Abstract
This article examines two questions. First, how far have the green and social policy objectives of the European Green Deal and the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) been translated into ‘eco-social policies’ (i.e. demonstrate a ‘socio-ecological’ dimension) in the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs) of four of the biggest beneficiary countries, namely, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain? And, second, how is the role of national welfare states articulated in these eco-social policies to support this just green transition? Our analysis shows first, that, although the analysed NRRPs have a socio-ecological dimension, this is very limited in terms of the share of ‘eco-social’ measures in the total number of policy measures in the NRRPs. Moreover, we find that the role of national welfare states in the identified eco-social policies of the NRRPs in the four country-cases we examine is significantly tilted in favour of what we call ‘benchmarking’ and ‘enabling’ functions, in contrast to what we call ‘buffering’ and ‘consensus-building’ functions. In that sense, the socio-ecological dimension of these national plans seems ‘unbalanced’ in terms of the functions that national welfare states play in it. The article concludes with some reflections on the implications of these findings for the role of EU policy legacies and frameworks and of national welfare states in shaping the emergence of eco-social policies as means to a just green transition and on some methodological challenges for the study of eco-social policies in the context of the European Green Deal and its implementation.
Keywords
Introduction
In its 2019 Communication on the European Green Deal (EGD), the European Commission (2019) spelled out its strategy for transforming the EU’s economy and societies with a view to achieve climate-neutrality by 2050. Besides proposing a growth strategy aimed at reconciling environmental and economic concerns, however, the EGD also refers to socio-ecological 1 challenges, demonstrating awareness that the transformations envisaged to achieve the green transition will have significant social impacts. To address these challenges, the EGD sets the objective of a ‘just transition’.
Launched in 2021, the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is one of the key EU instruments for financing and steering the Member State implementation of the EGD (Vanhercke and Verdun, 2021). The RRF reflects to some extent the EGD’s strategic orientation: besides having clearly defined green and social pillars, the RRF’s constitutive documents indicate some attention to the integration of these two dimensions, while also stating an ambition to adopt a just transition approach (European Commission, 2021). To draw on the RRF funds, Member States have had to devise, implement and regularly report on their National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs), whose reform and investment programmes need to comply with the objectives and fulfil financing and other conditions of the RRF. In that sense, the RRF is a tool through which the EU can influence national green and social policies, without, however, a priori prescribing their precise form.
The nexus between environmental and social spheres of sustainable development has spurred a growing field of research examining the links between welfare states and environmental issues, and how the former should adapt to deal with new social risks related to climate change and environmental degradation, and to respect planetary boundaries and satisfy human needs, thus leading to ‘sustainable welfare’ (Cotta, 2024; Gough, 2017; Gough et al., 2008; Hirvilammi and Koch, 2020). In this vein, the problematisation of the complex relationship between environmental and welfare policies as well as the paradoxes emerging from this relationships are also highlighted (Bailey, 2015; Hausknost, 2020).
A branch of this literature has been exploring the concept of ‘eco-social policies’ as policy tools which could effectively address the nexus between environmental and social spheres (Gough, 2017; Mandelli, 2022). Eco-social policies could thus be relevant in a just transition context to mutually reinforce the pursuit of environmental and social objectives (Sabato and Mandelli, 2024). Besides the policy dimension, the integration of the ecological and social dimensions in contemporary policymaking is also being studied from a more institutional angle, exploring possible linkages between domestic welfare states and ecological (or green) states (among others Zimmermann and Graziano, 2020; Mandelli, 2023). The focus of many such studies is on policy outcomes (i.e. country performances on environmental and social indicators), with less consideration for policies, even though the latter arguably contribute to outcomes (notable exceptions are Cotta et al., Unpublished manuscript; Domorenok and Trein, 2024).
Against this background, certain questions arise which this article seeks to answer. If the just transition objective of the EGD and the RRF requires integrated welfare and green transition policies, that is, eco-social policies, then to what extent have such policies been emerging in the NRRPs of member states? Moreover, how is the role of national welfare states articulated in any identified eco-social policies in the NRRPs to support just green transition? We address the above questions, first, by adopting the conceptualisation of eco-social (or socio-ecological) policies proposed by Mandelli (2022b), as ‘public policies explicitly pursuing both environmental and social policy goals in an integrated way’’ (p. 334) (italics in the original); second, by using the conceptualisation of potential welfare state functions in the green transition proposed in Sabato et al. (2021) and applied in Sabato and Theodoropoulou (2022) and Sabato and Mandelli (2024); and third, by identifying and analysing eco-social policy measures in the NRRPs of four EU countries, namely, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, to assess the relative importance of different functions of welfare states during green transition.
We have chosen to examine the NRRPs of these four countries – belonging to the ‘Southern Model’ of the welfare state (cf. Ferrera, 1996) – as the Southern model has been facing remarkable challenges (cf. Guillen et al., 2021), being characterised by weak social outcomes, such as high unemployment (including long-term) and high-income inequality (cf. Zimmermann and Graziano, 2020). Hence, it would, in principle, present more/weaker institutional gates potentially allowing for the emergence of eco-social policies (cf. Mandelli, 2023: 353). In addition, since the four countries are among the largest beneficiaries of earmarked RRF funds as a share of their gross domestic product (GDP), the potential value added of the RRF funds and, consequently, the influence of RRF conditions for funding on them should be considered, other things being equal, relatively higher than in other member states.
By answering these questions, our main contribution is in advancing the knowledge on the content of actual eco-social policies, which remains fragmented (cf. Cotta, 2024). At a second level, we develop our understanding of the extent to which the EU, through its policy tools, exerts influence (and what kind thereof) on national, especially welfare policies for implementing the EGD. The few studies which have investigated how and to what extent the RRF could promote eco-social policies have not empirically explored this question through NRRPs (Aglietta and Khanniche, 2021; Cerniglia and Saraceno, 2022; Rizzello, 2022; Rotondo et al., 2022; Sabato and Mandelli, 2024). An exception to this is Cotta et al. (Unpublished manuscript) which performs a large-N analysis of the integration quality of NRRP policies aiming at the green and social pillars of the RRF, however, not focusing specifically on policy measures defined as above.
By basing our case selection on a set of countries characterised by, broadly speaking, the same welfare state model, a variable that could condition the emergence of eco-social policies (Mandelli, 2023), we build upon and refine the research design of previous work by Sabato et al. (2021), Sabato and Theodoropoulou (2022) and Theodoropoulou et al. (2022) who also examined the content of NRRPs of various, more randomly chosen countries. This knowledge would add to the understanding of ‘different worlds of eco-social states’ (cf. Zimmermann and Graziano, 2020). As ensuring social fairness in the green transition is a precondition of the success of the whole EGD strategy according (European Commission, 2019), it is empirically important to understand how the role of national welfare states is articulated in the eco-social policies of the NRRPs.
The article is structured as follows. Section ‘Setting the scene: context, concepts and empirical approach’ first sketches out the EU and national contexts conditioning the content of the NRRPs; second, provides a conceptualisation of the functions that a welfare state could perform to enable just green transition; and third, spells out the empirical approach to our inquiry. Section ‘Evidence from national Recovery and Resilience Plans’ presents the mix of eco-social policies identified in the four countries’ NRRPs and draws some comparative insights from the findings. Section ‘Concluding remarks’ concludes and discusses some caveats, methodological challenges and pointers for future research.
Setting the scene: context, concepts and empirical approach
Framing the emergence of eco-social policies: the EU and domestic contexts
The NRRPs have not been compiled in a vacuum, but within frameworks shaped at the EU and the domestic levels. As already mentioned, the EGD’s ambition is to combine ‘green growth’ with addressing its social consequences, by making this a just transition, especially in terms of jobs and income losses due to changes in production (decarbonisation) and consumption patterns (Sabato and Mandelli, 2018). Just transition has a strong territorial connotation in the EGD, emphasising social investment policies to ensure worker employability in the territories hardest hit by economic restructuring, and thus constitutes the main objective of the Just Transition Mechanism (JTM) within the EGD (Sabato and Fronteddu, 2020). Sabato and Mandelli (2024) also note the focus of the EGD’s conceptualisation of just transition on social investment policies and the ambition to foster social and civic dialogue to build consensus.
These perspectives are further encountered in the RRF, where, as mentioned, to draw upon RRF funds, Member States must prepare NRRPs that meet several conditions in terms of funds allocation and content. Chief among these conditions is the requirement to spend at least 37% of requested funds on measures (investments or reforms) that contribute to the green transition. In proposing green transition measures, Member States are asked to consider their social dimension and their impact on equality, while explaining how these measures will contribute to a ‘just transition’.
In contrast, a softer conditionality is imposed for social objectives as Member States are not obliged to allocate a minimum share of requested RRF spending to social policy measures. Instead, they are only required to show that their NRRP measures contribute to the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR), without specific targets regarding the latter’s implementation or the improvement of social indicators (European Commission, 2019, 2020). Member States also need to show in their NRRPs that they are addressing the European Semester’s Country-Specific Recommendations (CSRs) issued to them in 2019 and 2020. Last but not least, the RRF is expected to finance non-recurring public expenditure, thus largely but not completely excluding current expenditure (e.g. social protection benefits or staff costs for the provision of public social services).
Overall, it can be argued that while the EU promotes the normative notion of a ‘just transition’, the frameworks conceptualising it (EGD, JTM and EPSR) and the related funding are geared predominantly towards (social) investment to improve peoples’ employability and labour market inclusion in the territories most affected by the transition. 2 This is consistent with the notion of productive welfare characterising the EPSR (Petmesidou et al., 2023) and the asymmetric financial conditionality between policies aiming at green and social objectives in the RRF. Moreover, being a growth strategy, the EGD does not address any questions of making social policies more sustainable and consistent with planetary boundaries. These broad normative orientations to promote a just transition notwithstanding, there are only relative vague and scarce indications in the EGD and the RRF, of what kinds of policies should be implemented to achieve these orientations.
Domestic factors, such as the political context and path dependence of past policy trajectories, are also likely to have conditioned the content of NRRPs and any socio-ecological dimension (Petmesidou et al., 2023). As for the former, besides partisan government orientations, dynamics of interaction with domestic stakeholders in preparing NRRPs (or the lack thereof) are deemed particularly important (Petmesidou et al., 2023). The patterns of these dynamics vary between Member States (Eurofound, 2022; Sabato et al., 2023), and our four country-cases (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) are no exception (Petmesidou et al., 2023).
As for past policy path dependence, in this article we pay particular attention to the role of the welfare state. As Mandelli (2023) hypothesises, weaker in terms of coverage and/or generosity welfare states are more likely to provide for ‘institutional gates’ that will open for the emergence of eco-social policies to address new, climate change-related, social risks. All four countries we study were traditionally – up until the 1980s – classified under the ‘Southern European’ welfare model (Ferrera, 1996), characterised at the time by functional and distributional imbalances. The emphasis on cash benefits made the Southern Welfare model look like an ‘extreme version’ of the transfer-centred social protection models akin to those encountered in continental Europe (Guillen et al., 2021: 149).
Under pressure from globalisation, ageing populations, the changing role of women in society and the labour market (and up until the Great Financial Crisis) there was some divergence within the group, with Spain and Portugal being more adept at growing their social protection systems and recalibrating them to new social risks (Guillen et al., 2021). Nevertheless, in comparison with the EU15, southern European countries remained more focused on social consumption than social investment spending (cf. Beramendi et al., 2015), and continued to underinvest in antipoverty policies. Under the economic pressures of the Euro crisis of the early 2010s, the welfare states of all four countries suffered in terms of spending cuts and worsening outcomes, in terms of unemployment (and long-term unemployment), with significant pressure on social spending. Thus, there was some convergence among the four in this respect, while the group diverged again from the EU15 as a whole in terms of public social expenditure (Guillen et al., 2021). Zimmermann and Graziano (2020) found that all of them had relatively bad performance as welfare states due to the high unemployment and income inequality.
This welfare state regime then would, in principle, create an institutionally more fertile ground for eco-social policies to emerge under the normative influence and financial opportunity afforded by the EGD and the RRF. Thus, we could expect a relatively robust presence of eco-social policies in their NRRPs.
Conceptualising the role of the welfare state in just transition
As mentioned in the introduction, we use Mandelli’s (2022b) definition of eco-social policies. Furthermore, we adopt the conceptualisation proposed by Sabato et al. (2021) and refined in Sabato and Mandelli (2024) for the four functions that welfare states should perform to facilitate a just green transition. These functions capture two key dimensions of just transition, namely, the distributional and procedural justice (cf. McCauley and Heffron, 2018; Newell and Mulvaney, 2013), and combine it with more traditional social policy orientations such as social protection and social investment. Largely relying on the description provided in Sabato and Theodoropoulou (2022) and Sabato and Mandelli (2024), we overview these functions briefly.
Benchmarking function refers to the case when the principles and rights embedded in the welfare states are ultimately intertwined with green transition policies. In particular, while the greening policies aim at achieving climate change objectives, they should also align with social goals by defining social criteria and objectives. Examples include designing low-carbon energy policies or environmentally friendlier fiscal systems which address their regressive distributional consequences, by, for example, protecting vulnerable households or ensuring their adequate and affordable access to clean energy.
Enabling function refers to the case when welfare policies pursuing mainly social goals are aligned with the goals of the green transition, which could be enabled in two respects. First, welfare state’s social investment function by fostering capabilities and human capital (e.g. training, reskilling and active labour market policies [ALMPs]) could facilitate the navigation of workers across sectors in the labour markets by making them gain new competences during the green transition. Second, welfare policies could be designed in a way to reduce their ecological footprint, such as providing affordable social housing that meet energy performance goals.
Buffering function focuses mainly on social protection and assistance policies (Sabato and Theodoropoulou, 2022), which serve as buffers for all citizens against risks of vulnerabilities during major transitions (for example, unemployment and minimum income schemes, healthcare and pensions). These policies can ensure that all citizens are protected during the transition and tackle any ensuing increases in inequalities (Sabato and Mandelli, 2024; Sabato and Theodoropoulou, 2022). Income support measures for workers in sectors facing economic restructuring, other transition incomes, vouchers or in-kind provisions (e.g. universal basic services) targeting people experiencing challenges due to climate change or green transition policies are among the examples of the buffering function (Buchs, 2021).
Consensus-building or conflict management function highlights the role of welfare institutions in helping find a consensus on issues or conflicts deriving from green transition. Social partners and social dialogue structures would be important elements in managing this function towards the objective of a just transition. Moreover, involving a wider array of civil society actors would also be key in aiming for a consensus or managing potential conflicts in the transition phases (Sabato and Theodoropoulou, 2022: 48–49).
Investigating NRRPs for eco-social policies 3 : empirical approach
In studying the NRRPs, we identified policy interventions as being eco-social policies, first, by asking whether they explicitly integrate environmental and social objectives. Having identified the relevant measures, we characterised them with regard to the primary function that welfare state policy plays in green transition alongside the four aforementioned functions. For example, an eco-social policy intervention is classified under the benchmarking function if its main objective is to contribute to the green transition by simultaneously integrating social concerns and objectives. As with most attempts at classification, the classification of an identified eco-social policy under one welfare policy function or another may not be mutually exclusive: some measures may pertain to more than one welfare state function. However, the identification of a ‘prevalent’ or primary function makes it possible to attribute measures to a specific function. 4
The NRRPs of Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain were analysed using text analysis, following a number of agreed steps to ensure consistency in the identification and interpretation of national measures. To understand the overall context, we first read the parts containing a general introduction to the plan and overviews of the measures included. On that basis, specific components of the NRRPs were then identified as likely to include reforms and investments simultaneously linked to social and green transition policies. These components were further examined, in search of measures fulfilling the explicitness and integration criteria of our analytical framework. It is important to note that the explicitness criterion was assessed in two ways. First, for most measures, the objective of integrating ‘green’ and social goals was clearly stated in the NRRPs. Second, in a few cases, such a link could be clearly inferred from the ‘position’ of the measure in the NRRP (e.g. social policy interventions or objectives included in sections referring to the RRF’s green transition pillar).
The selected measures were then summarised in English and assigned to one of the four functions of the welfare state identified in the analytical framework. Finally, to ensure a consistent interpretation of the selected measures, all of them were discussed collectively between the authors. Overall, we examined a total of 51 measures: 11 for both Greece and Italy, 15 for Portugal, and 14 for Spain. Table 1 provides the full list of measures per country and by welfare state function.
Measures included in the analysis (by country and function of the welfare state).
In some cases, measures aiming to enable citizens affected by the green transition to take advantage of the opportunities that it will offer will be shaped in concertation with social partners. They thus also present an ‘indirect’ consensus-building dimension and are listed in brackets in this table.
Evidence from National Recovery and Resilience Plans 5
Greece
The Greek NRRP was submitted in April 2021 and is one of the largest ones (as a percentage of the country’s GDP), seeking total funding of 31.2 billion euros (€), of which €17.8 billion would be in grants and €12.7 billion in loans. The plan was structured under four pillars: green transition, digital transformation, skills and social cohesion, and private investment and institutional reform. The first and third pillars account for most of the requested RRF funds (Government of Greece, 2021). The programme was based on the Development Plan for the Greek economy, a blueprint drafted by a committee of ‘wise’ men and women. The blueprint identified several problems and priorities for the growth of the Greek economy after the pandemic and set objectives and actions to address these problems (Theodoropoulou et al., 2022). Chief among them was the convergence of per capita real income with the EU average, in addition to improved social cohesion and better environmental performance (Theodoropoulou 2022).
The emphasis in the Greek NRRP has been on mobilising productive investment, with a special focus on green investments. The aim is to meet green (transition) and economic (job creation) goals, while a social investment emphasis on skills, vocational training and lifelong learning is expected to provide workers with access to the jobs that will be created. The same applies to the regions identified as eligible for funding from the Just Transition Fund (JTF). Overall, we identified 11 measures out of a total of 175 (or 6.3% of total) in the Greek NRRP, explicitly integrating policies with green and social objectives.
This focus on productive investment and many of the specific focus areas are in line with the CSRs addressed to Greece in 2019 and 2020. Specifically, it was recommended that investment-related economic policy should target a series of areas related to the green transition (sustainable transport and logistics, environmental protection, energy efficiency, renewable energy and interconnection projects), but also digital technologies, infrastructure and skills, education, employability, healthcare (spending on which had been dramatically cut during the 2010s under the economic adjustment programmes) and urban renewal, taking also regional disparities into consideration and the need to ensure social inclusion.
The priority given to productive investment seems sensible for a country whose population saw its income drop by around 25% during the economic adjustment programmes between 2010 and 2018. Achieving sustained high growth rates also seems to be the main objective of government policies as the least painful way of reducing the very high public debt ratio. The assumption that investment and social policies with a productive orientation would be the best hope for addressing the dramatic deterioration in Greek social protection and labour market inequalities in the 2010s has been consistent with the economic-liberal orientation of the centre-right government in office since 2019. The CSRs addressed to Greece in 2019 and 2020 also urged the government to continue and complete reforms in line with the post-programme commitments agreed with the Eurogroup in 2018, laying the ground for further future public debt reprofiling measures for Greece, to ensure its public debt sustainability in the longer run.
Coming to integrated eco-social policies, under the benchmarking function we find measures aimed at energy transition, with a specific focus on vulnerable groups or communities. Investment is planned for soil restoration in old coal-mining areas in Western Macedonia and Megalopolis (1.1-Investment 5), which (along with their communities) are also particularly affected in the context of the JTM. A reform will create a framework for defining households experiencing energy poverty and introduce mechanisms for monitoring and reducing energy poverty (1.2-Reform 2), given that a relatively high share of Greek households have been unable to keep their homes adequately warm. There are also investment plans for the renovation and energy performance upgrading of private residential and public and local authority infrastructure and buildings, some used for social services (1.2-Investments 1 and 3). The Greek NRRP also contains an investment programme to upgrade water systems in developing regions, most notably in Western Greece (Arta and Preveza) and some islands (Lesvos, Lefkada and Corfu) (1.4-Investment 2). Another investment programme targets anti-flooding works, aimed at reducing flooding risk, provision of irrigation water in high drought risk areas in summer and reinforcement of efficient water management in selected regions (Crete, Western Greece, Peloponnese and Central Greece) (1.4-Investments 9, 10, 12).
Under the enabling function, there are programmes aimed at reforming ALMPs (3.1-Reform 2) and promoting special employment programmes for regions eligible for support from the JTF. Investment in a new strategy for lifelong learning and the national system of skills upgrading is aimed at radically reviewing and modernising the system for upskilling the active population (3.2-Reform 1). In this context, a large horizontal programme is planned to train workers in new skills (digital, green and soft) based on skills gap analysis and targeting specific group needs. Reform of vocational education and training is also planned (3.2-Reform 2), for example, to develop and certify 200 professional profiles in the energy, environment and digital sectors.
No policy interventions were planned aimed explicitly at meeting green and social objectives, which could be classified under the welfare state’s buffer or consensus-building functions. In addition to the government’s liberal orientation, adversarial and weak trade unions meant that there was only symbolic social dialogue while designing the plan (Petmesidou et al., 2023).
Italy
For its NRRP, Italy requested €191.5 billion in grants and loans, the maximum available under the RRF (European Commission, 2021). The Italian NRRP focuses on three strategic priorities: (1) modernisation and innovation, (2) the ecological transition and (3) social inclusion (Government of Italy, 2021). It is made up of 16 components and structured around six areas of intervention, labelled ‘Missions’. According to the European Commission (2021), the Italian NRRP is expected to address a significant subset of the relevant CSRs issued to Italy in 2019 and 2020. This includes recommendations to improve the sustainability of public finances, increase labour market efficiency and fairness, improve educational outcomes and boost upskilling and reskilling (particularly in relation to the green and digital transitions).
The plan was prepared by two different governments, the Conte II government and the Draghi government. The latter was supported by a broad parliamentary majority. Stakeholders were consulted during preparation of the plan. Although national trade unions considered their involvement far from optimal, social partners were able to influence the drafting of some parts of the NRRP (Sabato et al., 2023).
In terms of its strategic priorities and missions, the plan addresses economic, environmental and social issues, stressing interconnections between the various goals and measures (Petmesidou et al., 2023). However, the actual level of integration may be limited. For instance, in terms of sustainable development the Italian plan has been criticised because some of its components rely on a ‘silo logic’, failing to link reforms and investments across policy domains (Alleanza Italiana per lo Sviluppo Sostenible (AsviS), 2021: 9), while qualitative and quantitative targets are sometimes missing, especially in eco-social areas (AsviS, 2021). As Petmesidou et al. (2023) noted, the Italian NRRP never refers to the notion of a just transition, and ‘[t]he issue of the potential social costs that an ecological transition might imply is totally overlooked’ (p. 505).
Our analysis shows that the Italian NRRP includes few socio-ecological initiatives: only 11 measures (out of 183 or 6% of the total) corresponded to our definition of eco-social policies. These measures concern the welfare state’s benchmarking and enabling functions.
The benchmarking function is particularly evident in measures in the ‘ecological transition’ part of the NRRP, for example, to enhance the energy efficiency of residential and public buildings. As regards the former, one might mention the extension to 2023 of the bonus for buildings’ energy efficiency and safety (the so-called ‘Superbonus’ – M2C3-I2.1 6 ). This measure – at an expected cost of about €14 billion (Petmesidou et al., 2023) – consists of a 110% tax deduction (over a 5-year period) for expenses on renovations of residential buildings aimed at improving energy efficiency and safety. Some aspects of the Superbonus, such as the possibility to preventively transfer tax discounts to third parties (e.g. financial institutions), could particularly help low-income households, frontloading the financial investment needed for renovation. According to the European Commission (2021: 58), this measure – together with other measures in the same component – will not only contribute to the green transition (increasing energy efficiency and requalification of buildings), but also strengthen social resilience and reduce vulnerabilities (lower energy bills would help to mitigate energy poverty risks, particularly in the poorest performing buildings occupied by low-income and vulnerable families). There is a separate measure in the NRRP for renovating schools and educational buildings (or building new facilities, when needed – M2C3-I1.1). While this measure aims primarily at reducing emissions and increasing safety against earthquakes, it is also expected to improve teaching and ensure sustainable development of territories and communities.
The ‘Inclusion and Cohesion’ part of the Italian NRRP addresses social policies. Two measures in the ‘Employment Policies’ component – on women entrepreneurship and the ‘Universal civil service’ – pertain to the welfare state’s enabling function. Indeed, these measures aim primarily to promote, respectively, women’s’ labour market participation (M5C1-I1.2) and young people’s active citizenship (M5C1-I2.1), including by funding green transition projects. However, it is not possible to anticipate how many projects of this type will actually be implemented and, all in all, the link between these two measures and green transition policies seems rather weak. The second component of Mission 5 concerns ‘Social infrastructure, families, communities and the third sector’. This includes two measures for urban regeneration, notably investment in urban renewal projects aimed at reducing social exclusion (M5C2-I2.1) and investment in ‘Integrated Urban Plans’ (M5C2-I2.2). While aimed primarily at improving socioeconomic contexts of the targeted urban areas, they are expected to do so ‘with particular attention to environmental aspects’. Another measure in this component (M5C2-I2.3) supports the creation and renovation of public residential buildings and social housing. This is to be implemented without increasing land consumption and by relying on green innovation, with a view to ‘greening’ the social housing infrastructure.
We did not identify measures that would be classified under the buffering function in the green transition in the Italian NRRP. The consensus building/conflict management function also appears to be marginal. While no explicit references to the role of social dialogue in the green transition emerged from the text analysis, some of the measures mentioned above are expected to rely on the involvement of an array of societal stakeholders.
Portugal
Portugal has been facing severe effects of the climate crisis, including wildfires and drought. In this environmental context, coupled with the recent pandemic, the NRRP is set to be one of the principal financial instruments in a wider framework under the aegis of the ‘Portugal 2030 Strategy’, an economic, social and environmental vision for the next decade (Government of Portugal, 2021).
The plan is closely aligned with the CSRs of 2019 and 2020, focusing investment on low-carbon technologies as well as energy transition, taking regional disparities into account. Measures to address labour market challenges also feature prominently. Prepared largely by the socialist Costa government supported by other leftist parties and the Greens in parliament, the plan’s development nevertheless marks a broader political consensus, also partly reflecting the corporatist compromises of the 1990s. Such cooperation has been fairly intermittent in recent decades (Petmesidou et al., 2023).
The original plan amounts to €16.6 billion, composed of €14 billion in grants and €2.7 billion in loans. It was structured under 20 components grouped under three headings: (1) resilience, (2) climate transition and (3) digital transition. The NRRP repeatedly refers to the interdependent nature of various measures taken under these three dimensions (e.g. Government of Portugal, 2021: 73). Overall, we identified 15 measures explicitly integrating green and social objectives out of a total of 120 (12.5%). Our analysis suggests that most of the measures fall under the welfare state’s benchmarking and enabling functions, with few interventions under the buffering and consensus-building functions.
The Portuguese NRRP contains various policy interventions under the welfare state’s benchmarking function. As part of a long-term national strategy to combat energy poverty, one reform (TC-r28) is aimed at increasing the energy efficiency of residential buildings, while ensuring support for the most vulnerable consumers. A sustainable mobility package with a reform (TC-r30) and an investment (TC-C15-i05) is aimed at increasing the availability of clean public transport systems. While contributing to green objectives, this package would also promote territorial and social cohesion, and create jobs in the sector by expanding road networks. The transport reform also foresees subsidy schemes to increase public transport use and improve social resilience, supporting particularly vulnerable users.
The forest reservation and landscape management schemes (RE-r19 and RE-c08-i01, RE-r21 and RE-C08-i04) will implement an integrated management system to increase capacities to fight rural fires and ensure the resilience of rural communities living nearby. Another example is the promotion of efficient water management to preserve resources and support communities facing water scarcity problems, while also investing in measures to reduce flood risks (RE-r22). Moreover, the proposed ‘Research and innovation agenda for the sustainability of agriculture and food industry’ (RE-r12) also aims at more inclusive and egalitarian agriculture to attract young people and women, increasing their labour market participation.
The ‘Sustainable bioeconomy’ reform (TC-r25) and ‘Bioeconomy’ investment (TC-C12-i01) include an enabling function. By promoting the shift from fossil-based materials towards high-value added products (e.g. textiles and footwear) from biological sources, they aim not only to increase resource efficiency and sustainability, but also to create long-term employment in these sectors. The sustainable bioeconomy reform also includes a measure aimed at communicating with, training and educating people about sustainable bioeconomy, thereby promoting responsible consumption.
In terms of the welfare state’s enabling function, one investment measure (RE-C01-i01) is aimed at increasing energy efficiency of hospitals and other care buildings. The plan is to provide staff with electric vehicles (EVs) to offer mobile and home-care services to remote areas. Various investments in qualifications and skills (RE-C06-i04) mainly address shortages of fundamental skills and competences. While this falls mainly under social objectives, it would also help with managing the challenges of green (and digital) transition. Digital education reform (TD-r37), addressing the need to adapt existing curricula and education to the new labour market needs, is also relevant for green (and digital) transition. Another investment measure (RE-C03-i01) foresees providing home support and other services (e.g. food and hygiene) to vulnerable people (e.g. elderly, people with disabilities) to increase their independence by acquiring EVs.
Regarding the buffering function, only we have only found one measure (TC-r28). The awarding of 100,000 vouchers (‘efficiency cheques’) to families in energy poverty to support energy efficiency improvements will provide social protection to poorer households in the face of the green transition. We did not identify any measures under the consensus-building function.
Spain
Spain submitted its NRRP in April 2021, requesting the full amount of its initial grant allocation, €69.5 billion without loans. The plan was designed by a centre-left/left government coalition, which actively engaged the social partners in the process, taking their views into account and forging a tripartite consensus at the central level.
The NRRP has three objectives: (1) boosting economic activity and job creation to overcome the short-term effects of the pandemic, (2) supporting the broad structural transformation of the economy and (3) steering the transformation towards a more sustainable and resilient growth model (Government of Spain, 2021). To meet these objectives, it envisages four cross-cutting lines of action: the green transition, digital transformation, social and territorial cohesion, and gender equality. The European Commission (2021) concluded that the Spanish NRRP addresses a significant subset of the economic and social challenges identified in the 2019–2020 CSRs.
We identified 14 measures aimed explicitly at meeting green and social objectives out of a total of 211 (6.6%) in the Spanish NRRP. These measures pertain to the welfare state’s benchmarking, enabling and consensus-building functions, whereas one of the proposed investments could be classified under the buffering function. Most of the proposed measures fall under the benchmarking function, covering different sub-types, namely, investments in improving the energy efficiency of private (depending on income levels) and/or public buildings providing social services (C2.I1); the construction of social residences for rental in energy efficient buildings (C2.I2); reforms of public spending and taxation systems; and the management of natural resources. These would primarily benefit vulnerable groups.
Investment in just transition is planned to contribute, among other things, to the social and territorial cohesion of particular areas and their populations affected by the energy transition (C10.I1). The planned investment will create employment and activity in the short term, foster change, prepare the ground for implementation of the Spanish Territorial Just Transition Plan and boost these areas’ economic development.
The Spanish NRRP also includes sustainable forest management reforms (C4.R3). These will update and revise the earlier forest strategies by developing a package of measures to promote the forestry sector as a whole with the goal to meet multiple objectives of international and national environmental policies, as well as the economic and social revitalisation of extensive rural areas currently facing serious depopulation problems (Government of Spain, 2021).
Last but not least, public spending and taxation reforms are also planned (C28-R4, R8, C29-R2, R3). The former are aimed at improving public spending efficiency, among other things to align it better with Sustainable Development Goals, and at bringing the general government budget more in line with the ecological transition through the implementation of green budgeting principles. Tax reforms are intended, on one hand, to contribute to the ecological transition by increasing tax rates on various environmentally detrimental activities and making tax changes to promote sustainable mobility and the use of hydrogen as a fuel. On the other hand, the aim is ‘to increase revenues but also to make the tax system more progressive, redistributive and just’ (Sabato and Theodoropoulou, 2022: 55).
Turning to enabling function, the Spanish NRRP includes one reform and two investment measures on skills and vocational training (C19-R1, C20-I2, C23-I3). More specifically, the preparation and implementation of the National Plan for Digital Skills will provide a roadmap for identifying the measures needed to ensure that people have the necessary tools to acquire and develop digital skills, in a context of the digital, green and productive transformation of the Spanish economy.
We identified one investment that could be classified under the buffering function, namely the promotion of inclusive growth by linking social inclusion policies to the Minimum Living Income, under the component ‘New public policies for a dynamic, resilient and inclusive labour market (C23 I7) (Government of Spain, 2021: 166). As also suggested by Sabato and Theodoropoulou (2022), this measure’s link to the green transition is fairly indirect, however.
Finally, the Spanish NRRP also proposes a couple of measures pertaining to the welfare state’s consensus-building function. First, there is a reform aimed at the development of energy communities (e.g. renewable energy and citizen energy communities), to promote citizen participation in the energy transition (C7-R3), which will also support participatory processes, training and communities, for example, by promoting specific projects in the area of renewable energies (Sabato and Theodoropoulou, 2022: 150). Second, a reform is planned for ‘just transition pacts’ aiming, on one hand, for a progressive reduction in coal-powered energy plants and their replacement by clean sources of energy and on the other, to minimise the socioeconomic impacts of this energy transition (C10-R1).
Discussion of eco-social dimension and welfare state functions in the four NRRPs
From the 51 policy interventions explicitly integrating green and social objectives that we identified across the four countries, the share of the total measures by NRRP has been low to very low, ranging from 6% in Italy to 6.3% in Greece, 6.6% in Spain and 12.5% in Portugal. The distribution of the identified measures across the four possible functions that the welfare state can perform in the green transition is heavily skewed: in some 61% of the measures, the welfare state is primarily performing a benchmarking function, followed by 31% of measures, where the welfare state is performing an enabling function, with the vast majority of these latter measures being investments, thus, likely linked to growth. In contrast, measures in which the welfare state would have a conflict management/consensus building (e.g. social dialogue) or a buffering (protecting citizens against the possible negative consequences of green transition) function seem to be far less prevalent across the four country case-studies, with only 4% each in the total number of identified eco-social policies (see Figure 1 for the overall distribution across all four countries and Figure 2 for the distribution of measures by function per country).
Distribution of identified eco-social policy interventions by welfare state function (all four countries) (% of total).
Distribution of identified eco-social policy interventions by welfare state function by country (number of eco-social policy measures).
These findings suggest that the ‘institutional gate opening’ that the relatively weak and fragmented welfare states of these countries could in principle provide, coupled with large sums of funds from the RRF, have not sufficed for the robust emergence of eco-social policies. This finding dovetails with those of Sabato and Theodoropoulou (2022) where countries with stronger welfare states, such as Belgium, France and Denmark, and even less RRF funding (and consequently potential normative influence therefrom) had, with the exception of Portugal, a higher, albeit not really high (at around 10%) share of eco-social policies in their total NRRP measures. Taken together, these findings further confirm what Mandelli (2023) surmises, namely that the strength/weakness of the welfare state alone cannot explain the emergence of eco-social policies.
The relative prevalence of eco-social policy measures pertaining to the benchmarking and enabling functions of welfare states among the identified eco-social measures in the NRRPs can be explained by supranational factors, notably the conditionalities and orientations of the RRF and the overall orientation of the EPSR. First, no less than 37% of expenditure in NRRPs has been earmarked for green transition policies. It is thus not surprising that the majority of the eco-social measures we have identified primarily pursue green transition objectives but, in doing so, are also designed to take into account (to varying extents) social considerations, thus corresponding to our conceptualisation of a benchmarking function.
In line with the growth-oriented approach of the EGD and the (largely) productivist orientation of the EPSR (Petmesidou et al., 2023), a non-negligible part of the identified eco-social measures, especially in Greece and Spain in NRRPs, involves linking ALMPs, training and upskilling policies to the green transition, and is thus classified under the welfare state’s enabling function (together, however, with a number of measures aimed at ‘greening’ social infrastructure). Two points are worth noting. First, the mix of social investment measures pertains to skill creation, mobilisation and preservation (cf. Garritzman et al., 2023), albeit not in equal proportions between and within countries. Italy stands out for the absence of skill preservation enabling eco-social policies, whereas Greece, Portugal and Spain have a more balanced mix. These findings may suggest that the green transition, in contrast to the knowledge economy, may trigger the politicisation of different types of social investment policies in different ways (cf. Garritzman et al., 2023). Second, the integration of green objectives within the identified measures is often indirect, in that skills for the green transition are only one of the types of skills that the investment measure aims at. In that sense, the ‘quality’ of eco-social measures is variable and in the absence of evidence for actual allocation of financial resources, we cannot at this point more precisely decipher the relative weight of green skills in the total mix.
Importantly, many benchmarking measures in the NRRPs we examined are among the few ‘eco-social’ policies explicitly mentioned in the constitutive documents of the RRF (e.g. measures for the renovation of buildings and improving energy efficiency – cf. Sabato and Theodoropoulou, 2022). Conversely, measures pertaining to the welfare state’s buffering function are not explicitly mentioned in key RRF documents and that function is less highlighted in the EGD. This, coupled with the prohibition on financing current expenditure (e.g. social protection benefits or public social services) through the RRF, could explain the smaller presence of this function in the NRRPs (cf. Bokhorst, 2022; Sabato and Theodoropoulou, 2022).
As a comparison, a similar picture emerged in the findings of Sabato and Theodoropoulou (2022) especially, with regard to the countries pertaining to ‘continental welfare states’ (France and Belgium), of which the ‘Southern Welfare’ model is a ‘extreme version’ thereof (cf. Guillen et al., 2021), whereas even in Denmark (Nordic model) and Ireland (Liberal model), eco-social policies of the benchmarking and enabling type were the only ones present. These findings then suggest that the supranational influence of the EGD and the RRF seems to have left a clearer imprint on the eco-social policies of the NRRPs than the legacy of welfare states.
Of course, other domestic factors beyond the legacy of the welfare state regime have also been at play and should be able to explain the variation in the welfare state functions that we observe in Figure 2 (see, for example, Petmesidou et al., 2023). Due to space considerations, we have not examined them here.
Concluding remarks
This article has set out to examine whether and if so, to what extent, just transition as a stated objective of both the EGD and the RRF, has been translated into eco-social policies in the NRRPs of four member states. Eco-social policies explicitly integrating green and social objectives (in line with the definition we have adopted for our empirical inquiry) would be a suitable tool for pursuing a just green transition. Moreover, we have sought to understand which roles national welfare policies play to facilitate green transition in national eco-social policies. An underlying assumption has been that a balance across the different possible welfare functions is more likely to effectively promote just transition. To this aim, we have analysed four EU Member States, namely, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, who have been typically identified with the ‘Southern European’ welfare model, and which are among the top beneficiaries of the RRF, facing some limitations in their public budgets, and experience comparable social yet different ecological problem loads. In that sense, one would expect that if the EU could exert strong influence on member state via the RRF, these countries would be among those with the more potential to be affected.
A first finding of our analysis points to the rather limited presence of eco-social policies in the four NRRPs considered. Importantly, the counting of measures does not necessarily tell us enough about the share of the budget allocated to them. However, while the structure of the NRRPs does not allow for an accurate and reliable allocation of budgets to the various measures, evidence on the allocation of RRF investment funding across the different pillars and member states based on Bruegel data had suggested that investment with joint green and social objectives had been indeed rare (Sabato and Theodoropoulou, 2022).
A second finding is that in the context of identified eco-social policies, national welfare policies perform a rather unbalanced combination of functions in facilitating green transition, focused on the ‘benchmarking’ and the ‘enabling’ functions, while the eco-social policies where welfare policies perform ‘buffering’ or the ‘consensus-building’ functions are scarce. This finding resonates with that of Sabato and Mandelli (2023), who explored the socio-ecological dimension of the RRF from its constitutive documents. The scarcity of planned policy measures in the four Southern European countries, especially in relation to the welfare state’s buffering function, is ominous and a missed opportunity on the part of the EU’s normative framework and financial instruments to bring about a shift in southern European welfare model in a welfare policy domain in which they have been relatively deficient and which would facilitate the role of national welfare policies in enabling just transition.
This ‘unbalanced’ set of functions for national welfare states in eco-social policies can be explained by legacies (Sabato and Mandelli, 2024) but also choices at the EU level, even preceding the EGD, such as the greater emphasis on social investment in EU social policies (Petmesidou and Guillen, 2022), the conditionalities and orientations of key EU frameworks, such as the EGD, the RRF and the EPSR, and notably to the somehow narrow understanding of just transition that characterises these frameworks. The institutional legacy from the welfare state model alone does not seem to go far in explaining either the relatively thin eco-social dimension of the NRRPs or the variation in the welfare state functions. More research is thus needed to disentangle how the domestic, most notably the preferences of actors (cf. Mandelli, 2023), shape the observed patterns.
Moreover, this imbalance in favour of some welfare functions such as the ‘enabling’ one, with its emphasis on social investment which can be related to growth, raises concerns not only for whether the EU’s green transition will be sufficiently just but also on whether it will achieve the climate and environmental objectives it aspires to in a timely manner. There is evidence that ‘green growth’ is unlikely to be a sustainable way out of the climate and environmental crisis (Hickel and Kallis, 2020).
Finally, our findings are subject to certain caveats which also point to some methodological challenges that need to be addressed in future work for the study of eco-social policies in the context of the EGD and the various instruments for its implementation. First of all, despite advances, there does not seem to be a widely accepted definition, let alone a widely used operationalisation of what eco-social policies are. As a result, comparisons with other studies (e.g. Cotta et al. Unpublished manuscript) and the building of a knowledge base are difficult, as empirical analyses do not necessarily measure the same concepts. Second, without details on the actual implementation of NRRP measures, the explicitness of the link between green and social objectives in a policy measure integrating both, and thereby, the eco-social quality thereof, may vary, creating risks for conceptual stretching and once again rendering comparisons shaky. These points will have to be resolved in further work.
Looking ahead, a more systematic analysis of the interaction between the EU enticement to member states via its various tools and the domestic factors shaping national policies would be necessary before concluding that this mirroring of more prevalent functions of the welfare state in facilitating the green transition reflects the EU approach to it. If this were the case, however, it would mean that the EU would need to step up its efforts for promoting just transition.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the participants of the Council of European Studies 2023 conference panel ‘Eco-social policies in a time of insecurity’ and of the Espanet Italia 2023 conference session ‘Towards an eco-social welfare state? The policy and politics of a just and green transition’, as well as to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on earlier versions of the paper.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
