Polarisation in the European Parliament: Still Driving Ambition and Leadership in EU Climate and Energy Policy?

Traditionally, the European Parliament (EP) has been more ambitious than other EU institutions in climate and energy policy, profiling itself as a leader within the policy-making process. Its legislative amendments and political discourse often pushed the Council and Commission to increase their ambition. In light of populist trends and the growing representation of political groups from the extreme right end of the political spectrum, the parliament’s capacity to continue acting as a driving force could be compromised. The 2014 European elections brought more such parties into the EP, which tend to be climate skeptic or unambitious on climate and energy policy. This observation would suggest that climate and energy policy has become a more polarised and contested issue; a development which could decrease the EP’s overall level of ambition and proclaimed leadership. This paper analyses the polarisation on internal and external EU climate and energy policy in the 2009-2014 and the 2014-2019 European Parliament. We will conduct a systematic discourse analysis of policy documents and debate/speech transcripts to trace and understand the dynamics and politicisation of climate and energy policy in the EP. Using the qualitative data analysis NVivo, we will categorise Members of the European Parliament’s discourse on the legislative proposals that were adopted during the 2009-2014 and 2014-2019 terms but also debates on other proposals and events such as the United Nations climate negotiations. The analysis aims to establish whether and to what extend the EP still is a leader in EU climate and energy policy-making and to what extent the new or strengthened political groups’ discourse differs from that of the traditional political groups, in particular the EPP, S&D, ALDE and Greens. We aim to reflect on the future of the EP’s role in European climate and energy policy based on our findings on the polarisation dynamics and the EP’s role as ambition driver.