Gröna idéer med villkorade visioner - En idéanalytisk studie av EU:s miljö- och klimatpolicy efter den ekonomiska krisen

Abstract

Emanating from a deepened interest conflict within the decision making in the EU, this study aims to examine how the relationship between economy and environment and climate change policy is framed in the EU’s seventh Environmental Action Programme. Scholars have shown that since the economic crisis in 2008 the EU has witnessed a deepened ideological interest conflict between those who see environment and climate change policy as economically unfavorable and those seeing it as economically beneficial. The latter is formed as green growth ideas and the former as trade off ideas. Focusing on the existence of these ideas in three ideological dimensions, the study shows that the ideas of green growth are the most prominent in the seventh Environmental Action Programme, though with some dubious exceptions regarding the visions of the future environmental and climate change policy in the EU.