The geopolitics of the European Green Deal

• The European Green Deal will not only profoundly transform the economy but will also have deep geopolitical repercussions.   
• It will affect geopolitics through its impact on the EU energy balance and global markets; on oil and gas-producing countries in the EU neighbourhood; on European energy security; and on global trade patterns, notably via the carbon border adjustment mechanism.   
• The EU should prepare to help manage the geopolitical aspects of the European Green Deal.   
• Relationships with important neighbourhood countries such as Russia and Algeria, and with global players including the United States, China and Saudi Arabia, are central to this effort.

In 2019, the European Commission introduced the European Green Deal, an ambitious policy package intended to make the European Union’s economy environmentally sustainable. The Green Deal is at root an effort to transform the European economy and European consumption patterns. But because it entails a fundamental overhaul of the European energy system and because it ranks so high on the EU policy agenda, it will also change the relationships between the EU and its neighbourhood, and it will redefine Europe’s global policy priorities. As such, it is a foreign policy development with profound geopolitical consequences.   

In a joint policy paper – The geopolitics of the European Green Deal – the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and the Brussels-based economic think tank Bruegel map out the geopolitical implications of the Green Deal. The five authors, Mark Leonard, Jean Pisani-Ferry, Jeremy Shapiro, Simone Tagliapietra and Guntram Wolff, look at the effects of purposeful efforts to export climate policy, but also at the unintended side-effects. They further examine how other countries (like the US, China, Russia, Algeria and Saudi Arabia) might understand the Green Deal and how they are likely to respond.   

* ECFR and Bruegel are co-hosting an event on this paper and topic on 3 February at 14.00 CET. For details and to join, view the event on our website. *

But most importantly, ECFR and Bruegel propose an external action plan as an integral part of EU climate strategy: To succeed, the EU must address head-on the difficulties the Green Deal is likely to create with economic partners and neighbours. Only a pro-active EU attitude will help turn potential frictions into opportunities for renewed international partnerships.   

The authors propose seven actions to manage the geopolitical aspects of the European Green Deal:  

1. Help neighbouring oil and gas-exporting countries manage the repercussions of the European Green Deal. The EU should engage with these countries to foster their economic diversification, including into renewable energy and green hydrogen that could in the future be exported to Europe.  
2. Improve the security of critical raw materials supply and limit dependence, first and foremost on China. Essential measures include greater supply diversification, increased recycling volumes and substitution of critical materials.   
3. Work with the US and other partners to establish a ‘climate club’ whose members will apply similar carbon border adjustment measures. All countries, including China, would be welcome to join if they commit to abide by the club’s objectives and rules.  
4. Become a global standard-setter for the energy transition, particularly in hydrogen and green bonds. Requiring compliance with strict environmental regulations as a condition to access the EU market will be strong encouragement to go green for all countries.   
5. Internationalise the European Green Deal by mobilising the EU budget, the EU Recovery and Resilience Fund, and EU development policy.  
6. Promote global coalitions for climate change mitigation, for example through a global coalition for the permafrost, which would fund measures to contain the permafrost thaw.  
7. Promote a global platform on the new economics of climate action to share lessons learned and best practices.  

Together, these seven actions would provide foreign policy support for the European Green Deal. They respond to the geopolitical challenges that other countries are likely to face from the Green Deal and from increasing global warming more generally and offer ways to leverage European efforts and expand the decarbonisation push beyond the EU – which will be a necessary to the Green Deal’s success.  

* ECFR and Bruegel are co-hosting an event on this paper and topic on 3 February at 14.00 CET. For details and to join, view the event on our website. *

NOTES TO EDITORS: 

Climate research: 

• In a new policy brief “Power surge: How the European Green Deal can succeed in Morocco and Tunisia”, ECFR Visiting Fellow Amine Bennis explores the EU’s opportunities for increasing its influence in its southern neighbourhood through the Green Deal.  
• ECFR is working on a series of climate-related research and analysis papers, covering topics such as: the future of Europe’s climate policy in light of its enhanced systemic rivalry with China; the geopolitics of the European Green Deal; and mapping national politics around the European Green Deal and resilient recovery across all 27 EU member states.   
• All policy briefs, commentaries, events, and other products will be available on ECFR’s website ecfr.eu. More details will be available and shared with the press in the coming weeks and months.  

About the authors: 

• Mark Leonard is co-founder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century and What Does China Think?, and the editor of Connectivity Wars. He presents ECFR’s weekly World in 30 Minutes podcast.  
• Jean Pisani-Ferry holds the Tommaso Padoa Schioppa chair of the European University Institute in Florence and is a senior fellow at Bruegel, the European think tank. He is also a professor of economics with Sciences Po (Paris) and the Hertie School of Governance (Berlin).  
• Jeremy Shapiro is the research director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, he was a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Prior to this, he was a member of the US State Department’s policy planning staff and the senior adviser to the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.  
• Simone Tagliapietra, an Italian citizen, is a research fellow at Bruegel. He is also an adjunct professor at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and at the Johns Hopkins University – SAIS Europe. His research activity focuses on climate and energy issues. He works on the EU climate and energy policy, the political economy of EU decarbonisation, green industrial policy, just transition, and global climate governance.  
• Guntram Wolff is the director of Bruegel. His research focuses on the European economy and governance, fiscal and monetary policy, and global finance. He regularly testifies at the European Finance Ministers’ ECOFIN meeting, the European Parliament, the German Parliament (Bundestag) and the French Parliament (Assemblée Nationale). From 2012-2016, he was a member of the French prime minister’s Conseil d’Analyse Economique.