From champion to opponent: the European Parliament as an environmental actor in turbulent times.

Early literature on the European Parliament (EP) typically identified it as an environmental champion that could be relied upon to strengthen Commission environmental policy proposals, to allow access to green non-governmental organisations and to provide opportunities for the election of green party representatives. It was suggested that extending the power of the EP via the ordinary legislative procedure (OLP) was important in securing democratic input into policies and in bolstering environmental ambition. Moreover, the combination of the high salience of climate change and strong performance of the Green Group in the 2019 European Parliament elections led many to expect that the ninth European Parliament (EP9) session would be characterised by high environmental ambition. Indeed, von der Leyen’s pursuit of the European Green Deal (EGD) was designed at least in part to secure the support of the chamber for her mandate as Commission President. However, the EP’s positions on a number of high-profile EGD files in EP9 and the growth of representation of the radical right in the 2024 to 2029 session (EP10), raise the question of whether the Parliament’s reputation as an environmental champion is outdated and it is now better viewed as an opponent of progressive environmental policy. Some authors have advanced a more nuanced view, suggesting that the EP has been prepared to support climate legislation under the EGD but has taken a harder position on nature and chemicals policy. These arguments raise the prospect that the EP remains a climate champion but is less reliable on other environmental legislation, begging the questions about whether, where and why the EP is prepared to strengthen or weaken the Commission’s environmental policy proposals. This paper reviews the extant literature identifying the main planks of the argument that the EP is an environmental champion and then tests the assumptions underpinning that conceptualisation against evidence from 2019 to 2026 encompassing the Parliament’s ninth term of office (EP9) and the first part of its tenth (EP10). The paper argues that increased policy turbulence, indicated by the rise of the radical right and attendant shift to the right of the European People’s Party, have been critical in shaping the positions adopted by the Parliament. It finds that whilst the empowerment of the Parliament may have historically led to greener legislation, that can no longer be taken for granted leading to important normative and strategic questions about the relationship between democracy and environmental ambition in the EU.