Unpolitical climate and energy politics?

In their ‘Unpolitics’ framework, Ripoll Servent and Zaun argue that rejecting the daily rules of political interaction coins populist parties’ behaviour in the European Council. In this framework, opponents of new proposals in the European council are said to fall into either of two groups: those that use their opposition to extract side payments and those that categorically oppose any cooperation and the underlying norms of policymaking. Populist governments are said to fall into the latter group. In addition, populist governments of far-right political orientation are often cited as the most important opponents of far-reaching climate politics within the European Union, usually on economic of energy security grounds. In this contribution, we explore the extent to which the ‘Unpolitics’ framework can be applied to climate and energy politics. To this end, we empirically investigate the theory for in-depth case studies of the Hungarian and Polish right-wing populist governments and their behaviour in various European institutions, such as the council and the European parliament. We particularly scrutinise two cases, and potential interactions between them. The EU’s Climate Law, and how Poland achieved a partial exemption from the Net Zero 2050 goal. Secondly, the extent to which Hungary has shaped the EU’s foreign energy policy, related to sanctions and boycotts of Russian fuels. For both we explore the diplomatic strategies involved and the effect on negotiations, and outcomes. Thereby, we examine the boundary conditions of ‘Unpolitics’.