Strengthening and maintaining Just Transition goals in the EU Budget

Policy Brief

The EU’s legally binding commitment to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 demands a far-reaching socio-economic transformation. While the green transition promises sustainable prosperity, it also carries profound and unequal social and economic consequences. To meet this challenge, a just transition ensuring fairness, inclusivity, and social protection is essential and should be supported in the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). 

The policy brief starts by analysing how the current MFF addresses eco-social risks, notably in carbon-intensive regions and vulnerable communities, through different instruments such as the Just Transition Fund (JTF), the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) and the ‘galaxy’ of ETS-derived funds (Innovation, Modernisation, Social Climate Funds).

It further argues that, to improve how eco-social risks are addressed and future-proof the EU’s just transition agenda, five policy goals should be central in the next MFF

(1) ensuring inclusive and participatory governance

(2) strengthening territorial resilience

(3) developing an eco-social security system

(4) preparing workers and communities for profound transformations

(5) investing in knowledge and governance capacity.

Finally, the policy brief proposes to achieve these just transition policy goals through combining different strategies: maintaining a dedicated fund for just transition, mainstreaming different just transition principles across EU funds and enhancing local knowledge and capacities. To be aligned with the European Green Deal objectives, the EU Budget must be steered towards the promotion of just transition goals in the EU.  

The policy brief was written by Amandine Crespy, professor of political science at the Université libre de Bruxelles and Tiago Moreira Ramalho, postdoctoral fellow at the Université libre de Bruxelles. It was produced in the context of a collaboration with Solidar.