The European Parliament and Fridays for Future: analysing reactions to a new environmental movement by Europe’s climate policy champion

Pollex, Jan; Berker, Lars E.

Abstract

The Fridays for Future movement has shaped public debates on climate policy all over Europe and beyond in recent years. It demands politicians to take action and fulfil the promises of the Paris Agreement. This article turns to the European Union and asks how the European Parliament met this movement. In doing so, we reflect potential tensions between its reputation as an environmental policy champion and the most direct link to the European demos on the one side and its composition of various political groups on the other side. Indeed, our analysis shows most political groups in the Parliament, even conservatives and liberals, support the movement. This is somewhat surprising given their general stances on environmental and climate policy. To explain the broad support given to Fridays for Future, we turn to the inner-parliamentary dynamics and the overall status of the Parliament in the supranational political system.