From Consensus to Contention: The Erosion of Green Deal Commitments Under Far-Right Pressure

This paper analyzes the erosion of cross-party consensus on EU climate policy by tracing the European People’s Party’s (EPP) repositioning on the European Green Deal (EGD) amid rising far-right contention. Although the EGD was initiated under an EPP-led Commission and initially received strong EPP backing, the party progressively reversed its stance over the 2019–2024 legislative cycle. By the 2024 European elections, the EPP had adopted far-right–aligned negative framings of the EGD and displayed increasing voting convergence with far-right MEPs. The paper investigates how and why formerly consensus-based EU climate proposals became deeply contested within the EPP party, and what role far-right pressure, discursive framing, and issue politization played in that shift.