European elections: Cost of going green sparks backlash from voters

It is being called a “greenlash”.

Resistance to green policies has broken out across Europe. It was all so different in the last European elections five years ago, when young voters especially demanded action against climate change.

Soaring energy prices because of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the wider cost of living crisis have turned many Europeans against abandoning fossil fuels. And farmers across Europe have blocked roads in anger at environmental reforms.

It could spell trouble for the EU’s Green parties at the polls from 6-9 June.

The parties that make up the Greens/European Free Alliance (G/EFA) are currently the fourth-biggest group in the European Parliament, but most polls suggest they could lose as much as 30% of their seats.

“If the two right-wing groupings end up ahead of us and become part of the process of forming a majority, they will block large parts of parliament,” warns the Greens’ lead candidate Terry Reintke.

That kind of result could have a major impact on how the EU implements some of its Green Deal for the European economy, which is part of the Climate Law that aims to make Europe carbon-neutral by 2050.

Part of the deal has already been passed in a package of measures to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by 55% of 1990 levels by 2030. The laws include a controversial clause that bans the sale of petrol and diesel cars in the EU by 2035.

But most of the policies that decide how the EU achieves its goals for 2040 still have to be agreed in the coming years. Additionally, if there’s enough political pressure, even directives that have already been approved can be changed.

And parties on the right and far right across the continent have responded fast to public discontent, weighing up expensive decarbonisation processes and investments in green transition against the cost of living crisis.

In Italy, far-right League leader Matteo Salvini has long complained that the 2035 ban on diesel and petrol car sales is both anti-European and a “gift” to the Chinese electric car industry – and he has made it a key part of his agenda.

Hungary’s Viktor Orban may have no problem with China providing billions of euros of green investment in his own country, but he has been quick to back farmers protesting in Brussels and to accuse other European leaders of not taking ordinary people seriously.