholders.


AVAILABLE HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Living and working in Europe 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic continued to be a defining force in 2021, and Eurofound continued its work of examining and recording the many and diverse impacts across the EU. Living and working in Europe 2021 provides a snapshot of the changes to employment, work and living conditions in Europe. It also summarises the agency’s findings on issues such as gender equality in employment, wealth inequality and labour shortages. These will have a significant bearing on recovery from the pandemic, resilience in the face of the war in Ukraine and a successful transition to a green and digital future.


AVAILABLE HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

EU Care Atlas: a new interactive data map showing how care deficits affect the gender earnings gap in the EU

Browse through the EU Care Atlas, a new interactive data map to help uncover what the statistics are often hiding: how care deficits directly feed into the gender earnings gap.

While attention is often focused on the gender pay gap (13%), the EU Care Atlas brings to light the more worrisome and complex picture of women’s economic inequalities. The pay gap is just one of three main elements that explain the overall earnings gap, which is estimated at 36.7%. The EU Care Atlas illustrates the urgent need to look beyond the pay gap and understand the interplay between the overall earnings gap and care imbalances.


BROWSE THROUGH THE MAP

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us on social media

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube