Climate Security or Justice? The Governance Paradox of the European Green Deal under Turbulence

The European Union's climate diplomacy has historically relied on projecting regulatory norms and legal standards as soft power instruments. The European Green Deal exemplified this approach, positioning the EU as a normative power towards global sustainability. Yet the shift towards competitiveness and security concerns—crystallized in the move from Fit-for-55 to the updated 2040 framework and the Clean Industrial Deal—has fundamentally altered the governance architecture underlying EU climate policy. This paper argues that the reframing of climate and energy transitions as existential security threats triggers exceptional legal mechanisms and accelerated procedures that systematically weaken distributive, procedural, and recognition justice protections, thereby creating a "governance paradox": expanding climate ambition whilst eroding the democratic resilience intended to legitimize implementation. Drawing on securitization theory and the concept of governing with versus against turbulence, the paper examines how the discursive and institutional framing of climate action as a security imperative justifies emergency legislative bases, compressed timelines, and reduced accountability mechanisms. Securitization induces short-term crisis stabilization logics, privileging expedited instruments over the deliberative governance structures necessary for sustained societal buy-in and just transition commitments. The conceptualization of turbulence and democracy in this context reveals how securitizing moves, whilst responding to immediate geopolitical and economic pressures, simultaneously de-securitize sustainability commitments that previously anchored EU external legitimacy. Methodologically, the paper operationalizes this argument through a structured justice scorecard mechanism that codes three successive legislative cycles—pre-turbulence baseline (2018–2019), turbulence onset (2021–2022), and competitiveness pivot (2024–2025)—across three dimensions: exceptional legal instruments (securitization intensity), procedural justice (transparency, notice periods, standing rights), and distributive-recognition justice (energy poverty mitigation, vulnerable group identification, benefit-sharing mechanisms). The analysis examines core internal EU climate directives: the European Climate Law, Fit for 55 package (Emissions Trading Directive, Renewable Energy Directive III, Energy Efficiency Directive), Social Climate Fund, and emergency permitting provisions under the recast Renewable Energy Directive. Data sources include regulatory texts, Commission impact assessments, European Parliament reports, and CJEU case law on environmental procedure and locus standi rights. Coding employs binary indicators (presence/absence of exceptional procedures, explicit justice language) and scalar measures (procedure acceleration timelines, depth of justice provisions) enabling quantitative comparison of securitization-justice correlations. Three testable mechanisms organize the analysis: instrument substitution (emergency basises correlate with weaker procedural safeguards), venue shift (justice provisions migrate from legislative text to secondary instruments), and justice attenuation (high-level commitments thin across implementation stages). Empirically, expedited permitting pathways compress community consultation timelines from 90+ days to 10–30 days, and the Social Climate Fund's implementation reveals systematic gaps between legislative energy-poverty targeting and actual distribution mechanisms. The paper concludes that the EU faces a critical juncture: either recommit to desecuritized, deliberative governance frameworks that prioritize justice and democratic resilience, or accept that accelerated transition requires fundamental recalibration away from normative soft power. This choice will shape not only the legitimacy of the EGD's implementation but the trajectory of European integration amid contested climate governance.