Today, the EU’s Green Deal faces pressure from an atmosphere of economic crisis: car factories in Germany are set to close, farmers protesting about excessive environmental protection measures, soaring energy bills for households. But as the recent floods in Spain have shown, the issue of the climate crisis remains unavoidable for Europe’s leaders. Ursula von der Leyen herself promised in 2019 that the EU would be carbon neutral by 2050. In 2024, the Commission president says the next step of the Green Deal is the Clean Industrial Deal or how the EU can better support its industry and European competitiveness, all while striving for those environmental goals. The Political landscape of 2024 is very different to that of 2019 with populist parties seizing seats in the European parliament, often at the expense of Green MEPs.     

Programme prepared by Isabelle Romero, Luke Brown and Perrine Desplats