Europe in the Postgrowth Era: Towards a Sustainable Welfare Deal

Abstract

Europe is confronted with a multiple crisis while coming to grips with its colonial legacy. Given the lack of empirical evidence for sufficient absolute decoupling of gross domestic product (GDP) growth from environmental resource use to stay within planetary limits and meet the Paris climate goals, this article argues that it is unavoidable for the European Union (EU) to enter the postgrowth era and outlines the contours of a ‘sustainable welfare deal’. It first reviews critical issues of the European Green Deal and related EU initiatives. With focus on degrowth and sustainable welfare, the article subsequently zooms in on approaches that substitute GDP growth as overall policy target with environmental and social goals, operationalized as planetary boundaries and social floors. It also introduces relevant current debates within the growth-critical academic community: complexity and democratic planning, decoupling economic growth and welfare, and the roles of economic elites and democratic governance in social-ecological transformations. The discussion sketches and encourages further debate on a ‘sustainable welfare deal’ as meaningful response to the social-ecological crisis and how it could be integrated in European policy making.