The right to energy for all Europeans coalition : A case of green-red mobilization

This paper explores the potential for “environmental” (green) and “social” (red) European NGOs and trade unions to jointly mobilize, pursuing synergies between ecological/environmental and social goals, as well as to drive bottom-up policy change at the European Union level. The main research question is thus the fol-lowing: do European NGOs and trade unions conflict or cooperate on ‘eco-social’ challenges? To answer such question, the research focuses on the case of the ‘Right to Energy for All Europeans’ coalition. The coalition is an advocacy-oriented alliance of European social and green NGOs, as well as trade unions, aimed at eradicating energy poverty in Europe, mostly by exerting influence EU’ institutions concern-ing the “Clean Energy for All Europeans” legislative package. From a methodo-logical point of view, we rely on literature review and qualitative research methods, notably document analysis complemented by several semi-structured interviews with the members of the Coalition. We draw two main conclusions. First, bottom-up coordination is undermined by structural constraints (such as limited resources and compartmentalized policymaking), as well as by interest groups’ commitment to specific and potentially divergent interests. Indeed, coalition-building is always a strategic move and it is more likely to take the form of ad-hoc cooperation, than formalized coordination. Nevertheless, European green and social NGOs and trade unions display a cooperative attitude towards each other. This is coherent with our second finding, according to which these organizations have an incentive to cooperate, since they frequently endorse a ‘just transition’ paradigm. Con-trasting both powerful economic interests and the approach followed by Europe-an institutions, NGOs and trade unions are promoting a vision for Europe where social and environmental goals are harmoniously combined. Green-red alliances can thus be seen as bottom-up actions aimed to effectively mainstream ‘just transi-tion’ into policy demands and political strategies, hence giving their members an incentive to join.