Change is already happening, and it won’t stop

What a summer! There is no need to list everything we have been through together over the past few months. The facts are not just statistics, maps and commentary. For many, they are traumatic experiences, and there is a dizzying sense that there will be no return to “normality.” “After decades of calling for change, being IN the transition is something else entirely”, my colleague Thomas Brose, director of Climate Alliance, pointed out to me. And that is indeed what we are experiencing. We are in it – not next to it, not before it, not in the run-up to it, but at the heart of upheavals that are shaping a future yet to be determined. This is true of the Earth system, the economic system, the political system and society as a whole.

It can seem as though nothing is changing on the surface. And yet, beneath it, red lines are fading.

This summer, some of the pillars of European economic doctrine began to crack. A new national escape clause, so named by the European Commission, allows Member States to exceed the “normal” budget deficit ratio of 0.3% of GDP per year, in addition to the 3% deficit limit, in order to invest in energy security. The European Commission now sees the energy sector as a condition of our defence against threats from outside the European Union. We call it the “green golden rule”, and it is something we have been demanding for years, alongside several economists[i]. This golden rule can apply to municipalities since it covers all public spending. It would be useful for the Commission to make this clear to Member States…

Another interesting development concerns the tax on windfall profits in the fossil fuel sector, currently on the agenda of the meeting of EU finance ministers. We have co-signed a letter with many organisations (including social and environmental groups, and trade unions) calling for the revenues from this windfall tax to be used to finance the transition. This echoes a request already made by six Member States: Austria, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain, with Spain in fact proposing to allocate the revenues to an EU Resilience Fund.

In the Treaties of the European Union, improving quality of life remains an objective. The cost of living is a condition that also must be taken into account, as must the protection of the environment. Reality is catching up with an economic doctrine built primarily around market rules, fiscal discipline and balanced multilateralism. The Commission’s latest proposal is to overhaul public procurement rules by introducing a new requirement: “Made in Europe”, aimed at promoting European technology and industry. Gone is the global economy; autonomy and sovereignty become guiding principles.

When everything is changing, we have to stay the course. If we don’t call it a Green Deal, so be it. Whatever the label, the organisation of our societies must integrate planetary boundaries and the management of multiple crises into every new policy, every new piece of legislation and every new budget.

In a changing world, red lines that once seemed unbreakable are being challenged. And that, in itself, gives us hope.

[i] https://www.bruegel.org/system/files/2022-07/PC%2013%202022.pdf; https://institutdelors.eu/en/publications/the-reformed-eu-fiscal-framework-in-action-providing-sufficient-space-and-incentives-for-public-investment-and-the-green-transition/