Documents Parks, Louisa 4 results

"The European Union's European Green Deal (EGD) was announced as an ambitious endeavour to achieve a just transition, address climate change, biodiversity loss and more. Importantly, it expresses the desire to tackle these challenges in a democratic way. Indeed, the scale of the changes required to meet the EGD's goals mean that without democratic consent it is likely to fail, with disastrous consequences. With this introduction to the Special Issue on the European Green Deal and democracy we sketch the contours of this wide-ranging debate through a focus on aspects of democracy that are central to the EU and the EGD: representation, participation and deliberation, justice and the just transition, and expertise. The different contributions to this Special Issue examine democratic elements in the EGD and surrounding governance structures by exploring alternative sources of democratic innovation, including deliberative mechanisms and social movements, as potential avenues for transformative change."

"The European Union's European Green Deal (EGD) aims for a just transition to carbon neutrality both within and beyond its borders. This contribution to the special issue on the external dimensions of the EGD focuses on the role of the European Investment Bank (EIB). As a newly declared climate bank and a major funder of ‘green' projects, the EIB's role in this vein deserves attention. Do the environmental and social principles the EIB uses to judge funding applications contribute to an environmentally just transition? We explore this question by identifying key issues in impact assessment processes in the literature, brought into focus through an original illustrative case study on the Gibe III hydroelectric dam inaugurated in 2016 in Ethiopia, and linking these to three central aspects of Environmental Justice: recognitional, procedural and redistributive justice. This forms the basis for an analysis of the EIB's environmental and social statements over time, and a reflection on how far current rules address critical issues. While the EIB's rules pay increasing attention to critical issues such as the content of Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIAs), and questions around inclusion, timing, and trust, their contribution to a just transition could be strengthened by sharing responsibility for impact assessments with funding applicants and including rules about their co-design. A bottom-up approach to environmental and social issues could contribute to building shared norms amongst funders and a more universal adoption of ESIAs, and to strengthening networks of grassroots expertise to tackle power asymmetries."

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"Despite the generally accepted weakness of trade unions at the European Union level, an analysis of two high profile cases – the Services Directive and the Port Directive – shows that trade unions are able to mobilise effectively at the European level and, within constellations of actors, crucially impact EU decision making. In contrast to common claims that a lack of access to EU institutions makes such groups powerless, it is argued here that the exclusion of large opposing societal groups from consultations is neither a quick nor a sure fire recipe for dismantling opposition. On the contrary, it politicises the process and may lead to opposing groups mobilising in more contentious ways."