Rubén Vezzoni
Is the thrust for a bold environmental sustainability agenda in the EU being swamped by geopolitical considerations?In the spring of 2025, almost exactly three years after the launch of the REPowerEU plan, the centrality of the newly paired environmental and energy policy is giving way to rearmament of EU member countries.The shift from the climate to the military agenda is symbolised by the turn to the ReArm Europe plan: "a once-in-a-generation surge in European defence investment".Hailed as a long-due rejoinder to the Russian enemy at the doorstep, the geopolitics of rearmament are also deepening the EU's ties not only with the North Atlantic Alliance but also with the fossil-fuel regime of the United States.In the midst of a militarisation craze, alternative geopolitics based on non-military national security strategies, coupled with a rapid transition to low-carbon energy, are being sidelined.