The European Union in the time of crises: the internal struggle against the ideology of growth

Abstract: In the recent years, a growing body of research across both the social and natural sciences coming from a Marxist tradition has been focusing on the correlation between greenhouse gases emissions and economic development through the modern times. Throughout various research, the scholars argued that the link responsible for the climatic crisis lies in the very premise of the current economic model – reliance on relentless growth. Although economic growth is arguably beneficial for developing states in providing necessary social structures, it reaches its limits in the developed states and leads to severe consequences, such as environmental degradation and socioeconomic pitfalls. Thus for the developed countries to move away from the danger of eventual collapse (both on global and national level), the governments must begin to abandon the harmful pursuit of economic growth. The European Union (EU), an organisation consisting of 28 wealthy states, has for many years now been faced with numerous crises, starting from the Great Recession, through immigration and growing social inequalities, to the peril of climate change. This situation has led many to question the very survival of the Union contributing to the popularisation of dangerous far-right politics all across member states. It appears that the precarious situation the EU is currently in, there are no opportunities for alternative strategies such as de-growth. However, as an Italian politician and philosopher, Antonio Gramsci reflected when commenting on European interwar period, the crisis is precisely the right moment for a critical transition. As Gramsci indicated, it is up to the opposition leaders to ensure that the opportunity is utilised properly, and the alternative thought ultimately succeeds. This thesis therefore aimed to explore the opportunity for an economic transition by analysing the political and economic discourses of the European Union as well as its view on crises and growth as reflected in the key financial and climate strategies. In order to study the opposition actors, the paper analysed the documents of two opposing parties operating within the EU - the European Green Party (EGP) and the Democracy for Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25). The thesis found that the direction of the EU was dominated by the ideology of growth leading to four severe consequences, namely (1) depoliticization of citizens and climate crisis, (2) instrumentalization of people, nature, and crisis, (3) underestimation of crises, (4) universalisation of harmful economic vision. When exploring opening windows for a transition, the paper found that an opportunity arose when focusing on concepts less imbued with political ideologies, such as participation or stability, both of which have proven to provide insight into the question of leadership and possible response to the current climate instability.