Renewing the welfare state, Europe’s green trump card

The untapped potential of European welfare states must be unleashed in light of the climate emergency.

A daring political offer is needed to transcend the deadlock resulting from green-bashing, farmers’ protests and simplistic dichotomies between Green Deal opponents and proponents. With its European Conference for a Just Transition earlier this month, Belgium, current president of the Council of the EU, has shown important leadership. Its attempts to bolster the Green Deal’s social offer are essential to sustain the flagship’s political clout, even its future existence.

Today’s massive challenges however require us to be even bolder. Why not put the ultimate trump card on the table—our welfare states?

The climate emergency is fraying the European social fabric in two ways. First, it is a multiplier of inequalities and a generator of new ones, hitting the most vulnerable hardest. More, the necessary transition policies often create additional burdens on the same people. These impacts are set to grow, as much of the decarbonisation effort has yet to be effected in the very areas directly affecting households, such as transport, housing and agriculture.

This next phase of the transition, with its intensified repercussions on lifestyle and behaviour, comes moreover at a time when the consensus around the Green Deal seems to be crumbling. Predominantly populist parties of the right and centre right are highlighting the short-term costs for the poorest and turning these into a reason to put the brakes on the transition. It is an extremely dangerous narrative, as it would worsen the longer-term effects on the very populations that are already being, and will continue to be, most affected by the climate crisis.

New framing

We thus urgently need the framing and political firepower that can build a robust consensus against this stance. Which is where the welfare state comes in.

The welfare state, one of the single most positive political projects ever seen on European soil, can provide positive and collective answers, as it was designed to do. Through protecting citizens against risks—whether social, economic or health-related—welfare states across the EU function, with varying strengths, as a safety-net. Today, we are undeniably facing new risks. Is it not therefore logical that this be reflected in our social-protection systems?

To achieve this, we argue, a clear approach will be necessary. We must ask ourselves how welfare states can be maintained and even strengthened amid the massive new challenges brought by the climate emergency. In particular, how can they adapt to protect people from climate risks and enable them to mitigate those risks? Despite touching upon primarily national competences, important heavy lifting can be done at European Union level.

Greening the institutions

First, the EU can incentivise and support the greening of the institutions of its members’ welfare states. If we take healthcare, the following come to mind: systematic retrofitting and insulating of hospitals, protection of patients and staff against heatwaves, clean health-related mobility and travel and so on. The sector currently accounts for an estimated 5.5 per cent of global emissions. Addressing these questions on a whole-of-EU basis would significantly reduce this figure.

Greening the infrastructures and processes of the welfare states, of which healthcare is merely one case, is a practical and efficient proposal which cannot disappoint. It is relatively easy, as it takes existing institutions as a starting point and yet can have a huge impact—in reducing emissions and protecting citizens from effects of the climate crisis. Despite its straightforwardness, this idea is under-represented in just-transition debates and policies.

Secondly, new European directives are needed to steer member states to include new risks in their social-protection systems. An urgent example is the effect of extreme weather days on workers in certain sectors (construction, for example), where related wage loss should be compensated via unemployment schemes. And it is essential that a new directive guarantee greater, genuine participation of workers and workers’ representatives in transition-related restructuring processes, including through presenting alternative options. Again, this would not be revolutionary but a feasible, iterative, concrete action integrating welfare and climate policies.

New European layer

Another goal, more ambitious but crucial, is a new EU layer of social protection. Building on what exists, such as the European Globalisation and Adjustment, Just Transition and Social Climate funds, and learning from the high proportion of climate-related spending within the 2021-27 cohesion policy budget, during the next legislature the EU institutions should create an ambitious, integrated European Social Climate Protection Fund to deliver support and protect people from risks at EU level. This would strengthen solidarity and social convergence among countries, given the borderless effects of the climate crisis. A European Just Transition Observatory should be set up to monitor and address needs and steer implementation.

Finally, and perhaps most obviously despite the current pushback, green and social investments linked to the transformation should be incentivised—not restricted as is now the case in the economic governance of the EU. Discussions on the new Multiannual Financial Framework, beyond 2027, must reflect the social and climate challenges and provide an opportunity to integrate Next Generation EU within the union budget.

The huge impacts of the climate emergency and associated transition policies require massive efforts. The required public support for them will only be forthcoming if the citizenry feel, and actually are, socially protected. We cannot deliver this without bringing our strongest, best equipped assets—the welfare states—to bear.