The European Green Deal in the face of rising radical right-wing

The next section will outline the core characteristics of populist parties, specify some of the reasons behind the strengthening of the radical right, and explain how their resistance towards energy and climate policy could add to the difficulty to the transition. [...] — Why are populist parties on the rise? The return of populism has been linked to the negative socio-economic impacts of the financial crisis of 200833, as the case of Greece showed during the subsequent eurozone crisis in 2009. [...] In this context, many citizens feel that the traditional political shifts and the consensus between parties on the left and the right neither can provide an alternative to the status quo nor respond to fears in the face of insecurities. [...] When the big debate over the federal government’s proposal for a Building Energy Act68 to ban gas and oil boiler installations from 2024 broke out during the summer of 2023, AfD (which belongs to the Identity and Democracy group in the EP) quickly turned to capitalise on the electorate’s fears of social and economic downscaling in the context of high inflation69. [...] In the midst of the political debacle, the radical right used the heat pump as a symbol for the Government’s unaffordable energy and climate policy71.