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The ideology of the Green Deal and current shifts in the organization of governance in the European Union

Strezhneva M.V.,

Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, m.strezhneva@imemo.ru

elibrary_id: 251783 | ORCID: 0000-0002-6561-4367 | RESEARCHER_ID: K-5421-2013

Article received: 2025.02.27 16:00. Accepted: 2025.05.12 16:00


DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2025.04.04
EDN: RMXWHV

Rubric: Theme of the issue: USA and Europe – unions, regimes and coalitions in the circumstances of global transformations

For citation:

Strezhneva M.V. The ideology of the Green Deal and current shifts in the organization of governance in the European Union. – Polis. Political Studies. 2025. No. 4. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2025.04.04. EDN: RMXWHV (In Russ.)

This article was prepared with the support of a grant from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation for major scientific projects in priority areas of scientific and technological development No. 075-15-2024-551 “Global and regional centers of power in the emerging world order”.

Abstract

The political system of the European Union remains decentralized. But in long-term retrospect, despite traditional views about its “immaturity” and incompleteness, it maintains stability. The EU is often compared to the United States of America, while the American political system, despite all the broad powers of the federal center, demonstrates deep divisions and conflicts, including those along the lines of relations between the federal center and the states. For some analysts, such comparisons lead to the assumption that the relative weakness of the organizational center, as is the case with the EU, constitutes an important advantage. Under conditions of existential crisis in particular, it may serve to enhance the stability of its political structure. This article aims to show that the decentralization of European governance, in view of the accumulated experience of regional integration and against the backdrop of the enormous problems that the EU faces today, is a conscious choice of its ruling class. Shifts in the ideology of the integration project, started from the top with the proclamation of the Green Deal in 2019, help maintain the viability of the EU through its further decentralization. The concept of ideology by the sociologist Göran Therborn serves as the basis for the research methodology. It helps to explore the relationship between the ideological and political context, on the one hand, and the organization of power, on the other hand, in such a specific integration entity as the European Union. The content of official EU documents was examined to identify recent developments in the design of European economic governance. In the process of development of European bureaucracy there was a transfer of some functional elements of democratic sovereignty from the member states to a supranational political organization, poorly suited to use them. The correction of the dynamic imbalance in the system is now being facilitated by the introduction of further elements of decentralization into the EU governance system, which Brussels is provoking and controlling.

Keywords

European Union, Green Deal, agency, narrative, ideology, European Commission, European Semester.

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