Memo

Memo to the commissioner responsible for environment policy

Publishing date
04 September 2024
Authors
Heather Grabbe
Download
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The link between economic sustainability and the environment should be obvious, but in practice environmental policy continues to face pushback because of short-term economic concerns, and failure to account for the longer-term costs of environmental degradation. You will have to plan for this pushback in promoting policy in crucial areas including safeguarding biodiversity, water security, resource efficiency and pollution reduction. Your best strategy may be to create stronger links between the environment and the EU’s major policy goals – especially economic security and competitiveness – and to show how environmental policies are enablers of other policies. Improving environmental metrics will be important to make the case.

Key actions:

  • Propose a green economic security strategy

  • Develop detailed sustainable competitiveness policies

  • Foster long-term thinking, especially on agriculture

Read the full memo by clicking the download button at the top of this page.

About the authors

  • Heather Grabbe

    Heather Grabbe is a Senior Fellow at Bruegel and a Visiting Professor at University College London and KU Leuven. Her research focuses on the political economy of the European Green Deal and how the climate transition will change the EU’s international relationships and external policies. She was previously Director of the Open Society European Policy Institute in Brussels, Deputy Director of the Centre for European Reform and senior advisor on the Balkans and Turkey to then European Commissioner Olli Rehn.

Theme
Energy and climate policy
Keyword
European Green Deal sustainability climate change
Language
English

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