This article explores the impact European Green Deal policies have had on EU integration since 2019. It takes as a starting point the assumption that, throughout the EU's history, its institutions have often responded to crises with deeper integration. In this context, the European Green Deal represents the EU's strategic response to the ongoing environmental crisis, which acutely impacts Europe, the fastest-warming continent on the planet. The article presents case studies on how the European Green Deal has strengthened EU integration in three key ways: through fostering policy integration, through the budgetary domain, and through its impact on foreign policy. It aims to contribute to the debate between intergovernmentalists and supranationalists by arguing that the European Council, Council of the EU and European Commission exercise leadership in distance yet complementary ways.
Introduction
European integration since 1950 has been driven by crisis response. During challenging times, European Communities (EC) or European Union (EU) decision-makers often responded by strengthening institutional integration. This pattern has existed since the post-WWII period, when European economic integration was seen as a tool that would make war between France and Germany "not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible."1 In the 1970s, challenges like oil shocks, economic crises, and stagflation could have threatened the course of European integration. Instead, they gave rise to institutional innovation like the creation of the European Monetary System, the establishment of EC law primacy through several landmark cases, and renewed powers of the European Council (EUCO). In the 1990s, the uncertainty after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the question as to whether and how Germany should be reunified could have broken the European project apart. Instead, the challenges of the time ended up advancing monetary union and anchoring Germany further within the European framework.2
A defining crisis of the current decade and beyond is the environmental crisis. The risks posed by climate change have grown to unprecedented levels.3 More species than ever are at risk of extinction.4 Pollution in the air, water and soil threatens the health of people and the planet.5 These developments present significant challenges in Europe: The European Environment Agency attests that Europe is the fastest-warming continent on the planet and will increasingly face risks from extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, droughts, and floods.6 In the summer of 2022, between 60,000 and 70,000 premature deaths could be attributed to record-hot temperatures.7 The EU's response to this crisis has been the European Green Deal (EGD): it includes a set of proposals to tackle climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. The objectives of the EDG, as outlined by the European Commission (EU-COM), are the achievement of carbon neutrality by 2050 and a decoupling of economic growth from resource use.8
The scope of the EGD has sparked a debate whether it aligns with previous patterns of EU climate policy or whether a new era of climate governance has begun.9 After all, European environmental policy goes back to the Paris Summit of 1972, when leaders of the then nine Member States of the EC vowed to pay special attention "to non-material values and wealth and to protection of the environment."10 Since the 1990s, the EU has been described as a leader in international climate diplomacy, e.g., through its influential role in shaping the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.11 However, the EGD appears different in scope and depth. Tocci has described the current ambition as "a normative vision to fight the existential crisis posed by anthropogenic climate change […] and a route to a political Union by fostering a common cause between Member States and by reconnecting to the European public."12 This suggests that the EGD may have an impact beyond its stated goals of achieving climate neutrality by 2025 and clean economic growth. It may serve as another example of how crises serve as critical junctures that open up pathways to deeper EU integration.
This paper examines whether EGD policies have driven EU integration. The term EGD policies refers to the objectives outlined by the EU-COM Communication "The European Green Deal."13 This includes laws or legislative proposals that build directly on this communication as well as policies that have emerged in other contexts but are specifically aligned with the EGD priorities, for instance, the REPowerEU plan. To operationalize EU integration, Gilbert's definition of European integration as "the historical process whereby European nation-states have been willing to transfer, or more usually pool, their sovereign powers into a collective enterprise" is a useful starting point.14 However, this analysis applies Gilbert's definition exclusively to an EU context rather than Europe as a whole. After providing an overview of the existing literature, the paper explores different areas of potential EU integration. For each of these areas, it provides case studies and discusses how they have contributed to EU integration. The analysis focuses predominantly on climate change policies but also includes one case study tackling pollution.
Literature Review
There is an extensive body of literature on the EU's environmental ambition, both pre- and post-EGD. One part of the literature concerns questions about how the EU institutional set-up has influenced its environmental policy. For instance, Meyer discussed the impact of the evolution on the European Parliament on environmental policy in the 1970s and 1980s.15 Burns took a more contemporary perspective on the impact of the European Parliament,16 while her colleagues analyzed the influence of the Member States, the Commission, or the Court of Justice.17 Others discussed the impact of specific leaders; for instance, Warlouzet focused on the "greener colour" of EU social policy under EU-COM President Jacques Delors.18
Another part of the debate concerns questions about the effectiveness of environmental ambition. The EU-COM has been criticized for appearing more ambitious than the actual impact of its proposals.19 Gravey and Jordan asked whether a decline in new environmental legislation implied "that the EU had suddenly become less ambitious."20 Burns et al. suggested that a range of different factors was at play: rather than equating a decrease in new legislation with a decrease in ambition, they argued that the decline in new environmental legislation throughout the 2010s could also mean that there was a "mature body of legislation" in place and the focus should be on implementation.21
Another debate has emerged on the link between EU environmental policy and EU integration. This debate is linked to the ongoing discourse between intergovernmentalists and supranationalists, which concerns questions about the role of different EU institutions in driving EU decision-making and, ultimately, EU integration. Intergovernmentalists focus on the role of those institutions that represent the member states, including the EUCO and the Council of Ministers (Council). Supranationalists attribute greater weight to the role of supranational institutions, including the EU-COM. Wurzel, Liefferink and Di Lullo found that, prior to 2019, both intergovernmental and supranational22 institutions drove the EU's environmental policy, albeit manifesting their leadership in different ways:
While a new intergovernmentalist perspective helps to explain the increased structural leadership offered by the European Council on high politics climate change issues, the neofunctionalist logic elucidates the interlocking relations […] between EU institutional and Member State officials which also fit well an entrepreneurial leadership perspective.23
Rosamond and Dupont looked at the response of different institutions to the EGD. They found that the intergovernmental bodies have largely backed the policies proposed by the EU-COM and managed to resolve divergences between Member States.24 Ullrichova looked at whether the engagement of the EUCO on environmental policy has increased during the period from the Maastricht Treaty to 2023. She found that a broad consensus among EU institutions was necessary to push environmental policy during this period, and that the EUCO alone did not appear to be a pivotal actor.25
A specific policy field, where the link between environmental policy and EU integration has been highlighted, is international relations. Scholars like Tocci focused on the effect of environmental policy on the EU's foreign policy ambitions. A central argument of Tocci's work, for example, is that if the EU wants the EGD to succeed, it needs to advocate for environmental progress on the international stage. Proclaiming that "the success or failure of this agenda [marks] the fate of the European project for decades to come," she concluded that the EU's environmental and foreign policy were necessarily intertwined.26 Other researchers on EU climate leadership analyzed the potential of the EU to advance its environmental agenda beyond its borders as well as institutional challenges this may entail.27
This paper builds on the discussion about the impact of environmental policy on the EU. Rather than focusing exclusively on the role of individual institutions (such as the EUCO or the Council) or on individual policy areas (such as foreign policy), it presents case studies from different perspectives highlighting how EGD policies have contributed to EU integration.
Analysis
This chapter compiles case studies on how different aspects of the EGD have influenced EU integration. It considers the institutional set-up established by the Treaty on European Union, as amended by the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union as the status quo. Key reforms introduced by the Lisbon Treaty include, for example, the shift of energy policy from an exclusively national competence to a shared one. Consequently, the 2009-2014 legislative period saw the emergence of new regulatory bodies at the EU level, for instance, an independent Directorate-General for Energy within the EU-COM and the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER). Since energy policy today comprises three quarters of climate action, it is also a major vehicle for the EGD. Another important feature, first established by the Treaty of Maastricht, is that the EU enjoys legal personality, allowing it to be a party to international treaties like the UNFCCC and the Paris Climate Agreement.28 Building on this legal framework, I examine three areas of potential further integration: a) policy integration; b) the EU's budget; and c) the EU's foreign policy capabilities. In each of these sections I provide case studies highlighting the impact of EGD policies.
Policy Integration
Policy integration can be defined as efforts concerning "the management of cross-cutting issues in policy-making that transcend the boundaries of established policy fields, which often do not correspond to the institutional responsibilities of individual departments."29 It thus entails an expansion of policies into new fields and creates a more far-reaching policy framework. This section discusses how EGD policies have driven policy integration.
In the field of environmental policy, policy integration is considered a crucial step to avoid harmful impacts of other, seemingly unrelated policies on the environment.30 While the EGD includes a 'do no harm' principle meaning that all future policies should be in line with the objectives of the EGD,31 the general idea of combining environmental policies with other fields dates back further. On the nexus of energy and climate policy, for instance, the Trans-European Energy Network Regulation of 2013 had a strong focus on energy security but also included climate objectives such as targets for GHG emission reduction and renewable energy sources in final energy consumption.32 One of the key priorities of the Juncker Commission (2014-2019) was the Energy Union, which sought to combine energy infrastructure integration with a "forward-looking climate change policy."33
One case study of EGD-driven policy integration is the REPowerEU Plan, which the EU-COM published in response to the Russian war against Ukraine and the following energy crisis. It aimed at rapidly reducing the EU's reliance on Russian fossil fuels by diversifying external energy suppliers, reducing energy demand, and accelerating the energy transition towards renewable energy sources.34 Even though the EGD did not originally foresee REPowerEU, it heavily influenced the EU's response to the war. REPowerEU is thus an example of how the EU has integrated its EGD-objectives into its policy towards Russia, an area traditionally viewed through the lens of energy and security rather than climate policy.
Another case study where the EGD objectives have been integrated into an otherwise unrelated field is the Next Generation EU program (NGEU). NGEU was designed as an instrument to support the recovery of the European economy after the COVID-19 pandemic. It was distributed to Member States through loans and grants and was financed via joint debt. The EU-COM ruled that least 37 percent of spending in Member States' Recovery and Resilience Plans (RRPs) was to be allocated to sustainable investments in categories ranging from "clean transport & infrastructure," "energy efficiency," and "clean energy & network."35 Moreover, the green investment program of NGEU also built on REPowerEU: "With its focus on saving energy, producing clean energy, and diversifying our energy supplies through reforms and investments, the integration of REPowerEU has significantly boosted the climate-transition footprint of NGEU."36 The EU has thus combined its clean energy efforts with both its responses to the Russian war against Ukraine and to the COVID-19 pandemic, creating an integrated policy framework that simultaneously addresses clean energy, energy security, and economic recovery.
Budget
The EU does not levy taxes and financially relies on different types of own resources. Own resources are sources of revenue for the EU "mainly collected by EU member countries and passed onto the EU."37 For the purpose of this discussion, Member States giving up financial resources for EU decision-makers to decide upon their use can be treated as a means of integration. This section discusses the impact of EGD policies on the composition of the EU's budget as well as the ongoing discussion about new types of own resources.
The EU's regular budget has been influenced by the EGD since 2022 with the introduction of a new resource based on Member States individual rate of non-recycled plastic packaging waste.38 Although this policy, unlike the other case studies discussed in this paper, is directed at addressing the issue of pollution rather than climate change, it remains a crucial component of this discussion: In 2024, this new own resource based on plastic packaging waste comprised 7 billion euros, or 5 percent of the total EU budget.39 The effect of the new contribution was designed to be two-fold. On the one hand, the EU-COM hoped that it would "encourage Member States to reduce packaging waste and stimulate Europe's transition towards a circular economy."40 Thus, it plays into the EU's efforts to reduce pollution as outlined in the EGD. On the other hand, it was meant to contribute to the climate finance targets required to fund the transition.41 Utilizing the EU budget is a stated objective of the EGD, which proposes a "25% target for climate mainstreaming across all EU programs."42
Beyond influencing the regular budget, EGD objectives also feature in the post-pandemic NGEU economic recovery program (see section a). Comprising 750 billion euros and spanning a period of six years, it represents the largest-ever stimulus effort by the EU (compared to the 2024 regular budget of 142 billion euros, NGEU is almost as high as the total annual EU budget). The program marked a transformative shift in EU solidarity, prioritizing the hardest-hit regions and bridging economic divisions. However, NGEU was not solely focused on economic recovery but also aimed at accelerating the green transition (besides other objectives such as the digital transformation): as described in section a, 37 percent of its funds must be dedicated to green investments. To repay the debt that financed NGEU starting in 2028,43 new national contributions will likely be necessary as the EU itself cannot levy taxes.44
The discussion about additional own resources has also been strongly influenced by EGD policies. In June 2023, the EU-COM published a proposal for additional own resources: two out of three ideas also relate to the EU's climate ambition, namely the Emissions Trading System (ETS) and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). Revenues from the ETS, in place since 2005 but expanded since then, are traditionally collected by Member States. The proposal of the EU-COM includes a transfer of 30 percent of all ETS revenues to the EU budget.45 Likewise, the CBAM, which has yet the be implemented, originally included only national revenues as well. The 2023 proposal of the EU-COM includes a "technical adjustment" that would introduce a transfer of 1.5 billion euros per year from Member States to the EU.46 Similar to the plastic waste own resource and NGEU, the proposed new own resources are an example of how the EGD objectives have been a driver of budgetary integration in the EU.
Foreign Policy
A common foreign policy has been a highly contested subject since the failure of the European political community in 1954. Even though the EC has spoken with one voice in international trade negotiations since the completion of the customs union,47 an overarching common foreign policy has remained "a thorny topic for the European project."48 Nevertheless, the Maastricht and Lisbon Treaties brought about significant institutional changes, allowing, for instance, the EU's participation in international treaties like the UNFCCC since 1992 and the establishment of the External Action Service in 2010. This section discusses how EGD policies have contributed to a further integration of the EU's foreign policy.
One example is the implementation of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. Like previous agreements, the Paris Agreement itself is a mixed agreement signed by both the Member States and the European Union.49 For its implementation, the EU has opted for joint compliance meaning that the EU submits the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), a central building block of the Paris Agreement, as one joint document.50 Internally, individual Member States targets are determined by the Effort-Sharing Regulation, adopted in 2018 (pre-EGD) and revised in 2023 (post-EGD), reflecting different GDP per capita levels and thus a solidarity among Member States in their collective effort to meet international targets. While the original targets ranged from 0% for Bulgaria to 40% for Sweden, the 2023 revision of the regulation raised the lowest target to 10% for Bulgaria and established the highest target of 50% for all Nordic countries as well as Germany and Luxembourg.51 The basis for this effort-sharing approach was created five years before the EGD, in fact through a decision by the EUCO in 2014;52 however, the EGD has utilized this approach in its effort to increase climate ambition for 2030.53 Internally, Member States submit National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) to the EU-COM for assessment and alignment with the Union-wide target. During the 2023-2024 update cycle, for example, the EU-COM called on Member States to intensify efforts so that the EU would collectively meet its legally binding target of 55% GHG emission reductions by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.54 In short, the EGD is not the source of this type of integration, but its objectives are reflected in increased targets and ambition, reinforcing its leadership claims and capabilities to speak at the global stage.
This EGD-driven ambition has increasingly reinforced the EU's raison d'être in the current geopolitical landscape: Discussing the nexus between energy and geopolitics, Tocci suggested that the "U.S.'s formidable entrepreneurial spirit; China's growth, its state-driven policies and head start in clean technologies; and Europe's climate leadership, market and regulatory power suggests that all three global players will wield significant energy influence in world affairs."55 While the notion of climate leadership predates the EGD,56 it has never been clearer than in the context of the EGD itself. Promising a comprehensive "green deal diplomacy," the EU has pledged to advance its climate leadership by "setting a credible example, and following-up with diplomacy, trade policy, development support and other external policies."57 Leonard et al. argued that even the domestic aspects of the EGD will produce such a "sweeping structural change [in] European trade and investment patterns" that it should be regarded as a piece of foreign policy itself.58
Discussion
The impact of EGD policies on EU integration takes several different forms. The examples in the area of policy integration (REPowerEU and NGEU) show that EGD policies have shaped EU's responses to exogenous crises, i.e., Russia's war against Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic. The green transition and the carbon neutrality objective feature prominently in both crisis responses, breaking from a pattern of decline in environmental policy during other exogenous crises, such as the financial crisis in the late 2000s.59 Instead, they have contributed to creating a more integrated policy framework reflecting the EGD's "new growth strategy." The examples in the budgetary domain (the plastic packaging own resource, again the NGEU instrument, and the proposal for new own resources) show that EGD policies have been capable of creating new budgetary instruments that have contributed to EU integration. This is especially true for the plastics packaging own resource, which did not exist until 2022 and is in line with the EGD's objective of incentivizing waste reduction and streamlining funds available to the EU for green transition projects. The NGEU package, while not exclusively focused on the green transition, significantly advances budgetary integration, as it enabled the EU to take on joint debt for the first time in its history. The examples in the foreign policy area (the joint NDC and climate leadership as the EU's geopolitical raison d'être) show that the causal relationship between EGD policies and EU foreign policy integration is less pronounced. The EU's international climate and environmental leadership claim has originated long before the EGD came into existence. In fact, the von der Leyen Commission I built on an existing legal framework that was strongly influenced by decisions of the EUCO, which had "taken a close interest in high politics climate change issues since the 2000s."60 These examples suggest that EGD policies have increased the EU's climate ambitions, thereby reinforcing its international climate leadership. However, this analysis did not find evidence that the EGD has opened up entirely new spaces for the integration of the EU's foreign policy.
Several of the examples discussed also point to the fact that an interesting new leadership dynamic may be unfolding at the nexus of EU integration and environmental policy. Before the publication of the EGD in 2019, several scholars had argued for a "new intergovernmentalism" in EU integration.61 Dupont and Oberthür highlighted the crucial role of the EUCO and the Council for the trajectory of EU climate policy in the post-Maastricht period until 2015.62 Wurzel et al. attempted to further break down the leadership dynamics among the EUCO, the Council, and the Member States.63 Ullrichova, however, who considered a period up until 2023 and thus included the EGD, found "a significant effect [of the EU-COM] on the direction of the EU environmental policy."64 Building on this debate, the case studies in this chapter suggest that the EGD-driven integration may depend both on intergovernmental and supranational actors. Several of the examples discussed were created and pushed largely by the EU-COM, even though they relied on legal pathways initially established by the intergovernmental institutions. This was the case, for instance, for the EUCO's 2014 endorsement of a binding target for GHG reduction emissions and its decision to deliver the target collectively. This decision later featured strongly in the EGD and has allowed the EU and EU-COM to maintain its climate leadership claim. Another example for this is the Council's discretionary power over the composition of the EU's budget.
Conclusion and Outlook
This paper discussed the question whether European Green Deal policies have influenced EU integration. It found evidence of this in three different areas, even though the strength of the causal link varies. Firstly, the analysis concluded that the EU has created a more integrated policy framework by having EGD objectives feed into its responses to exogenous crises. Secondly, the evidence suggests that the EU has substantially advanced its budgetary integration by establishing new own resources and joint debt that fully or partially build on EGD objectives. Thirdly, in the area of foreign policy, the analysis found that the EU has increased its climate ambitions in line with the EGD and, thus, reinforced its international climate leadership claim. However, in doing so it built on an existing legal framework that predated the EGD.
Further research is needed on the impact of these different types of integration on the leadership dynamic between the EUCO, the Council, the Member States and the EU-COM. Several case studies in this paper illustrated how an ambitious EU-COM has expanded its influence while building on strategic decisions by the intergovernmental bodies. This suggests that it may be time to marry the intergovernmentalist approach with a new supranationalism, acknowledging that the different institutions may have distinct roles but shape the trajectory of the EU in a complementary way. In times when the EU is increasingly accused of regulatory overreach and when EU-skeptic parties are gaining ground in many Member States,65 it is useful to emphasize the role of the EUCO and Council in shaping current policies. This helps highlighting citizens' representation in the EU's strategic decisions. However, in order to collectively fight climate change and protect the planet beyond national borders, the EU needs a strong EU-COM as well.
It is also important to note that the EU's environmental policy continues to evolve. For instance, the von der Leyen Commission II has reinforced its focus on competitiveness and simplification since the beginning of its mandate in December 2024. The proposals put forward, including for the Competitiveness Compass and the Clean Industrial Deal, aim at reconciling the EGD will industry interests.66 Elements of these new proposals were criticized as a "regulatory U-turn" rolling back parts of the EGD's ambition.67 On the other hand, important milestones in the realm of EU environmental policy are still upcoming. June 2025 marks the deadline for member states to submit their Social Climate Plans to the EU-COM, which are supposed to counteract the regressive effects of the EU's climate policy instruments. Starting in January 2027, the EU's Emissions Trading System will be expanded to cover emissions from buildings and transport. These developments will provide a foundation to analyze the link between the EU's environmental policy and EU integration in the future. As the EU continues to evolve, central questions will persist around whether environmental policy continues to shape EU integration, and which institutions will be the primary drivers of change.
About the Author
Annabelle Weisser is a Master of European Public Policy student at SAIS Europe. She leads the European Affairs club on campus, which fosters discussion and exchange on Europe and the EU. Prior to SAIS, she worked for a German media and services company in Brussels and Berlin. She holds a master's degree in North American Studies from Free University Berlin.
Footnotes
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