Political Barriers to Implementing Green Policies: The Role of Financial Incentives in the EU

Kata Barbara Moravecz is currently enrolled in the MSc European Politics and Policy at UCL. Her essay won third prize in a GGI student essay competition on biodiversity and climate change.

Mounting scientific evidence suggests that rapid, ambitious and far-reaching policy interventions are needed to address accelerating climate change, biodiversity loss and other pressing environmental issues (IPCC, 2018; IPBES, 2019; UNEP, 2021). Yet, such evidence alone is not sufficient to drive the implementation of policy solutions. The lack of political will to create environmentally conscious policies is a constant obstacle to the rapid deployment of effective climate and environmental action. In this essay, I explore why many parties are ideologically disinclined to implement green policies. For a group of traditional, autocratic or nationalistic parties (TAN parties) green values are often associated with the liberal and alternative values of their opposition (GAL parties). Therefore, neither these socially conservative parties nor their supporters are ideologically inclined to tackle climate change. I argue that an excellent way to resolve this issue quickly is to implement financial incentives that can motivate governments led by TAN parties to adopt environmentally friendly solutions. The EU’s upcoming budget that puts a special emphasis on green projects has already achieved visible shifts in the politics of Hungary’s Fidesz and Poland’ PiS governments, two of the most conservative parties in the whole Union.

Ideology and government rationality

To understand how particular governments and parties decide whether it is in their interest to adopt green policies we first need to look at their overarching goals. Large governing parties mostly are office seeking parties (Storm, 1990). This means that, rather than maximizing their votes or reaching a particular policy, their primary goal is to remain in office (ibid.). Therefore, even if green issues become increasingly important in politics (Carter, 2013), many socially conservative parties will likely choose to remain apathetic or even oppositional to the issue. As long as their voters’ loyalty does not depend on them pursuing ambitious environmental policies, these governing parties will be disinclined to cater to the needs of other, more environmentally conscious voters, who are not necessary for their victory.

These dynamics are further intensified by the emergence of a new ideological dimension in party competition (Hooghe and Marks, 2009). Previously, party competition was mainly based on the traditional left-right divide, which encompassed social class as its main cleavage. Lately, we can observe a new set of transnational cleavages becoming increasingly important. Parties either embrace GAL (green-alternative-liberal), or TAN (traditional-authoritarian-nationalist) values. While parties do not hold all elements of the GAL-TAN values to equal importance – for example, one may be primarily green, or primarily nationalist – green values tend to be associated with socially liberal or metropolitan values (ibid.). Therefore, TAN governing parties are unlikely to embrace policies they associate with their opponents. This theoretical claim is also supported by empirical evidence. As Carter (2013) observes, in Europe, socially liberal, strongly left-wing parties were the first to seize on the issue of the environment, and continue to be the most supportive of ambitious green policies. This association of environmentalism with one side of the ideological spectrum creates a political barrier for more conservative parties to adopt green policies.

Breaking this ideological deadlock is challenging. Notably, rising public awareness of climate change and environmental degradation does not automatically translate into stronger support for ambitious action from TAN party voters. Indeed, where ideological positions are entrenched, growing political salience of these issues may even create more significant political divides (McCright et al. 2016). Therefore, office seeking conservative parties that delay or obstruct green policies do not necessarily see their electoral basis challenged by greater climate awareness.

Financial incentives as a way out

Creating monetary incentives, for example by making significant funds available for environmentally friendly projects, provides a new and important stimulus for governments to consider green policies as a means to improve the economy. For any incumbent party, whatever their ideology, the economy of their country has to be a primary concern, as voters tend to strongly punish governments for poor economic performance (Anderson, 2000). Government parties will also be judged by voters depending on how they engage with the EU (Hooghe and Marks, 2009). This logic can also apply to any international funding. As long as voters know their government could potentially take international or EU funds, in this case for environmentally-friendly investments, but refuses to do so for ideological reasons, they can hold it responsible for the lost financial and job opportunities. As economic voting is the most statistically significant way voters evaluate government performance (Anderson, 2000; Hooghe and Marks, 2009) a governing party rationally should choose excess resources over preserving their critical standpoint towards green policies.

Case Study: Hungary and Poland

Hungary and Poland have had Christian conservative, illiberal governments since 2010 and 2015 respectively. Neither of the countries was committed to environmental policy. Hungary failed to solve its issues regarding poor air quality and the lack of natural water protection since joining the EU. This created significant health impacts and the continuous decrease of biodiversity (European Environmental Agency, 2020). Poland’s performance on environmental policy is even worse. The country is the most polluted member state and still heavily relies on its coal industry. It is noteworthy that Poland did introduce some climate policies, mainly due to previous EU funds dedicated to this goal (Janczewska, 2020). The significant increase in EU funds in the 2020 budget dedicated towards green objectives incentivised very rapid improvements for both states. Both the Fidesz and PiS government adopted a 2050 climate neutrality goal. Additionally, Hungary dedicated €1.5 towards green bonds (Darby, 2020), while Poland agreed to start decreasing its coal sector and investing in green energy, something it categorically refused to do before (Simon, 2020).

Conclusion

In conclusion, political incentives for governments to preserve the environment do not always exist. Especially socially conservative governments are often disinclined to embrace green policies, if these do not deliver competitive advantages. Yet, monetary incentives can help break this ideological barrier. The example of the 2020 EU budget shows that international funds for green investments can guide even very conservative governments towards environmentally friendly policies.

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