Edouard Gaudot: ‘Green policies have become a source of anxiety’

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Edouard Gaudot is a historian and political scientist. A teacher, consultant and writer, he has worked at the College of Europe in Natolin (Poland) and at the European Parliament. He co-founded the magazine Green European Journal. His latest book is Les 7 Piliers de la Cité (Plon, 2022).

Voxeurop: How can we explain this disappointing result for Europe’s ecologist parties, in particular in France, Germany and Belgium?

Edouard Gaudot: If you look at the map of Europe and the Greens, there are some pleasant surprises. You have Greens who have been elected in places where they had little or no presence. For example, Croatia, Slovenia, and Romania. Admittedly, these are small countries, so it’s not as significant as [the failure of the Greens] in large countries, which will have massive repercussions in the European Parliament.

The results are bad in two large countries where they were good in the previous election. Secondly, the Greens are in power in Germany and Belgium. When you’re in charge, you always pay the price for the decisions you take, no matter the government, the political colour or the circumstances. And the price will be even higher in an election where people see the lack of a working majority is less important. In Germany in particular, the ruling coalition is discredited, due its longstanding internal contradictions and its consequent impotence. In Belgium, it’s the same thing: there is a power vacuum.

The Greens are also paying a heavy price for the rejection of the last five years’ transformational green policies. The first reason is that these policies were not always properly considered beyond their technical aspects: their social dimension has often been overlooked. Yes, a fund has been set up to support miners who are set to lose their jobs in Poland or Romania, but there is no such compensation for all those people who will find themselves with obsolete combustion-engined vehicles. Often these vehicles represent a major asset for them, and sometimes they are an indispensable working tool. This generates uncovered costs, as well as anxiety about the future.