On Tuesday, March 11th, the European Parliament in Strasbourg debated the future of the Green Deal and the economic and strategic implications of the ecological transition in the European Union under the new plan called the Clean Industrial Deal. After destroying European competitiveness over the past five years, the Commission is now proposing reindustrialization under green policies. Spending more public money (around €100 billion) for this purpose is part of Draghi’s plan to recover “lost ground.”
The most notable aspect of the debate was the shift in narrative across much of the parliamentary spectrum, including the European People’s Party (EPP) and all other groups to its left. From what they were saying it appears that,for them, being ‘patriotic’ means supporting decarbonization to reduce dependence on energy resources from third countries such as Russia or the United States.
They explicitly pointed to “Trump’s United States” and “Putin’s Russia,” implying that considering any economic agreement with these two countries is an unpatriotic act—almost an act of betrayal.
The same people who now support this transition remained utterly silent after the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were blown up and after Europe was forced to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Washington at a price 40% higher than before. Now that Donald Trump has returned, they have all of a sudden become fervent European nationalists and energy patriots.
Hungarian MEP Enikő Győri criticized the lack of concrete results from previous strategies, comparing the current situation to the Lisbon Strategy and warning about a 0.5% drop in the EU’s GDP due to these policies. In her speech, she denounced that while 40% of industrial components must be sourced from the EU, most solar panels are still produced in China. “We need measures that help Europe and Europeans, not subsidies that sustain an ideology-based economy,” she stated.
By contrast, the Renew Europe group defended the necessity of the energy transition, arguing that decarbonization is key to competitiveness. “There is no sovereignty without energy independence,” they stated, adding that opposing the Green Deal means supporting powers such as Russia or the U.S., which fund their economies with fossil fuels.
However, MEP Mireia Borrás (VOX/Patriots for Europe) criticized the €480 billion investment to repair the damage caused by previous policies, condemning the imposition of electric cars and the ban on combustion engines as examples of poorly planned measures. “Decarbonization should not mean offshoring or deindustrialization,” she warned.
From the EPP, MEP Nicolás González Casares defended the Green Deal as a driver of European industry and warned about the impact of gas on the continent’s competitiveness. “Every time we promote fossil fuels, the main beneficiaries are Putin and Trump,” he declared.
European Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné, for his part, defended the imposition of a 25% tariff on steel as a strategic measure to prevent new economic and geopolitical dependencies. At the same time, he warned against nationalizing energy sectors to solve the energy price crisis. “I have never seen a nationalized system that has led to economic efficiency,” he argued.
He also emphasized the need to reduce the risk of dependence on strategic raw materials, citing as an example the opening of new mines in Europe under “dignified and sustainable” labor conditions. These mines, it seems, will indeed be ecological—or at least acceptable—and “patriotic.”
All indications suggest that the European Union will continue down the same ecological path that has derailed the bloc’s economy and, likely irreversibly, damaged European competitiveness. In a future where competing with Washington and Beijing for a place among the world’s leading powers will become increasingly complex, the EU seems determined to double down on its green agenda, regardless of the economic consequences.
