A Feminist Approach to Solar Geoengineering 

Solar geoengineering is no silver bullet against the climate crisis, but rejecting it categorically in the name of preserving the planet overlooks our entanglement with the atmosphere. Drawing on feminist neo-materialism, Anni Pokela proposes a different approach: purposeful, accountable participation in atmospheric becoming from within the relationship.

“It surrounds us, penetrates us, and we are barely aware of it.” As philosopher Emanuele Coccia writes in The Life of Plants (2018), the atmosphere is our first world – “the sphere of breath, the medium in which everything that lives is wholly immersed.” And it is changing at an accelerating pace.

The latest assessment by climate scientist James Hansen and colleagues shows that the pace of global warming has accelerated from 0.18 to 0.27 degrees Celsius per decade – over 50 per cent faster than the average between 1970 and 2010. The researchers estimate that we will cross the 2-degree threshold by 2045.

In this context, it makes sense that a growing number of actors have begun considering emergency measures such as solar radiation geoengineering: the idea of deliberately injecting reflective particles into the stratosphere to cool the planet by deflecting some of the Sun’s radiation back into space.

For many environmentalists and ecofeminists, the very concept is an affront: a masculinist, technocratic fantasy that treats the Earth as a machine to be tuned rather than a living system to be respected. The instinct is often to reject it categorically.

I understand that instinct, because I have felt it myself. But I have come to believe that categorical rejection is neither the most responsible nor the most fruitful position available to us.

The debate as it stands

Solar radiation modification (SRM), most commonly discussed in the form of stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), has been modelled and theorised for over 50 years. The idea is inspired by what volcanoes do naturally: when Mount Tambora, on the island of Sumbawa in present-day Indonesia, erupted in 1815, the massive cloud of particles it released cooled the global climate by roughly one degree Celsius for years. SAI would attempt something similar by design – aircraft or high-altitude balloons releasing reflective particles into the stratosphere to create a partial sunshade – only with less sulfur, or even potentially a less toxic, more bio-based particle.

SRM does not remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and it does not address the root cause of climate change. It is, at best, a temporary response that could buy time while the deeper, structural work of decarbonisation continues. Yet, the attention it receives is growing, driven by an uncomfortable reality: we are running out of that very time.

In ecofeminist circles, geoengineering has been met with powerful and, in many ways, justified resistance.

Despite this growing interest, there is currently no international framework governing SRM research or deployment. No large-scale field experiments are underway, and the research remains dominated by climate modelling in Global North institutions. Additionally, private actors such as the startup Stardust Solutions are taking the lead, raising questions about public oversight and accountability. And this is precisely the problem: the conversation about whether and how to investigate these technologies is happening without most of the world at the table. As the UN Environment Programme’s Expert Panel has stressed, there needs to be significantly more research into the potential impacts of SRM on communities already on the frontlines of climate change.

The feminist refusal

Within environmental thought, and particularly in ecofeminist circles, geoengineering has been met with powerful and, in many ways, justified resistance. Although SRM would be, at best, a complementary solution to decarbonisation, environmentalists have raised significant concerns about it being used as an argument to delay the more systemic transition away from fossil fuels and overconsumption.

Meanwhile, feminist scholars have exposed the masculinist, techno-scientific culture that permeates the field: the dominance of male-led research teams from the Global North, the privileging of quantitative methods over qualitative or community-based knowledge, and the deployment of fatalistic narratives that frame SRM as an inevitable necessity or a “neutral” silver bullet.

The Hands Off Mother Earth Alliance, a coalition of civil society groups and feminist advocates, has articulated perhaps the most forceful collective opposition to geoengineering, calling it a perpetuation of the unjust industrial model that caused the climate crisis in the first place. Ecofeminist voices often invoke the Mother Earth metaphor to insist on the planet’s intrinsic worth and resist its instrumentalisation. These critiques rightly expose that geoengineering is not a neutral technical question but is fundamentally about values, power, and whose knowledge counts.

Yet, these critiques have three recurring limitations.

First, they tend to conflate the problematic ideologies behind geoengineering discourse with the technological mechanics themselves. The fact that current research culture is steeped in masculinist assumptions does not mean that the physics of SAI’s aerosol-radiation interactions are inherently patriarchal. The essentialist language that portrays SRM mechanics themselves as a hubristic, sometimes even phallistic, penetration into the natural system misses this important distinction. If the background assumptions were different – if the researchers, the questions, the governance, the values were different – would the critique remain the same?

Second, some critiques contain an inconsistency. They call for recognising our deep interconnection with the natural world while simultaneously treating atmospheric technology as something categorically external to it – as if restoring a local wetland were a relational act but reflecting sunlight were an alien violation. Some of the imagery used in anti-geoengineering advocacy conveys the idea that these technologies are comparable to a planet-sized wrench threatening to tinker with nature. This implicitly reinstates the nature-culture binary that feminist theory has spent decades trying to dismantle. If we truly are interconnectedly one with Mother Earth, how can we sustainably position technology as an inherent outsider to this configuration?

Third, there is a problem of scale. Feminist environmental thought has long prioritised local, situated, community-based knowledge and action – and rightly so. But when it comes to planetary atmospheric physics, localism alone cannot resolve the challenge. The atmosphere does not respect these boundaries. A farmer’s methane emissions in Finland and a monsoon system in South Asia are entangled in the same global climate. The exclusive emphasis on small-scale solutions, while morally appealing, risks proving inadequate at the planetary scale, where some of the most urgent decisions must be made.

A different way in

This is where feminist new materialism opens a different door – not to uncritical endorsement of geoengineering, but to a more honest and fruitful engagement with it.

The work of physicist and philosopher Karen River Barad, whose theory of agential realism is foundational to new materialist thought, offers tools for rethinking the relationship between humans, technology, and the atmosphere. Barad’s central concept is intra-action: the idea that distinct entities do not exist prior to their relations but emerge through them. Where conventional thinking assumes that separate entities – a particle, an atmosphere, and a research team, for example – come together and interact, Barad argues that they only come into being through their entanglement.

The question is not whether we participate in shaping the atmosphere but how.

Applied to SAI, this reframing is profound. The atmosphere is not a passive container waiting to receive aerosol particles or not, nor are those particles inert tools wielded by human controllers. What SAI would constitute, from a Baradian perspective, is a phenomenon – an ongoing material-discursive entanglement in which human decision-making, particle chemistry, stratospheric wind patterns, solar radiation, and surface ecosystems all participate agentially. The cooling effect does not simply happen to the atmosphere; it emerges through the specific configuration of all these entangled agencies.

This reframing does two critical things. First, it dissolves the comfortable binary between a “natural” atmosphere and an “engineered” one. Second, it dismantles the hubristic mindset that we could ever have complete control over the atmosphere. Both stances – protecting a pure system and seizing control of it – are revealed to be ontologically unsustainable.

Industrial emissions, shipping pollution and agricultural practices, to name a few, have been modifying the atmosphere for centuries. Climate scientist James Hansen himself has noted that the reduction of sulphur in shipping fuel – a clean air policy – inadvertently removed a cooling effect equivalent to what SAI proposes to create. In a real, material sense, we are not standing outside the atmosphere wondering whether to intervene. We are already geoengineering the planet. The question, therefore, is not whether we participate in shaping the atmosphere but how.

From intervention to intra-vention

Based on these considerations, I propose to replace the concept of “climate intervention”, which is conventionally used to describe geoengineering techniques, with the idea of climate intra-vention. Where intervention signals a procedure performed from the outside (an actor imposing change on a passive system) intra-vention designates something different: purposeful, accountable participation in atmospheric becoming from within the relationship.

This is not a semantic trick. The shift in framing would carry real consequences for how research is designed and governed. If SAI is understood as intra-action rather than intervention, then the models, metrics, and governance structures used in research are not neutral instruments of observation, but actively shape what the atmosphere becomes and what counts as relevant knowledge about it. Current SAI modelling, for instance, tends to prioritise global mean temperature as its primary metric. This makes temperature change visible and determinate while rendering other effects – regional precipitation shifts, monsoon stability, agricultural impacts – less prominent.

Different research practices would literally produce different phenomena. A modelling apparatus that centred, say, monsoon system stability or the lived experiences of communities in the Sahel, would not simply see SAI differently; it would literally bring a different version of SAI into being, with different boundaries, different risks, and different possibilities. This is what Barad means when they say that apparatuses are not static setups but are perpetually open to rearrangement. A patriarchal, technocratic configuration of SAI research is not the only possible one.

This is where feminist engagement with geoengineering becomes not just possible but urgently necessary. If how we set up SAI research actively produces what SAI is, then the values, perspectives, and power relations embedded in that setup matter enormously. Feminist principles of justice, care, transparency, and participatory knowledge production are not peripheral add-ons to the “real science”. They are constitutive of the science itself.

Care, not control

As climate impacts accelerate, interest in SRM technologies will only grow – whether feminists are at the table or not. If the field is abandoned to technocratic elites and private actors, the very outcomes that feminist critics most fear become more likely: unilateral deployment driven by profit, governance captured by powerful states, communities – particularly in the Global South – excluded from decisions that will reshape their climate.

The concerned scientists who launched the Solar Geoengineering Non-Use Agreement in 2022 called for immediate political action to prevent the “normalisation” of solar geoengineering as a climate policy option, arguing that it is neither necessary, desirable, nor governable in the current context. But as others have pointed out, if publicly funded, transparent research is banned, the field does not disappear. It simply moves into clandestine, unmonitored, private hands.

Feminist engagement with SAI can be understood as an act of care rather than an endorsement of control. Care, in the sense that feminist philosopher María Puig de la Bellacasa articulates it, is not about fixing or mastering but about attending to neglected realities, staying with troubling situations, and taking responsibility for the entanglements we are already part of. This means approaching SRM deliberation as a form of responsibility toward the communities already experiencing unbearable heat, failing harvests, and collapsing ecosystems; insisting that research is designed with justice at its centre, and that Indigenous communities, researchers in the Global South, and grassroots actors are not consulted after the fact but participate in shaping what research is prioritised, what SRM is understood to be and how that research looks like in practice.

Staying with the trouble

This framework does not solve all tensions. Most SRM research is still funded and governed by powerful institutions in the Global North, and profit motives, geopolitical competition, and blind techno-optimism are real forces in this space. There is a risk that the language of “intra-vention” and “care” could be co-opted to entrench business as usual.

Categorical rejection is not abstention. It is an act that excludes certain possibilities while enabling others.

There is also a temporal dilemma. Climate urgency is used to justify accelerating SRM research now, within existing structures, before the systemic transformation that justice demands has been achieved. But if we rush ahead, we risk consolidating the very systems that caused the crisis. On the other hand, if we wait for post-growth institutions and decolonial governance to emerge fully before investigating SRM, we may face tipping points that foreclose the possibility of such transformations.

There is no neat resolution to these contradictions. But holding these perspectives simultaneously is more honest and more productive than pretending they do not exist. Donna Haraway calls this “staying with the trouble”: refusing both the seductions of despair and the false comforts of easy answers.

What Barad’s philosophy adds is the insight that inaction is not a neutral zero position. In a world where the atmosphere is already being reshaped by human activity, choosing not to investigate how it might be reshaped more deliberately is itself a form of participation in atmospheric becoming, with its own consequences and its own accountabilities. Categorical rejection is not abstention. It is an act that excludes certain possibilities while enabling others – and we are responsible for those exclusions.

Historically, feminist thought has been at its most powerful when it has refused purity. When it has held contradictions, and when it has insisted on staying engaged with messy, compromised realities rather than retreating to the moral high ground. The atmosphere – this all-encompassing fluid that we breathe, that we are reshaping, that is reshaping us – demands nothing less.

Environmental Oppression in the West Bank: Is Europe Complicit?

The Nitzanei Shalom industrial settlement in the occupied West Bank has long caused health and environmental harm to Palestinians in Tulkarm. A new investigation reveals that Europe maintains commercial ties with factories operating in the area and their parent companies, despite the settlement’s illegality under international law.

Rima Ali and her husband, Yusuf, have been living in their house, in the south-western part of Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank, for over 20 years. Some 100 metres away sits Nitzanei Shalom (“Buds of Peace”), an illegal Israeli industrial settlement. Rima says the factories with their foul odours, dust, and pollution have caused her health problems, such as coughs and headaches.

“We don’t feel comfortable sitting in the courtyard because of the smells and noises coming from the factories, so I prefer to stay indoors,” she explained. “If I hadn’t built my house before they built the factories, I wouldn’t have stayed here,” Yusuf added.

The couple’s daily struggle is part of a wider environmental and public health crisis affecting the citizens of Tulkarm, particularly in the southwestern and western neighbourhoods. Aside from the pollution, residents have also witnessed major fires in the industrial zone that caused heavy clouds of smoke, forcing some families to temporarily evacuate their homes.

Adeeb Awad, 63, a resident of Irtah, south of Tulkarm, lives just 20 metres away from the industrial zone. “Whenever a fire breaks out, I have to evacuate the house with my family. It’s suffocating and almost life-threatening,” he said.

Industrial relocation

The Nitzanei Shalom industrial zone was established in the 1980s, when Israeli companies specialising in waste and plastic recycling, cement, and chemical production were gradually relocated from Israel to the Tulkarm area, forming a cluster of 13 factories.

A prominent entity in this industrial hub was Geshuri Industries, a large agrochemical company manufacturing pesticides and fertilisers. The company moved to its current site in 1982, relocating from Tel Mond.

The relocation followed intense legal disputes and community protests in Israel over environmental violations and public health risks, as reported in a 1999 document of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. The factory owners contend the move was motivated by a need for additional space and “various security problems” regarding the workers. However, former member of the Knesset Issam Makhoul claimed that legal action against the factory for its negative impact on public health effectively halted its operations at the original site, prompting its owners to relocate to a zone where safety and environmental standards could be bypassed.

Palestinian workers leaving the Nitzanei Shalom complex at the end of their shift. Tulkarm, West Bank, Palestine. ©Alessandro Stefanelli

Nitzanei Shalom is located in Area C. With the 1995 Oslo II Accord, the West Bank was divided into Area A, where the Palestinian Authority (PA) had full control, Area B, which fell under Palestinian civil administration and Israeli security control, and Area C, comprising about 61 per cent of the land, which was placed under full Israeli control. The division was supposed to be temporary, with full control of all three areas “gradually transferred to Palestinian jurisdiction”. However, the transfer has never occurred.

Israel’s abusive policies and practices against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have intensified since 7 October 2023, with government officials openly encouraging and supporting settler attacks, as reported by Amnesty International.

Oday, 36, walks through his field, with the Green Line separation wall behind him. Tulkarm, West Bank, Palestine. ©Alessandro Stefanelli

His land sits between the separation wall and the perimeter wall of the industrial complex. Since October 7, 2023, he has been banned from accessing it, as the entire area was declared a closed military zone. The construction of the factories reduced his land by a third—confiscated under military orders.

Tulkarem, West Bank, Palestine

Sacrifice zone

According to testimonies we gathered from residents, workers, and farmers in the Tulkarm area, the presence of the industrial complex has affected every aspect of their lives. Fayez Taneeb, a 66-year-old farmer from Irtah, owns agricultural land surrounded by factories on two sides and the separation wall built by Israel on another.

Taneeb says the wastewater from the factories flowing onto his land forced him to dig a canal to mitigate the damage. “Our intervention was intended to reduce, though not entirely eliminate, these harms by directing the water through a controlled channel,” he said.

He claims that dust emitted by the factories has also damaged his crops, both outside and inside greenhouses. “When the dust from the factory settles on my greenhouses, it sticks like cement to the plastic, blocking the sunlight,” Taneeb said. “The plants inside cannot grow or survive without sunlight.”

Moreover, the civil defence service in Tulkarm documented five major fire incidents in the industrial zone between 2009 and 2022. Eyewitness accounts and civil defence described heavy black smoke forming in the area, with fumes and toxic gases lasting for days.

Farmers Oday, 36, and his mother Mona, 62, stand in front of one of their greenhouses, its plastic sheeting almost completely destroyed. Behind them rise the silos of the Nitzanei Shalom industrial complex. Tulkarm, West Bank, Palestine. ©Alessandro Stefanelli

As Walid al-Zabda, director of civil defence operations in the Tulkarm Governorate, explained, it is difficult to determine the causes of the fires without permission to enter the zone. “Our role was limited to securing the sites near the industrial area to prevent the fires from spreading to the Palestinian lands located outside the factory’s boundaries.”

Al-Zabda also notes that the Palestinian side had submitted requests to enter the industrial zone and provide assistance during the fires, but those requests were rejected by the Israeli authorities. He added, “The problem was not the fire itself but the black smoke. Even the civil defence crews who went out to secure the site could not bear the smells.”

Fayez Taneeb, a 66-year-old farmer from Irtah, shows his chest X-ray, which indicates signs of lung damage. According to doctors, he has reduced pulmonary capacity and can no longer work his farmland next to the Nitzanei Shalom industrial complex due to air pollution in the area. Tulkarm, West Bank, Palestine. ©Alessandro Stefanelli

In a roundtable interview we conducted with former Palestinian workers at the Yamit factory, which specialised in water treatment and the production of water filters until its closure in 2023, they confirmed that factories in the industrial zone, including Yamit, regularly burned waste materials. Ahmed Al Masri, who worked in the factory for 29 years, said that at Yamit, defective paint products were often burnt in an open yard within the factory borders. He added, “The burning occurred about two to three times per week.”

Satellite images document the expansion of the industrial zone and a decline in green spaces over the years. Agricultural activity, once fundamental to the city’s livelihood, is now limited. This decline accelerated in the 1980s with the creation of the industrial zone, and again after 2003, following the construction of the separation wall. Taneeb claims that Israeli forces confiscated almost 16 dunums (3.6 acres) of his land for the construction of the wall and the industrial zone. Between 2013 and 2021, much of the remaining green space in the area was sacrificed to accommodate new production facilities.

Environmental contamination caused by the factory’s liquid waste is also visible from satellites. Images from 2023 and 2024 show residues and whitish sludge, likely originating from the industrial area, along the drains that cross the crops.

Oday, 36, a Palestinian farmer, shows white industrial discharge flowing through his agricultural field, just beyond the perimeter wall of the chemical factories. The runoff seeps directly into the soil; the white colour is likely caused by industrial waste products discharged from the factories. Tulkarm, West Bank, Palestine. ©Alessandro Stefanelli

Environmental oppression

In recent years, the industrial zone has been dominated by three main operators: Prima Ciment (now owned by Cement IS, previously by Geshuri); Tal El, which focuses on waste treatment; and Margal (formerly Pelegas), a manufacturer of gas tanks for vehicles.

In 2013, the Civil Administration – the Israeli military body governing the occupied West Bank – approved a plan to expand the industrial zone despite formal objections submitted by the Israeli human rights organisation Bimkom – Planners for Planning Rights on behalf of the Tulkarm Municipality and local residents. Diana Mardi, a field researcher at Bimkom, says the plan “significantly expanded what could be built, allowing structures to increase from two storeys to six”.

Mardi also explains that the plan has clear gaps in the environmental assessment file. “It’s not just an expansion of the industrial zone, it’s a way of legitimising dangerous and illegal structures.” She adds that the plan doesn’t take into account the industrial zone’s close proximity to residential areas in Tulkarm, as well as unresolved jurisdictional concerns.

Murad al-Madani, legal advisor at the Palestinian Environment Quality Authority (EQA), explained that Israeli factory owners find the West Bank a much easier place for establishing industrial facilities compared to Israel. This is largely because they are not subject to the same legal restrictions, particularly in terms of environmental standards, licensing, and taxation. “To this day, Israel does not recognise the Palestinian Environmental Law issued in 1999; instead, Israeli authorities apply the regulations they deem applicable in the West Bank,” Al Madani said.

The law Al Madani refers to defines “environmental nuisance” as “the harm or material damage caused by the generation of noise, vibration, radiation, or irritations; the release of smells which result from any activity of humans, facilities, transportation facilities or any other agent in a manner that affects properties or the human life.”

Article 25 of the law states that “the Ministry [of Environmental Affairs] shall, in cooperation with the specialised agencies, work on establishing standards, instructions and conditions to reduce environmental nuisance generated by different activities; in addition, every facility owner, entity or individual shall be forbidden to cause any nuisance to the others.”

Because Israel does not recognise this law, Rima Ali and other residents of Tulkarm are denied the opportunity to exercise their environmental rights. Rima says that the nuisance she and her family face is not limited to odours and dust, but also includes the noise of industrial machinery. “The factory hardly ever stops working; it operates in two shifts, day and night,” Rima said. She noted that “the noise of the machinery is more disturbing at night, especially as the neighbourhood is quiet.”

The relevant Palestinian authorities haven’t done much to stop environmental oppression caused by the industrial settlement, for example by exercising their power to monitor or investigate environmental incidents caused by it.

On this matter, the governor of Tulkarm, Abdullah Kamil, said: “The Governorate has repeatedly called on the Israeli side to relocate these factories, given the risks they pose to the lives of Palestinians. It has also called for the establishment of an impartial international committee to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the area, covering the soil, water and air.”

He added, “The Governorate would abide by the findings of any report issued by this committee.” However, he explained that even if such a committee concluded that there were no adverse effects resulting from the industrial zone, “this would not deny the fact that these lands belong to the Palestinians.”

Documenting pollution

Palestinian researchers have struggled to document the environmental and health impacts resulting from the industrial zone, particularly with regard to collecting samples from the surrounding areas, due to the access restrictions imposed by Israel.

To understand these impacts, we interviewed experts specialised in this field, including Basel Natsheh, associate professor in the Environmental and Sustainable Agriculture Department at Palestine Technical University – Kadoorie, who published a study in 2016 on the impact of Gishuri factories on soil pollution in Tulkarm, and Safaa Hamdan, agricultural engineer and researcher at the same university.

Natsheh and Hamdan explained that studies provide evidence that environmental degradation affects soil, groundwater, air quality, and plant diversity, and poses potential health risks for nearby residents. However, they noted that many of these studies focus on individual environmental components rather than integrated environmental assessments. A notable exception is a 2015 study by the EQA, which used “an integrated approach, combining environmental sampling, laboratory analysis, biological monitoring, and social surveys, allowing evaluation of pollution pathways from the environment to human exposure.”

Nicola D’Alessandro, an associate professor at the University “G. D’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara in Italy and an expert in green chemistry and environmental catalysis, observed that “the number of detailed and accurate scientific reports on the West Bank area is scarce, and the few studies that are available were produced a long time ago.”

D’Alessandro also highlighted the presence of persistent pollutants like dioxins, which are industrial by-products known to “cause serious health effects, including cancer, endocrine disruption, immune system damage, and developmental problems”. He emphasised that investigating reports of toxic substance discharges from the factories in Nitzanei Shalom “requires careful data collection that takes into account the most common environmental indicators: from basic air and water tests to more detailed measurements regarding the presence of parasites, metals, and dioxins.”

Looking ahead, Natsheh and Hamdan warned that “the environmental situation in Tulkarm may worsen if current pollution sources continue without effective mitigation.”

Palestinian farmers work in their field beside the Nitzanei Shalom industrial complex. Their crops grow in the shadow of factories emitting white particulate matter into the area. Tulkarm, West Bank, Palestine. ©Alessandro Stefanelli

Is Europe complicit?

Nitzanei Shalom has maintained commercial ties with companies across Europe, raising questions about the extent to which Europeans are complicit, directly or indirectly, in perpetuating forms of social and environmental injustice against the Palestinians.

The companies owned by the Geshuri family are one example. Products from Prima Ciment – which the family later sold to Cement IS, while continuing to manage it – were distributed in Spain, as reported in 2017 by the Observatory on Human Rights and Business in the Mediterranean.

These relations also involved Pelegas, now Margal, which sold its gas tanks for military land and naval vehicles to countries including Brazil, Georgia, Turkey, and Romania. It should be noted that, until 2020, Pelegas was included on the United Nations’ list of companies operating in the occupied territories.

Moreover, Prima Ciment produces blended gypsum for Orbond and Tambour, which together account for 80 per cent of Israel’s domestic gypsum market. Orbond was founded in Israel in 1993 and, five years later, became part of Knauf, a German multinational manufacturing building materials. Knauf is active within Eurogypsum – a European federation of national associations representing the gypsum production and processing sector in Brussels. Between April 2024 and April 2026, Knauf’s Christoph Dorn held the presidency of the federation.

In June 2026, in response to a request for comment from The New Arab, Knauf did not deny its relationship with Orbond, but pointed out that Orbond’s products are not exported to Europe.

A Knauf spokesperson wrote to The New Arab: “We are committed to ethical, legally correct and socially responsible business management. We expect our suppliers to share this commitment and to make reasonable efforts to promote the compliance of their own suppliers and subcontractors with the principles laid down in our Code of Conduct for Suppliers.”

Cement and gypsum (which is used in the production of cement to retard its setting time) are imported to Nitzanei Shalom from abroad, specifically from Greece – through the Greek subsidiary of the Holcim Group – and Turkey. In 2022, Israel Shipyards and Cement IS acquired the Turkish company Onat Pan, which specialises in the export of gypsum, according to media sources. However, the deterioration in trade relations between Israel and Turkey forced Cement IS to start importing from Egypt as well.

Tambour, the other company supplied by Prima Ciment, is a paint producer registered in Israel and owned by the Singaporean holding Kusto Group. In 2019, Tambour acquired the Italian paint company Colorificio Zetagi, which in turn bought 80 per cent of Verinlegno in 2024.

These developments suggest that European companies continue to maintain commercial ties with factories in Nitzanei Shalom and their parent companies, despite the settlement’s illegality under international law and its negative social and environmental impacts.

Benedetta Scuderi, a Green member of the European Parliament from Italy, observed that the International Court of Justice has made clear in 2024 that the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, and therefore all UN Member States should abstain from any aid or assistance that helps maintain Israel’s presence in the territory. “That clearly includes trading with companies based in the settlements, which exploit and pollute stolen Palestinian land,” the MEP explained.

Scuderi, who was detained by Israel in 2025 while participating in the Global Sumud Flotilla, explained that although national trade bans are possible, they are “ineffective” because goods can circulate freely in the EU customs union. “We are now urging the European Commission to put forward a legislative proposal that could finally implement a ban on all trade relations with illegal Israeli settlements,” she said.

In March 2026, responding to our request for comment, a European Commission spokesperson explained that “The European Union adopts a firm position of not recognising Israeli sovereignty over the territories it has occupied since June 1967, in line with international law.”

The editorial team at The New Arab contributed to this investigation. Altreconomia, Irpi Media, New Lines Magazine, and The New Arab co-published with the Green European Journal edited versions of this investigation. This investigation was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe.

“Rainbow Families”: Rethinking the Ties That Bind Us

The rise of the far right in Europe has been accompanied by a narrative promoting a return to the traditional family unit. While this concept has never been universal, it now seems more outdated than ever. Can looking to LGBTQIA+ people, who have always had to forge their own path, help rethink our relationship with family, parenthood, and care?

Ilaria and Elisabetta form a happy couple. They live with their 19-month-old daughter, Lea, in the socially liberal city of Bologna in Italy.

However, their path to becoming same-sex parents hasn’t been easy. Lea was conceived through IVF, for which, because of Italy’s prohibition on the procedure for same-sex couples, they were forced to travel to Barcelona, thereby incurring logistical and financial strain. Ilaria and Elisabetta also struggled to obtain the ovarian stimulation medication necessary for a good IVF outcome. The medication itself isn’t illegal in Italy, but, as Ilaria puts it, “some people are simply opposed to it, and they can shatter people’s dreams”.

“A couple of pharmacies actually refused to give us the necessary drugs, and our family doctor refused to help us too. We managed only because we had a friend who owns a pharmacy.”

In recent years, the rise of the far right in Europe has been accompanied by a backlash against the advancement of LGBTQIA+ rights and the promotion of a return to “traditional family values”. This conservative discourse is characterised by an emphasis on fertility and productivity, a distrust of non-traditional family structures, and a desire to control bodies, particularly those of women, all fuelled by a global decline in birth rates and an ageing population.

Since far-right Giorgia Meloni’s rise to power in 2023, Italy has taken several steps to roll back freedoms, such as criminalising surrogacy abroad and restricting LGBTQIA+ topics in schools. The country currently ranks 35 out of 49 on ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Map, which measures countries based on their legal and policy practices for LGBTQIA+ people. Family rights are one of the areas in which Italy lags behind the most.

However, Italy is not an anomaly within the European Union. Equal marriage is recognised in only 16 member states, joint adoption in 17, and assisted reproduction for non-heterosexual couples in 13.

“Another problem arose when our daughter was born,” Ilaria recounts. “For the first year, she was formally only Elisabetta’s daughter, since Elisabetta gave birth to her and I had no legal way to recognise her as my child.”

The situation was finally resolved when the Constitutional Court overturned restrictions introduced by the government in 2023. It ruled that non-biological mothers in same-sex couples are entitled to automatic legal recognition if the child was conceived abroad. In July 2025, 11 months after her daughter was born, Ilaria was finally able to legally recognise her as her own. “We are still in the process of adding my surname to her last name.”

In recent years, the family rights of LGBTQIA+ people have received growing recognition from supranational bodies. In 2023, the European Parliament voted in favour of recognising parenthood across the EU “irrespective of how a child was conceived, born or the type of family they have.”

However, the difficulties persist. In its Strategy for LGBTIQ+ Equality 2026-2030, adopted in October 2025, the European Commission notes that “due to differences in family law between Member States, family ties may no longer be recognised in cross-border situations.”

According to the FRA’s third LGBTIQ survey, “14% of respondents in LGBTIQ-parented families faced problems in having their parenthood legally recognised.”

Queerness and happiness

The norm of a nuclear family made up of a mother, a father, and their children does not reflect even the reality of many heterosexual cisgender adults – think of single-parent families (which, according to Eurostat data, account for 14 per cent of households with children), or children raised in foster homes. But while these types of “non-traditional” family arrangements have been largely normalised, queer people and “rainbow families” continue to face the deep-rooted misconception that their relationships are inherently dysfunctional and therefore unsuited to building a family.

This is particularly the case for transgender people, who are also most often overlooked in family law. Of the 49 countries covered by ILGA-Europe’s analysis, only eight – Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Malta, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden – recognise trans parenthood.

Yet for many LGBTQIA+ individuals, family is a lifeline. Chloé, a 41-year-old transgender woman from Belgium, is a prime example. Having begun her gender transition five years ago, she recalls receiving generally positive reactions from everyone, including her family, her then partner, and her three daughters, who are aged between five and eight.

“I had to explain [to my eldest], in a few simple words, why her dad had become a mum,” she recalls. In this transformed family, Chloé did not wish to “take the place of either dad or mum,” and had to carve out a new role tailored to her. From family conversations, a term emerged: “Mawé” – “a sort of poetic contraction of Mum-Chloé,” she smiles. “Mawé”, she says, is a unique name to describe “a role I can invent”.

Chloé and her ex-wife have now divorced and share custody of their three daughters. But her coming out had a positive impact on her family life. “In fact, my transition probably allowed our relationship to last a little longer,” she says, with common ground opening up between her and her then wife, who has been her support and confidante from the very beginning. Embracing her gender identity has enabled Chloé to “[become] a better version of myself,” something that has been beneficial for her relationships, her daughters, and her family ties.

With an increasing focus on alternative family arrangements comes recognition that heterosexual family structures can be a place of violence and oppression rather than love.

Ilaria, in spite of the difficulties of becoming a parent in Italy due to the hostile legal framework, has also found happiness in motherhood. She and Elisabetta share responsibilities equally and the support of family and friends has made everything easier. “I felt like a parent every step of the way. I feel like a mother in my own right.”

According to sociologist Gabrielle Richard, author of the essay “Faire famille autrement” (“Doing family differently”), drawing on queer experiences can help societies rethink family structure. Faced with the view that their sexual orientation or gender identity is incompatible with building a family, many queer people are characterised by what Richard calls the “lateral thinking of parenthood,” whereby parents “often do not see parenthood as just another milestone to reach … but rather as an opportunity, a desire, a privilege.”

Richard told me in an interview that nothing is predetermined when it comes to relationships and parenthood for queer people, whose lives are often deemed undesirable, and are therefore not “provided for” socially or legally.

“Without ignoring the violence inherent in this state of affairs, we must recognise that it simultaneously grants them a unique freedom of action in these areas.”

The impossible family

With an increasing focus on alternative family arrangements comes recognition that heterosexual family structures can be a place of violence and oppression rather than love.

In her essay “Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communising of Care” (Pluto Press, 2023), American teacher and author M. E. O’Brien critiques the bourgeois ideal of the family in the west – typically white, heterosexual, property-owning, stable, and Puritanical. While families may represent a place of love and unconditional care, O’Brien argues that they can also become primary agents of inequality, normativity and violence.

In her view, the conception of the family that emerged from the Industrial Revolution is now reaching its limits. “The family of the present is impossible,” she concludes. “It is torn between the violence and precarity of racial capitalism, the excessive demands of daily labor, and collective yearnings for freedom.”

This matches Chloé’s experience: it was the pressure and expectations linked to raising a family – not her coming out – that strained the relationship with her ex-wife. “If I sacrifice myself for my daughters, I’ve got no energy left for them afterwards.”

For O’Brien, chronic unemployment, austerity policies, stagnant wages, and the difficulty of accessing private property – an essential part of the myth of family stability – are making more and more people question the importance of the traditional family unit. “Many already experience the family as a trap of hopelessness: homeless queer youth, people fleeing abusive partners, others stuck in dissatisfying and lifeless relationships, or millions of the people choosing to live alone.” A precariousness set to increase with the ongoing economic, political, ecological and social crises. “The family, as a norm, as an institution, as an aspiration, has already catastrophically failed numerous people.”

O’Brien acknowledges that some of the same issues can affect LGBTQIA+ families, too. “Chosen families [the name given to non-biological kinship bonds, and especially LGBTQIA+ families], too, encounter significant limits. They can quickly run into many of the oppressive logics of the family.”

“Other critics, including Sophie Lewis and Ariel Ajeno, have pointed to the exclusive character of the chosen family”, O’Brien tells me. “Conventional families have the pretence of unconditionality – you are welcome because you are family: no one has to choose you. But needing to be chosen requires the active sympathy of others. This allows for considerable coercion, evaluation, and status competition.”

Pro-birth contradictions

As several critics, including O’Brien, have pointed out, the modern conception of the family unit is still, at least in part, beholden to notions of productivity and growth. At a time of geopolitical competition and declining birth rates, these norms tend to take on military overtones – for example, in 2024, France’s president Emmanuel Macron announced a major plan to tackle infertility in order to enable “demographic rearmament”. The French government’s pro-birth ambitions sparked controversy again in 2026 when it sent a letter to all French citizens aged 29 to raise awareness of infertility and boost the birth rate.

Contrary to what Macron’s rhetoric may suggest, France’s fertility rate has remained higher than that of most other EU countries.

France offers greater protection for the family rights of LGBTIQ individuals than other European countries, according to ILGA-Europe. It recognises marriage, joint adoption and medically assisted insemination. However, ILGA-Europe highlights several issues that remain: the failure to recognise registered partnerships as equivalent to marriage, the lack of automatic recognition of parenthood, and the recognition of parents.

“Advocating for pro-birth policies starts with recognising the existence and rights of families that already exist,” says Richard. She sees Macron’s rhetoric as a “real middle finger” to non-heterosexual families that are “confined to the margins of the system.”

“Restricting demographic incentives to certain types of family demonstrates a wilful blindness to the realities of those families that do not conform to the norm,” she says, “and suggests that what is at stake is not so much the preservation of the family and the population, but rather an increase in the number of good white, traditionally Catholic and heterosexual families.”

Contrary to what Macron’s rhetoric may suggest, France’s fertility rate has remained higher than that of most other EU countries: it stood at 1.61 live births per woman in 2024, below the replacement level of 2.01 but well above the EU average of 1.34.

Meanwhile, Italy’s birth rate has remained consistently below the EU average (1.18 children per woman as of 2024). In an attempt to counter demographic decline, Meloni’s government has pledged more funds to support families, and encouraged the arrival of foreign workers. At the same time, the government still fails to grant LGBTQIA+ families equal rights, and continues its rhetorical crusade against immigration.

In Hungary, too, former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán made demographic revival one of his main objectives. While economic necessity was one of the main arguments, the ideology of ethnic preservation was also important. The far-right populist portrayed immigrants, especially Muslims, as a threat to the Hungarian nation.

Reshaping our ties

In her essay, O’Brien details the survival strategies adopted by marginalised communities, such as colonised, enslaved and queer people, in the face of oppressive power and discrimination. Calling for nuance, she does not advocate a total individualisation of society, nor a complete replacement of the individual family with a socialist, state-sponsored “universal family”, nor the disappearance of spaces for care and affection. “Instead of destroying the family, we must abolish it by preserving what is crucial to it – human love, connection, care, community, romance – without binding these qualities to the particular form of the household within capitalism.”

For O’Brien, “Abolition means radically transforming these qualities, freeing them from relationships of coercion, abuse, isolation, and property … to abolish the family means to free our capacity to care for each other.”

“I don’t think the concept of family is outdated,” says Ilaria. “I think the concept of the traditional, patriarchal family is outdated. I think that today, when starting a family is increasingly difficult for economic, professional and social reasons, building extended families is more necessary than ever. What’s more, the ‘traditional family’ is clearly a political construct – because families have always extended to the broader community, throughout all of human history.

“Extended family, to me, means many things, but above all, it means relying on friends and strong personal bonds to create a chosen family. We see it every day: we build new traditions and new foundations together.”

For Richard, broadening our conceptions of the family could help alleviate the pressure on heterosexual couples, who often struggle with the social expectations to start a family at any cost. This pressure may also force adults into undesirable or unfulfillable roles – a situation that lies at the root of much domestic violence.

“We need to rethink parenthood,” says Richard, “not as a right, not as an obligation, but as a possibility, as a responsibility.”

Searching for the “Republic of Possibility” 

If certain forecasts are to be believed, Africa’s population growth augurs a future of war and societal collapse. But for some governments and NGOs, the “youth bulge” driving growth could, if instrumentalised through neoliberal processes, generate huge economic dividends. Missing from the conversation are the voices and aspirations of young Africans themselves. 

In June 2024, Kenya’s President William Ruto announced that he was going to withdraw a finance bill that, via tax increases, would have pushed the cost of basic commodities even further out of reach. His hand was forced by over a month of biweekly street protests, primarily led by Gen Z, across most of Kenya’s 47 counties – an event whose scale was unparalleled in the post-independence history of the country. 

While the police violence that ensued – including the extrajudicial execution of at least 65 people and the abduction of dozens of others – subsequently stymied these mobilisations, we continue to live in their wake: all of our landscapes – political, economic, ecological and social – were impacted by this watershed moment in Kenya’s history and will never be the same. 

A “premonition of the future” 

Madagascar, Morocco, Senegal, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria. All these countries, like Kenya, have recently experienced waves of protests with young people at the forefront. This, certainly, is a current of change that is unlikely to be halted; a movement that will only grow. 

If you are an adherent of the apocalyptic “youth bulge” discourse, fearing the “premonition of the future” that Robert D. Kaplan warned about in 1994 – that of “overpopulation”, war, and “anarchy” steered by ungovernable African youth – then these Gen Z movements are more fodder for your panic. 

Undoubtedly, much sleep has been lost by leaders – from Nairobi to Dakar, Antananarivo, Dar es Salaam, and Rabat – whose unwanted and thus illegitimate rule, shored up by militarised violence, is challenged by the very people who have been formally declared a “bulge”. (Note that it is unlikely that young people in Europe or America could ever be captured by this moniker.) 

Since at least the early 2000s, this narrative of an overflowing youth population has caught the attention of governments and organisations, prompting a myriad of state and not-for-profit programmes whose objective is to turn the “bulge” into a “demographic dividend” that boosts economic growth. To be sure, what is desired is the production of economic utility by youth for the state, rather than a substantive citizenship stewarded by youth themselves. 

The foundation for this proclivity to engineer young people socially, politically, and economically was mainly set in motion by dynamics that have both Malthusian and colonial origins. Yet, despite this provenance, from the African Union to the World Bank, from regional policymakers to European research institutions, this African demographic is becoming the bogeyman for all sorts of phenomena: crime and terrorism, uprisings, “illegal migration”, and war. 

On the one hand, the statistics are true. At least 70 per cent of the African population is under 30; according to the World Bank, by 2050 one in three young persons in the world will, therefore, be African. Furthermore, since Africa’s urbanisation rate is the fastest in the world, most of this population will be living in the continent’s cities and dwelling in geographies whose services are unable (and often unwilling) to keep up with this tide. 

Unfortunately, these appear to be the only two options given to African youth in these arenas: neoliberal promise or disaster.

For these reasons, recent Gen Z mobilisations primarily take on an urban valence. Not just because young people choose city streets to exercise their right to assemble, but also because these spaces represent the highest indices of generation-specific broken promises: the yet-to-materialise (if they ever will) bounties that are contained within “Africa rising” narratives. The expressions of these vanquished pledges, the “dreams deferred” of Langston Hughes’s poem, include frighteningly high levels of unemployment, food and housing insecurity, mental and physical health inequities, and much more. 

As Frank Njugi, one of the young contributors to a recent The Elephant symposium on “structural adjustment 2.0” – a current multilateral organisation-imposed austerity that recalls similar interventions in the 1980s and 1990s in Africa and the “Third World” – writes, 

It seemed possible that the country was rising in tandem with us, that our ambitions as kids were an inheritance from a newly opened era. Suddenly, we found ourselves in sun-bleached classrooms reciting in unison the futures we believed were ours for the taking. We wanted to eventually be policy thinkers who would one day stroll into ministries in crisp suits and speak the language of national renewal. Nairobi, for us growing up far away […] shimmered like a faraway republic of possibility, a place where we boys and girls from dilapidated rural schools might ascend into the ranks of the people we admired […] But as we grew, so did the contradictions. The very many leaders we once recited like catechism would later become architects, both by action, and by neglect, of a system defined by entrenched corruption. An elite, nestled close to the state, grew wealthier as the rest of us sat through our teenage years in the 2010s watching the gulf widen, our textbooks still heavy with promise that the country itself was increasingly showing it might not eventually honour. 

And these promises were never honoured. Instead, it is the deepening contradictions that lead us to this current conjuncture, where young people are unable to find futures and are forced to relive histories of extreme deprivation. 

“Demographic dividends” 

Over the years, there have been many pronouncements, by both state and multilateral organisations, about the consequences of not making African youth productive. These warnings, which have been sung from a plethora of platforms, tell of the need to turn young people into “dividends”, lest they become “time bombs” or “tsunamis”. 

Unfortunately, these appear to be the only two options given to African youth in these arenas: neoliberal promise or disaster. Correspondingly, many formal interventions have been launched to make them effective labour for a capitalist machine, often under the guise of “youth inclusion”. These initiatives include programmes to direct them towards being “agripreneurs”, “entrepreneurs”, “self-employed hustlers”, even while this demographic has no access to land or capital and less and less access to quality and affordable education. Unsurprisingly, within these schemes there is no serious discussion about the structural conditions that got us here – a place where, in the words of another young Kenyan writer in The Elephant, Natasha Muhanji, “Graduates enter an economy with no hands to hold them and are told that, soon, things will stabilize” – another promise that is never honoured. 

More recently, the iterations of such a politics, where youth are seen as instrumental in the neoliberal project, are witnessed in regional decarbonisation fora. Evidencing this, the Nairobi Declaration on Climate Change, which emerged from the heads of state discussions at the 2023 African Climate Summit, emphasises that, 

Africa possesses both the potential and the ambition to be a vital component of the global solution to climate change. As home to the world’s youngest and fastest-growing workforce, coupled with massive untapped renewable energy potential, abundant natural assets and an entrepreneurial spirit, our continent has the fundamentals to spearhead a climate compatible pathway as a thriving, cost-competitive industrial hub with the capacity to support other regions in achieving their net zero ambitions. 

Similarly, in a foreword to a recent report focused on a continental just transition, Kenya’s President Ruto, who is also the Chair of the Committee of African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change, writes, 

Africa is bursting with possibilities and a vast endowment of natural resources. The continent’s renewable energy potential is 50 times greater than the anticipated global electricity demand for the year 2040. The continent also has over 40% of the global reserves of key minerals for batteries and hydrogen technologies. Africa also has the largest tracts of arable land, and the continent is young, with 70% of the people under 30 years of age. It is time to tap these riches to achieve the aspirations of the people. Opportunity beckons for Africa to make this century the African Century, in which the continent’s economies leapfrog by harnessing the vast endowment of clean energy resources. We are ready to leap into a future powered by Africa and demonstrate the continent can industrialize in a low carbon and sustainable manner. 

In neither of these assertions are the aspirations of young people centred. Instead, the “novel” politics of the green transition continues to promote a “dividend” discourse, leveraging this “youth bulge” as just one of many African resources – its “riches” – that need to be directed anywhere but to their own becoming(s). It is in this way that the “African Century” is made for others, not for them; they are only important as its fuel, akin to the minerals and solar energy – a workforce devoid of other aspirations, thoughts, and embodiments.  

Even so, as the protests over the last few years have shown us, young people have other ideas about their location in the present, as well as what their tomorrows should look like. 

Ecological futures 

In April 2024, shortly before the mobilisations against Ruto’s Finance Bill, Kenya experienced flooding that led to the deaths of over 200 people and the displacement of close to 60,000. During this period, low-lying settlements in Nairobi – “slums” such as Mathare – saw households literally swept away: from kith and kin, school books and uniforms to shelter walls and gas stoves, the fast-moving flood currents were not selective about what they would carry. 

Instead of offering relief, the government arrived weeks later to destroy houses that residents had rebuilt after the floods. Ostensibly motivated by the need to “protect” residents from further mercurial weather patterns, the bulldozers tore down homes that sat in the path of the previous month’s flood waters. 

Many of the young Mathare residents who later participated in the 2024 protests were motivated by the converging effects of anthropogenic climate change on neglected communities and the militarised abandonment that was supposedly responding to this phenomenon. These events were, ultimately, inseparable. 

What’s more, the high food prices that added to their grievances (the result of both IMF and World Bank debts and unpredictable weather), as well as the water and electricity shortages that were key flashpoints for the 2025 Gen Z protests in Madagascar, all gesture towards the ecological potencies of what are often taken solely as political and economic questions. 

This is further evidenced by the reality that all the African countries where protests have taken place are ranked as “highly vulnerable” to climate change, even though Africa as a whole contributes less than four per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. 

This is not the “African Century” that instrumentalises this demographic, nor the “tsunami” or “time bomb” anticipated.

Now, oscillating between droughts and famine, flooding and high temperatures, cyclones and desertification, capricious weather patterns compound the corruption, decline in services and cost of living crises that took and keep taking young people to the streets. 

While much has been made of the digital tools that allowed for the spread of these protests – valid, but also certainly technophilic, preoccupations – their ecological dimensions are rarely foregrounded. 

Seeds for tomorrow 

As I write this in the spring of 2026, following the deepening of a fuel and cost of living crisis in Kenya, more protests are being organised. Once again, ecological questions are at the heart of these mobilisations, and they layer onto the sedimentations of a climate emergency. 

Many of the outcomes of the Gen Z uprisings from 2024 and 2025 remain inconclusive. Yet in their calls to break from business as usual, to refrain from the systemic violence that intersects with and prompts ecological pressures and creates “youth bulges”, seeds for other political, environmental, and economic tomorrows can be glimpsed. 

This is not the “African Century” that instrumentalises this demographic, nor the “tsunami” or “time bomb” anticipated. Rather, in the ways they represent and respond to the current moment through more people-centred articulations, this demographic may just be pointing us to the “republic of possibility” described by Njugi. 

This could be our only chance. 

Le nouvel or vert  

Les mauvaises récoltes dues à la hausse des températures, aux problèmes de stockage de l’eau et aux maladies des plantes font grimper la valeur marchande de l’huile d’olive. Les réponses à long terme à la baisse de production de produits sains en Italie et dans d’autres pays méditerranéens résident dans des politiques structurelles englobant l’action climatique.

À Bari, dans le talon de la botte italienne, les journaux locaux rapportent que les camions de marchandises sont escortés par la police. Les patrouilles routières prennent le relais à partir du péage le plus proche, suivies d’un hélicoptère vigilant qui surveille chaque opération. On pourrait penser à tort que ces évènements d’octobre 2023 mettent en scène une équipe de sécurité chargée du transport de diamants. Cependant, le véritable trésor protégé était le nouvel or vert : l’huile d’olive extra vierge, l’ingrédient de base dont nous dépendons pour nos repas quotidiens.  

Les olives et leurs dérivés, qui occupent une place centrale dans le régime méditerranéen, sont devenus particulièrement appétissants pour les gangs criminels du sud de l’Italie. Les opportunistes réalisent des profits illicites en volant des récoltes entières dans des vergers sans surveillance ou en tendant des embuscades aux camions transportant la précieuse huile.   

En octobre dernier, les autorités d’Andria, dans la province de Barletta-Andria-Trani, dans les Pouilles, région réputée pour son huile d’olive précieuse et de grande qualité, ont dû renforcer les mesures de surveillance des moulins en raison de vols fréquents.  

Et ces nouvelles mesures de sécurité ne se limitent pas à l’Italie. Les autorités espagnoles sont confrontées à des défis similaires : au cours de la même période, environ 50 000 litres d’huile d’olive, d’une valeur de 500 000 euros, ont été volés dans un moulin à Carcabuey, dans la province de Cordoue (l’un des plus grands centres de production d’huile d’olive d’Andalousie, en Espagne). Les producteurs grecs ont été confrontés au même problème, avec des dizaines de tonnes d’huile d’olive qui ont disparu lors de raids sur des entrepôts.   

Maladie, pénurie et fraude  

La valeur de l’huile d’olive a explosé ces dernières années : en septembre 2023, selon une récente enquête de l’Eurostat, les prix étaient 75 % plus élevés qu’en janvier 2021. La hausse mondiale de la valeur marchande a déclenché une vague de fraudes, notamment la vente d’huile d’olive extra vierge contrefaite à des restaurants haut de gamme en Italie et en Espagne. Selon Europol, « divers facteurs, tels que l’inflation générale des prix, la baisse de la production d’huile d’olive et l’augmentation de la demande, ont créé un terrain fertile pour les producteurs frauduleux ».   

Il y a dix ans, Xylella Fastidiosa, la bactérie connue pour bloquer le passage de l’eau et des nutriments dans les plantes telles que les oliviers, a atteint les Pouilles, la plus grande région productrice d’huile d’olive d’Italie. Depuis lors, elle a causé la mort de plus de 21 millions d’arbres en France, en Espagne et au Portugal, et a été classée par l’UE comme l’un des ravageurs les plus dangereux pour les cultures dans le monde. En causant une perte potentielle de production annuelle de 5,5 milliards d’euros, Xylella demeure un risque sérieux pour les oliviers européens. La combinaison des agents pathogènes et du changement climatique contribue à faire de l’huile d’olive un produit de luxe.   

Températures élevées, saisons sèches  

Les phénomènes météorologiques extrêmes sont classés parmi les menaces environnementales de haut niveau dans le Global Risks Report (rapport sur les risques mondiaux) du Forum économique mondial : ils occupent la deuxième place à court terme (2 ans) et la première place à long terme (10 ans). Le rapport prévoit que des sécheresses plus fréquentes et prolongées, ainsi que des tempêtes de grêle soudaines, auront bientôt un impact sur le bassin méditerranéen.   

La production d’huile d’olive de l’UE a chuté à des niveaux historiquement bas en 2023 en raison d’un printemps extrêmement chaud et sec : une baisse de près de 40 % par rapport à l’année précédente. Un porte-parole de l’Autorité européenne de sécurité des aliments (EFSA) n’exclut pas la possibilité de créer des pôles de production d’olives dans des pays non méditerranéens : « De nombreuses études ont été menées et publiées par la communauté scientifique, montrant par exemple que la culture de l’olivier pourrait devenir plus difficile dans certaines régions plus sèches et possible dans les régions nordiques où les hivers sont moins rigoureux ».  

Il semble que ces prédictions se soient déjà concrétisées : en 2005, deux frères, propriétaires fonciers à Pulheim, en Allemagne, se sont lancés dans un projet ambitieux visant à planter une oliveraie près de Cologne. Leur plantation compte environ 250 oliviers de différentes variétés, notamment le Leccino, le Cipressino et l’Olivastra Seggianese, nichés au cœur de la Rhénanie. « En Allemagne, les hivers ne sont nulle part aussi doux que dans la baie de Cologne », fait remarquer l’un des frères. Bien qu’elle ne soit pas encore utilisée pour la production d’huile d’olive, l’oliveraie de cette initiative offre un aperçu de ce qui pourrait devenir une réalité courante dans les décennies à venir. D’autres cas similaires ont été recensés dans des régions plus éloignées du monde, comme au Canada.  

Bien que la production d’huile d’olive de l’UE ait toujours suivi une courbe sinusoïdale dans les rapports de la dernière décennie, il reste pour l’instant difficile d’imaginer un concurrent plus important que la Méditerranée sur le marché. Le professeur Maurizio Servili, spécialiste en sciences alimentaires, met en garde : « Si l’on considère que l’Espagne représente à elle seule près de 40 % de la production mondiale, les producteurs extra-méditerranéens ne seront, de facto, pas en mesure de compenser ». Il estime que le problème va perdurer : « La régularité de la production dans le bassin méditerranéen, et même au-delà, est largement remise en question, surtout si l’on considère les deux dernières années de récolte ».    

Cette année, les prévisions restent modérées : selon le rapport agricole à court terme de la Commission européenne, l’UE ne devrait produire que 1,5 million de tonnes d’huile d’olive (soit 33 % de moins que la moyenne sur 5 ans). On estime que l’UE importera 160 000 tonnes en provenance de pays tiers (soit 8 % de moins que la moyenne sur 5 ans). La plupart des importations proviennent de Tunisie, d’Argentine et de Turquie, mais ces pays ne sont pas à l’abri des mêmes défis que l’Europe du Sud : la production hors UE en 2023/2024 devrait être inférieure de 11 % à la moyenne sur 5 ans, les importations en provenance de Tunisie diminuant de 35 %. L’Europe produit moins, importe moins et consomme donc beaucoup moins d’huile d’olive qu’auparavant, malgré ses bienfaits largement reconnus pour la santé.  

Lutter contre le déclin    

 Maurizio Servili soutient que, paradoxalement, les récentes avancées technologiques ont permis la production d’une huile d’olive d’une qualité sans précédent, surpassant tout ce qui a été produit dans le bassin méditerranéen et au-delà au cours des trois derniers millénaires. « Nous avons un produit qui a un impact positif sur l’espérance de vie des gens et… il doit rester au cœur du régime méditerranéen. Nous devons donc tout mettre en œuvre pour y parvenir », déclare-t-il.  

L’avenir de l’huile d’olive repose sur les épaules d’environ 2,5 millions de producteurs d’olives dans l’UE (soit environ un tiers de tous les agriculteurs de l’UE). Mais alors que les manifestations se poursuivent à travers l’Europe et qu’un nombre alarmant de 800 agriculteurs quittent chaque jour leur profession, les réponses durables ne peuvent être trouvées que dans des politiques structurelles englobant l’action climatique.  

Le consortium d’oléiculteurs Italia Olivicola en Italie rapporte que la moitié des oliveraies du pays sont à l’abandon et peu résistantes aux phénomènes météorologiques extrêmes et aux ravageurs. Étant donné que la superficie moyenne des oliveraies n’est que de deux hectares, le groupe plaide pour que les petits et moyens oléiculteurs soient associés aux discussions avec les administrations nationales et régionales.   

Des olives assoiffées  

« Même si l’olivier est réputé pour résister à la sécheresse, la plupart des études scientifiques prévoient une augmentation des besoins nets en irrigation, une baisse des rendements et un décalage des phases phénologiques pour les oliviers de la région méditerranéenne en raison de l’augmentation de la chaleur et du stress hydrique », indique le service de presse du Conseil oléicole international (COI). Une saison de récolte plus précoce, causée par la hausse des températures, réduit la qualité de l’huile d’olive.  

Il y a encore quelques années, les agriculteurs du sud de l’Europe dépendaient des précipitations saisonnières pour cultiver leurs olives. Aujourd’hui, ils suivent des cours sur l’utilisation efficace de l’eau. Les précipitations doivent être optimisées afin de devenir une ressource : d’importantes quantités d’eau provenant de fortes pluies, en particulier en Italie, ne sont pas captées et stockées efficacement. « Nous devons créer des étangs à flanc de colline et d’autres réservoirs d’eau. Nous devons absolument repenser l’ensemble du système de gestion et de récupération de l’eau, non seulement à l’échelle nationale, mais aussi en Espagne, bien que mieux équipée, et au Portugal », ajoute le professeur Servili.  

Outre la promotion d’une meilleure efficacité hydrique, le COI souligne la nécessité de favoriser un secteur oléicole durable. Cela implique d’améliorer la santé des sols grâce à la matière organique, de décarboniser les opérations agronomiques en utilisant des biocarburants pour les véhicules et les machines, d’utiliser des engrais non synthétiques, d’améliorer l’efficacité énergétique du processus et d’utiliser tous les coproduits tels que les feuilles pour le compostage et les effluents pour l’irrigation.   

Mort et nouvelle vie  

La Piana degli Ulivi Monumentali, la plaine qui compte la plus forte concentration d’oliviers centenaires de tout le bassin méditerranéen, est l’une des zones les plus touchées par la bactérie Xylella dans les Pouilles. Ici même, dans les environs des villes de Fasano, Ostuni et Carovigno, les journaux locaux ont annoncé la mort de neuf variétés d’oliviers touchés par l’agent pathogène.   

Save the Olives, une association à but non lucratif basée dans les Pouilles, collabore avec le Conseil national de la recherche (CNR) sur plusieurs projets visant à sauver les oliviers monumentaux. « Nous organisons trois ateliers de greffage, car nous avons besoin de personnes qualifiées pour la prochaine campagne au printemps », explique Patrizio Ziggiotti, secrétaire général de l’association. « Si vous greffez l’arbre avant qu’il ne soit infecté, vous pouvez le sauver ».  

La recherche scientifique encouragée par les projets financés par l’UE a récemment fait d’énormes progrès. L’Institut pour la protection durable des végétaux (IPSP) du CNR à Bari a identifié deux variétés, le Leccino et le FS 17 (Favolosa), considérées comme résistantes à la bactérie Xylella, autorisées à la plantation dans les zones infectées. « Les nouvelles variétés sont moins gourmandes en eau, sont indigènes et sont productives », explique Ziggiotti. « Nous avons financé et construit une serre spéciale », équipée d’un filet anti-insectes, « afin de les stocker à l’abri des agents pathogènes et des parasites, et de les enregistrer comme nouvelles variétés ». La bataille pour sauver les olives ne fait que commencer.   

This translation was commissioned thanks to the support of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.

Il nuovo oro verde  

I raccolti scarsi dovuti all’aumento delle temperature, ai problemi di stoccaggio dell’acqua e alle malattie delle piante stanno facendo aumentare il valore di mercato dell’olio d’oliva. Le risposte a lungo termine alla riduzione della produzione di prodotti sani in Italia e in altri Paesi mediterranei risiedono in politiche strutturali che comprendono l’azione per il clima. 

A Bari, nel tacco dello stivale italiano, i giornali locali riportano la notizia delle scorte di polizia per i camion merci. Le pattuglie autostradali prendono il controllo dal casello più vicino, seguite da un elicottero di sorveglianza che controlla ogni operazione. Si potrebbe pensare che questi eventi dell’ottobre 2023 riguardassero un servizio di sicurezza dedicato al trasporto di diamanti. Tuttavia, il vero tesoro protetto era il nuovo oro verde: l’olio extravergine di oliva, l’ingrediente base su cui facciamo affidamento per i nostri pasti quotidiani.   

Le olive e i loro derivati, elementi centrali della dieta mediterranea, sono diventati particolarmente appetibili per le bande criminali dell’Italia meridionale. Gli opportunisti stanno realizzando profitti illeciti rubando interi raccolti da frutteti incustoditi o tendendo agguati ai camion che trasportano il prezioso olio.   

Lo scorso ottobre, le autorità di Andria, nella provincia di Barletta-Andria-Trani, in Puglia – rinomata per il suo olio d’oliva pregiato e di alta qualità – hanno dovuto intensificare le misure di sorveglianza dei frantoi a causa dei frequenti furti.  

E queste nuove misure di sicurezza non sono limitate all’Italia. Le autorità spagnole stanno affrontando sfide simili: nello stesso periodo, circa 50.000 litri di olio d’oliva, per un valore di 500.000 euro, sono stati rubati da un frantoio a Carcabuey, Cordova (uno dei più grandi centri di produzione di olio d’oliva dell’Andalusia, in Spagna). I produttori greci hanno dovuto affrontare lo stesso problema, con decine di tonnellate di olio d’oliva scomparse durante le incursioni nei magazzini di stoccaggio.   

 Malattia, scarsità e frode  

Il valore dell’olio d’oliva è salito alle stelle negli ultimi anni: nel settembre 2023, secondo una recente indagine Eurostat, i prezzi erano superiori del 75% rispetto a quelli del gennaio 2021. L’aumento globale del valore di mercato ha scatenato un’ondata di frodi, tra cui la vendita di olio extravergine di oliva contraffatto a ristoranti di lusso in Italia e Spagna. Secondo Europol, “una combinazione di vari fattori, quali l’inflazione generale dei prezzi, la riduzione della produzione di olio d’oliva e l’aumento della domanda, ha creato il terreno fertile perfetto per i produttori fraudolenti”.   

Dieci anni fa, la Xylella Fastidiosa, il batterio noto per bloccare il passaggio di acqua e sostanze nutritive in piante come gli ulivi, ha raggiunto la Puglia, la più grande regione produttrice di olio d’oliva d’Italia. Da allora, ha causato la morte di oltre 21 milioni di alberi in Francia, Spagna e Portogallo ed è stata inserita dall’UE nell’elenco dei parassiti più pericolosi per le colture a livello mondiale. Con una perdita potenziale di produzione annua pari a 5,5 miliardi di euro, la Xylella continua a rappresentare un grave rischio per gli olivi europei. Il patogeno e il cambiamento climatico, insieme, stanno contribuendo a rendere l’olio d’oliva un prodotto di lusso.   

Temperature elevate, stagioni secche  

Gli eventi meteorologici estremi sono considerati minacce ambientali di alto livello nel Global Risks Report del World Economic Forum: sono al secondo posto nella classifica a breve termine (2 anni) e al primo posto in quella a lungo termine (10 anni). Il rapporto prevede che siccità più frequenti e prolungate, nonché violente grandinate, avranno presto un impatto sul bacino del Mediterraneo.   

La produzione di olio d’oliva dell’UE è crollata a livelli storicamente bassi nel 2023 a causa di una primavera estremamente calda e secca, con una riduzione del raccolto di quasi il 40% rispetto all’anno precedente. Un portavoce dell’Autorità europea per la sicurezza alimentare (EFSA) non esclude la possibilità di creare centri di produzione olivicola in Paesi non mediterranei: “La comunità scientifica ha condotto e pubblicato numerosi studi che dimostrano, ad esempio, che la coltivazione dell’olivo potrebbe diventare più difficile in alcune zone più aride e possibile nelle regioni settentrionali, dove gli inverni stanno diventando meno rigidi”.  

Sembra che tali previsioni si siano già avverate: nel 2005, due fratelli, proprietari di un terreno a Pulheim, in Germania, hanno intrapreso un ambizioso progetto per piantare un oliveto vicino a Colonia. La loro piantagione, situata nel cuore della Renania, vanta circa 250 olivi di diverse varietà, tra cui Leccino, Cipressino e Olivastra Seggianese. “In Germania non c’è posto dove gli inverni siano più miti che nella piana di Colonia”, osserva uno dei fratelli. Sebbene non sia ancora utilizzato per la produzione di olio d’oliva, l’oliveto di questa iniziativa offre un assaggio di ciò che potrebbe diventare una realtà comune nei prossimi decenni. Altri casi simili sono stati segnalati in aree più lontane del mondo, come il Canada.  

Sebbene la produzione di olio d’oliva dell’UE abbia costantemente seguito un andamento sinusoidale nei rapporti dell’ultimo decennio, al momento rimane difficile immaginare un concorrente più forte del Mediterraneo sul mercato. Il professor Maurizio Servili, docente di scienze alimentari, avverte: “Se si considera che la Spagna da sola contribuisce per quasi il quaranta per cento alla produzione mondiale, i produttori extra-mediterranei, di fatto, non saranno in grado di compensare”. Egli ritiene che il problema sia destinato a perpetuarsi: “La regolarità della produzione nel bacino del Mediterraneo e, in effetti, anche al di fuori di esso è ampiamente messa in discussione, soprattutto se si considerano gli ultimi due anni agricoli”.    

Quest’anno le aspettative rimangono modeste: secondo il rapporto agricolo a breve termine della Commissione europea, l’UE produrrà probabilmente solo 1,5 milioni di tonnellate di olio d’oliva (il 33% in meno rispetto alla media quinquennale). Si stima che l’UE importerà 160.000 tonnellate da Paesi terzi (l’8% in meno rispetto alla media quinquennale). La maggior parte delle importazioni proviene da Tunisia, Argentina e Turchia, ma questi Paesi non sono immuni dalle stesse sfide dell’Europa meridionale: la produzione extra UE nel 2023/24 dovrebbe essere inferiore dell’11% rispetto alla media quinquennale, con un calo del 35% delle importazioni dalla Tunisia. L’Europa produce meno, importa meno e quindi consuma anche molto meno olio d’oliva rispetto al passato, nonostante i suoi benefici per la salute siano ampiamente riconosciuti.  

Affrontare il declino    

 Servili sostiene che, paradossalmente, i recenti progressi tecnologici hanno consentito la produzione di olio d’oliva di qualità senza precedenti, superiore a qualsiasi altro prodotto nel bacino del Mediterraneo e oltre negli ultimi tre millenni. “Abbiamo un prodotto che ha un impatto positivo sull’aspettativa di vita delle persone e … deve rimanere al centro della dieta mediterranea. Quindi dovremmo fare tutto il possibile per realizzare questo obiettivo”, afferma.  

Il futuro dell’olio d’oliva ricade sulle spalle di circa 2,5 milioni di produttori di olive nell’UE (circa un terzo di tutti gli agricoltori dell’UE). Ma, mentre le proteste continuano in tutta Europa e ogni giorno un numero allarmante di 800 agricoltori abbandona la professione, le risposte sostenibili possono essere trovate solo in politiche strutturali che comprendano azioni per il clima.  

Il consorzio di olivicoltori italiano Italia Olivicola riferisce che metà degli oliveti del Paese è in uno stato di abbandono e presenta una bassa resilienza agli eventi meteorologici estremi e ai parassiti. Considerando che la superficie media dei frutteti è di soli due ettari, il gruppo sostiene l’inclusione dei piccoli e medi olivicoltori nelle discussioni con le amministrazioni nazionali e regionali.   

Olive assetate  

 “Sebbene l’olivo sia considerato resistente alla siccità, la maggior parte degli studi scientifici ha previsto un aumento del fabbisogno netto di irrigazione, una diminuzione della resa e uno spostamento delle fasi fenologiche per gli olivi nella regione mediterranea a causa dell’aumento del calore e dello stress idrico”, afferma l’ufficio stampa del Consiglio Oleicolo Internazionale (COI). Una stagione di raccolta anticipata, causata dall’aumento delle temperature, riduce la qualità dell’olio d’oliva.  

Fino a un paio di anni fa, gli agricoltori dell’Europa meridionale facevano affidamento sulle piogge stagionali per coltivare le olive. Oggi stanno frequentando corsi sull’uso efficiente dell’acqua. Le precipitazioni devono essere ottimizzate affinché diventino una risorsa: quantità significative di acqua provenienti da forti piogge, in particolare in Italia, non vengono raccolte e immagazzinate in modo efficace. “Dobbiamo costruire bacini idrici collinari e altri bacini di riserva d’acqua. Dobbiamo assolutamente ripensare l’intero sistema di gestione e recupero dell’acqua, non solo a livello nazionale, ma anche per la Spagna, sebbene meglio attrezzata, e il Portogallo”, aggiunge il professor Servili.  

Oltre a promuovere una maggiore efficienza idrica, il COI sottolinea la necessità di favorire uno sviluppo sostenibile del settore dell’olio d’oliva. Ciò comporta il miglioramento della salute del suolo con sostanze organiche, la decarbonizzazione delle operazioni agronomiche mediante l’uso di bio-carburanti per veicoli e macchinari, l’uso di fertilizzanti non sintetici, il miglioramento dell’efficienza energetica del processo e l’utilizzo di tutti i coprodotti, come le foglie per il compostaggio e gli effluenti per l’irrigazione.   

Morte e nuova vita  

 La Piana degli Ulivi Monumentali, la pianura con la più alta concentrazione di ulivi ultracentenari dell’intero bacino del Mediterraneo, è una delle zone più colpite dalla Xylella in Puglia. Proprio qui, nelle vicinanze delle città di Fasano, Ostuni e Carovigno, i necrologi locali hanno annunciato la morte di nove varietà di olivi colpiti dal patogeno.   

Save the Olives, un’associazione senza scopo di lucro con sede in Puglia, sta collaborando con il Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) a diversi progetti volti a salvare gli ulivi monumentali. “Stiamo organizzando tre seminari sull’innesto perché abbiamo bisogno di persone qualificate per la prossima campagna in primavera”, afferma Patrizio Ziggiotti, segretario generale dell’associazione. “Se innesti l’albero prima che venga infettato, puoi salvarlo”.  

La ricerca scientifica promossa dai progetti finanziati dall’UE ha compiuto enormi progressi negli ultimi tempi. L’Istituto per la Protezione Sostenibile delle Piante (IPSP) del CNR di Bari ha individuato due varietà, Leccino e FS 17 (Favolosa), considerate resistenti alla Xylella, autorizzate alla piantagione nelle aree infette. “Le nuove varietà richiedono meno acqua, sono autoctone e produttive”, afferma Ziggiotti. “Abbiamo finanziato e costruito una serra protetta”, una speciale serra realizzata con reti anti-insetti, “per conservarli al riparo da agenti patogeni e parassiti e registrarli come nuove varietà”. La battaglia per salvare le olive è solo all’inizio.   

This translation was commissioned thanks to the support of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.

How Are Green Imperatives Affecting Creativity?  

Creative Europe funding represents a lifeline for many artists and creatives, but it comes with strings attached that reflect the EU’s overarching agenda. Greening requirements, for example, aim to both make the cultural sector more sustainable and boost its contribution to the ecological transformation. However, cultural practitioners and artists explain that this can only be achieved if green objectives are realistic and compatible with local realities.  

Since its introduction in 2014, the Creative Europe programme has been the European Union’s flagship effort to support the cultural and audiovisual sectors. While EU policy recognises culture’s role in creating a better, more equal and just society for everyone, the sector only gets a small share of the EU budget (less than 0.25 per cent for 2021-2027). Nonetheless, the Creative Europe programme significantly shapes the development path of a growing part of the European cultural sector, which increasingly relies on it for support.  

In selecting its winning projects, so-called “horizontal priorities” – greening and environmental actions, inclusion, gender equality, and digital transition – have often been decisive. From 2020 onwards, following the launch of the European Green Deal, the greening priority became particularly prominent, reflecting the need for culture to align with the EU’s overarching agenda. But what is expected from organisations and consortia competing for Creative Europe funding in relation to greening and environmental concerns?  

The programme’s recent call for Cooperation projects asked for “a contribution to the implementation of the high-level initiatives such as the European Green Deal and the New European Bauhaus.” Greening efforts, a 2023 report highlights, should not be seen as secondary objectives, but need to be integrated into the core of any project. These efforts include not only green mobility, waste management, and energy efficiency, but also raising awareness, sharing good practices, and measuring and monitoring.  

In many parts of Europe, similar green criteria are integrated into local and national funding mechanisms and do not represent a novelty for cultural organisations. In addition, many European artists and cultural practitioners give significant attention to greening practices, and welcome the stronger focus on environmental issues that showcase and support the green-minded profile of the sector. However, the recommendations risk being perceived as a burden by cultural organisations already struggling with budget cuts, censorship, political assaults, and other crises.  

In exploring how Creative Europe’s greening focus affects organisations and their work, I have spoken with five people from three European cultural entities, and asked: Under what conditions can culture meaningfully contribute to the EU’s green agenda? And in what circumstances do greening priorities represent an additional burden for a sector that is already struggling with precarity?  

Working with tools of nature itself 

Raluca Voinea and Ovidiu Ţichindeleanu, from the Romanian organisation tranzit.ro, lead The Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life, a rural eco-venue that foregrounds solidarity and the sharing of resources, and which is based near Bucharest, in an area struggling with desertification and lack of accessible freshwater reserves. The Station was designed as a prototype for future such organisations. The initiative was started in the framework of a Creative Europe-funded project in 20221 – the first one in which tranzit.ro took the leading role. Today, The Station is central to all of their activities – an applied manifesto of sorts whereby an ecological agenda is intertwined with community participation rooted in locality.  

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Their hands-on approach of converting ecological principles into action together with artists, scientists, local people, researchers, and students is supported by both public money, including Creative Europe funding, and private sources. They consider themselves lucky in this sense, as funding (including the mandatory Creative Europe project co-financing)2 is increasingly out of reach for cultural organisations in many Eastern European countries. This makes it hard to focus on the long-term perspective that is crucial for tranzit.ro. Voinea also underlines that the constant demand to “innovate” sometimes clashes with achieving sustainability through continuity of practices. She explains that tranzit.ro finds the balance between the two in the development of experimental eco-prototypes that are small in scale and can be used by others – from green infrastructure built at The Station to working with the land and experimenting with data archives, open-source software, and transdisciplinary research.  

Ţichindeleanu points out that many positive effects created by this type of work seem to be disregarded, given that greening indicators are often framed negatively in the language of “do no harm” or “reduce environmental impact”. Furthermore, finished Creative Europe projects need more follow-up, not only in terms of continuity of funding, but also with regard to knowing how the positive project results have been integrated further, beyond the project scope, partner organisations, and the cultural sector. “Contemporary art organisations like tranzit.ro have this specificity of being transdisciplinary, and this is hard to communicate on an EU level, to people who are more niche and maybe not used to working across sectors in the way we do,” says Voinea.   

The team underlines the necessity of a direct dialogue with policymakers, one that is initiated from the top down, engaging multiple sectors and bodies from the cultural, environmental, academic, food and agricultural sectors. They mention their exchange with several universities as an example of successful connections created through shared interests that build on differences instead of reinforcing them. For tranzit.ro, this goes well beyond EU collaborations to working with similar organisations from Latin America and North Africa in order to bring in a different understanding of climate and of how to work more with “the tools of nature itself rather than the tools people invented”.  

In the EU context, Ţichindeleanu notes that there is a need for greater consideration of differences among organisations applying for Creative Europe funding from different European regions. Capacity discrepancies, different organisational needs, a variety of climate urgencies – especially evident in the eco-reservoirs of Eastern Europe – and different societal realities demand greater recognition in new Creative Europe alliances, and should be used to foster links between policies and positive project results.  

Care is power and gentle strength 

After 20 years of managing a contemporary art space in central Zagreb, the NGO What, How & for Whom (WHW) is now preparing to open a bigger venue while waiting for new Creative Europe projects to be approved. Curators Ana Dević and Ana Kovačić point out that greening efforts are part of WHW’s wider practices of “care for the community”. These manifest through degrowth ethics, social inclusion, resource sharing and redistribution, as well as experimental, participatory pedagogy. “There is no social without ecological,” says Dević, “and no ecological without social.” In 2023, WHW co-organised the 9th International Degrowth Conference in Zagreb, and in its day-to-day work, it follows many degrowth principles, such as solidarity, building on differences, collective practices, openness, generosity and hospitality.  

Kovačić says there are two approaches to greening priorities for organisations within the Creative Europe funding system. One is on the thematic level, where a certain green topic is taken as content, a narrative line in an artwork, event or cultural programme. The other is on the organisational level, where greening is implemented into logistics, programme production, office and admin work. As one of the first organisations from Croatia to win a Creative Europe grant, WHW points out that the greening priority is not a new requirement in this funding programme. However, in recent years evaluation parameters and indicators that project partners need to meet have become stricter. The possibility of defining project results through internal criteria is reduced, and more focus is placed on “ticking all the boxes” to secure the funding. The question Dević asks is: Who is included in defining these indicators? And how can organisations like WHW influence them so that approaches such as degrowth become more widely recognised?  

Similar to tranzit.ro, Dević and Kovačić call for more flexibility with regard to local realities. In the Western Balkans and parts of Central Eastern Europe, for example, social and political conditions impede greening efforts such that they can often seem futile. Drawing from their experience in collaborating with organisations from EU candidate countries such as Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kovačić points out that “the greening of cultural activities such as artistic residencies in countries struggling with the basics of waste management is unrealistic.” 

For WHW, a more flexible approach should be supported by the creation of independent bodies that facilitate and manage the transition processes through learning and exchange, making sure green competencies become part of everyday cultural life. To be meaningful, this exchange needs to “move towards a more systemic approach.” This can be done by, for example, dealing with waste reduction and energy savings at all stages of an artwork, from its production to presentation, touring, communication, dismantling and preservation. But before this happens, small fixes like working more under daylight than artificial light, reducing unnecessary flights, and supporting local food suppliers in event production can go a long way.  

Local is the basis for all green economies 

“I am a European Climate Pact Ambassador, but I do not necessarily agree with all of the EU’s greening policies,” says Karla Andrić from Haiku Communications, a Zagreb-based independent agency supporting actors across the Creative Europe community. When it comes to grant open calls, Andrić warns that greening requirements lack perspective, making too little distinction between small NGOs and big cultural institutions. Moreover, focusing solely on fitting into call guidelines drains the energy required for true and impactful green innovation. She sees evaluation and education as pivotal areas of interest: good results need to open up access to greater resources and funding for greening, while smaller organisations working in unfavourable contexts need to be able to learn and make mistakes.  

Greenwashing is a big topic in her professional practice. She notices a shortage of concrete EU guidelines and tools on greenwashing adapted to different contexts and sizes of organisations, as well as ones that go beyond terminology and individual behaviour change. For those in the Creative Europe ecosystem, this would provide more clarity in greening directions, as Andrić warns that “without clear evaluation based on measurable indicators, even documents such as green certificates can easily fall into the greenwashing category.” It is necessary to back up these efforts with more education opportunities, not only for cultural organisations, creative MSMEs, institutions and CSOs, but also for journalists and reporters, communication experts, policy representatives, senior corporate management and everyone else participating in the cultural sector. 

For Andrić, this is connected to issues of environmental responsibility being shifted to individuals instead of high-level political and corporate actors. Similar to WHW, she highlights the need for independent regulatory bodies that are able to offer concrete support in detecting and dealing with issues such as greenwashing. Cultural organisations, on the other hand, need to be able and willing to train their teams more on shaping projects according to greening impact and values, with evaluation in mind already at the project design stage. Here she draws parallels with the value-based approach to marketing, which focuses primarily on creating a positive social impact. Value-based strategies look beyond audience demographics into questions of people’s motivation and contextual, local particularities. These strategies, if applied to Creative Europe projects, could lead to more impactful greening opportunities for artists and creatives shared by the wider community. 

Andrić says that individual actions can complement and support this shift, for example, by addressing and raising awareness about digital pollution, given that many cultural organisations primarily communicate digitally. Fewer emails and video calls, switching websites to greener servers, and minimising heavy data traffic are some of the easiest solutions. Prioritising public transport and giving up on bottled water for events can also make a difference – at least at the local level, where impact can be more easily measured.  

Finally, “We need to be more critical, more rebellious, ask the hard questions, and listen to younger generations telling us we are wrong in doing things the same way as we always did them.” In the precarious funding landscape of many European countries, choices such as refusing money from fossil fuel companies are still deemed too radical. According to Andrić, by speaking up if something isn’t right, being more transparent in what we can do, building from smaller communities with clear greening cause and impact, and knowing exactly who the people are that we’re doing it for, we can change direction and move from rhetoric to real, tangible results. 

From a reparatory to a regenerative approach  

The artists and culture practitioners I interviewed uncovered several shared points of interest. First, in Creative Europe projects, environmental efforts overlap strongly with community work, citizen participation and social inclusion. Second, to be both realistic and meaningful, greening indicators and evaluation methods need to be defined together with the organisations that have to meet them. Third, a one-size-fits-all approach to greening culture risks disregarding regional differences and reinforcing inequalities between small and big organisations, with the latter enjoying more administrative and reporting capacities. Fourth, many cultural practitioners need and want new competencies and knowledge on green issues, and Creative Europe projects can be a central place for this education to happen. Lastly, available resources are insufficient to meet the number and scale of greening requests. 

In the cultural and creative sectors, there is a widespread openness and a strong commitment to doing more for the environment. However, many cultural organisations clearly struggle to keep up with the greening demands associated with receiving public funding. If not complemented by the necessary support, greening requirements can exacerbate the presence of work precarity and burnout. Making sure cultural practitioners have enough to give, where giving extra is needed, shifts the greening perspective within the sector from a reparatory to a regenerative approach, creating a new and firm base from which greening in culture and creativity can grow and blossom.  

As the new EU budget 2028-2034 is being negotiated, global urgencies that require increased funding, as well as a shift to the right in European politics, are moving the focus away from greening priorities. In the framework of the newly proposed AgoraEU Programme, Creative Europe appears together with the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme under the priority of “Competitiveness, Prosperity and Security”.  A potential implication of this could be greater emphasis on culture’s contributions to the economy and the protection of democracy.  

It is yet to be seen if the change could damage the efforts made to green the European cultural landscape or bring new and burdensome requirements to artists and cultural organisations. However, dedication to greening and sustainability will remain steadfast in the European creative community, as it is an integral part of its collective identity in both its practical concerns and ethical imperatives. This is aligned with recognising culture itself as essential and cross-cutting infrastructure for addressing our most complex societal challenges. For the cultural sector, greening is a systemic value – one that is able to transform organisations and their projects, and the overall quality of life for everyone.  

  1. Architecture, Biodiversity, Culture [ABC]. Building ecological institutions for culture. 2022-2025.  ↩︎
  2. Creative Europe partners in Cooperation projects receive EU funding for part of the project budget (currently 60 per cent to 80 per cent). The rest needs to be secured through other funding mechanisms.  ↩︎

Imagination as Resistance in the Baltics

Some of the most notable expressions of resistance to authoritarianism have been exercises in imagination, in which dissidents used cultural tools to express desires for freedom and envision new futures. The Baltic states, which have often been subject to foreign rule and the threat of invasion, have developed an exceptionally robust tradition of cultural resistance that continues to influence politics and society to this day.

In the autumn of 2025, cultural workers in Lithuania staged a series of protests after the populist right-wing party Dawn of Nemunas took control of the Ministry of Culture. Their demonstrations featured striking visuals of the word “culture” depicted as a car falling off the road, and highlighted the danger of reducing culture to political propaganda.  

Dawn of Nemunas (“Nemuno Aušra”) was created in 2023 by Remigijus Žemaitaitis following his expulsion from the Freedom and Justice party due to his antisemitic views. The party chose Ignotas Adomavičius for the culture portfolio, a politician with no previous experience in the field of culture.  

In response, the Lithuanian cultural sector collected more than 40,000 signatures against Adomavičius and organised protest actions. On 5 October, the symphonic poem The Sea, written by Lithuanian composer and writer Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, was performed simultaneously across the country as both a warning and a call to action. Adomavičius resigned shortly after he was confirmed as a minister.  

Cultural resistance and freedom 

This autumn’s protests fall within a long Baltic tradition of using culture as a tool for protest, resistance, and political action. In neighbouring Latvia, which lost its independence in 1940 when the USSR occupied the country, only to then spend four years under Nazi rule, culture played a significant role in building a community and keeping the idea of a sovereign state alive. The country’s path to regaining independence in 1991 was not born from a single uprising but from decades of quiet endurance. Under Soviet rule, culture was censored, and imagination became a means of national and creative survival and resistance. Literature, film, and music were not mere entertainment – they were repositories of national identity and suppressed freedom. 

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Filmmakers looked for subtle ways of avoiding political control. Rolands Kalniņš might be the most significant example of subversive defiance under Soviet censorship in Latvian cinema. Two of his films – Rock and Splinters and Four White Shirts – were banned, and a third one was destroyed. Ceplis (1972), which did get released, was framed as an exposé of interwar corruption, but it stirred nostalgic longing for a time when Latvia’s destiny seemed self-determined. Similarly, Leonīds Leimanis’ Pie bagātās kundzes (“My Wealthy Mistress”, 1969), set in 1930s Riga and ostensibly a critique of bourgeois decadence, evoked a sense of beauty and vitality that contrasted sharply with the austerity of Soviet life. On the surface, these films played into Soviet ideology by criticising the free and independent era of the Latvian Republic, but through aesthetic imagination, they invited viewers to remember what independence felt like, even when speaking it aloud was forbidden.  

By the late 1980s, that imagined freedom began to be transformed into action. One of the strongest examples of that era’s protests is the Baltic Way. On 23 August, 1989, nearly two million people formed a human chain that stretched across Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. It transformed the abstract ideal of unity into a tangible image of solidarity and togetherness. Held on the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which had consigned the Baltics to Soviet control, the demonstration was both a commemoration and an act of defiance. It reminded the world that history could be rewritten through collective will and that people, not the political elites, have the power. The image of people holding hands across borders captured the power of imagination turned into action: a living metaphor for the possibility of liberation through unity. 

The art of protest 

Social change is rarely linear or predictable, yet one element remains essential: imagination. Without it, progress stalls. Imagination is not a luxury but a means of survival. It helps societies endure crises by imagining futures beyond the limits of the present. Imagination is both creative and political: it is the source of new ideas and the drive to turn them into a new reality. Without imagination, politics risks becoming bureaucratic routine, simply managing problems instead of transforming them. 

Social change is rarely linear or predictable, yet one element remains essential: imagination. Without it, progress stalls.

Culture is where acts of imagination can take shape, making it a site of struggle between those who seek to expand political possibilities and those who wish to contain them. Culture not only reflects a society’s values but shapes them, offering a shared space to rethink identity, meaning, and collective futures. 

The use of cultural expression and artistic performance as a tool for protest and political action extends well beyond the Baltics. In Portland in the United States, protesters are confronting heavily armed federal agents with absurd visual language (giant inflatable animals and whimsical costumes) to challenge the normalisation of using military force against protesters. The image of an inflatable frog facing off against agents in black tactical gear exposes the grotesque and surreal imbalance of power and the absurdity of state violence. What might seem playful or even ridiculous is in fact deeply political: a reclaiming of the imaginative terrain of public life. In this case, creativity and imagination become tools of critique, transforming fear into defiance and turning protest into performance art. 

The Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011 offered another example of imagination at work in political life. It began as a local protest against corporate influence and quickly evolved into a global movement of dissent. By occupying Zuccotti Park (a privately owned public space) protesters reimagined the very notion of political space in ways reminiscent of some of the most impactful protests of the 20th century, such as the Paris student protests in 1968. The Occupy Wall Street encampment became an experiment in leaderless organisation, horizontal decision-making, and mutual care. While critics often point to Occupy’s lack of concrete outcomes, its real legacy lies elsewhere. It expanded the repertoire of protest by reminding people that the occupation of space itself could be a radical act of imagination. Its ethos of participation, visibility, and shared responsibility paved the way for later movements, from Black Lives Matter to global climate strikes. 

From Portland to Vilnius and Riga, protests reveal how imagination allows people to subvert power not through force, but through creativity, thus making dissent not only visible, but unforgettable. 

Singing communities 

The Baltics case demonstrates that culture transforms imagination into shared experience. It gives form to collective memory and direction to collective aspiration. And through collective experience, it unites people by building connections that can become something bigger than just the sum of its parts.  

As Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities illustrated, nations consist of people who will never meet each other, but who share the idea of being united by something bigger than themselves – and they feel a horizontal comradeship with one another. Anderson explores the role of language in building the imagined community of a nation, as he links what he calls “print capitalism’’ (and standardisation of language) to the beginnings of nationhood. Language – and stories and myths – is the unifying element that turns strangers into an imagined community. This is especially relevant for small nations. During Soviet occupation, preserving a nation’s language could be an act of protest on its own. Singing, writing and thinking in Latvian meant preserving the Latvian language under occupation. While an imagined community runs the risk of becoming exclusive, it also provides a vital glue for a nation’s survival under foreign domination.  

Cultural initiatives like the Latvian Song and Dance Festival (Vispārējie latviešu Dziesmu un Deju svētki) are a great example of cultural expressions keeping a community alive and united under occupation. Since its first gathering in 1873, the festival has been a ritual of collective identity, an assertion that Latvia exists as a nation even when denied political recognition.  

Under Soviet occupation, the festival became both propaganda and resistance. Officially, it was framed as a socialist celebration; unofficially, it was a quiet rehearsal for freedom. Tens of thousands sang in Latvian, dressed in national costumes, and performed songs rooted in local folklore and myth. The act of singing itself became political: to sing together was to exist, together, as Latvians. The 1985 Song and Dance festival became a symbolic turning point. Soviet authorities attempted to remove the patriotic song Gaismas pils (“The Castle of Light” – a metaphor for national awakening) from the setlist for the final concert, as well as the conductor, Haralds Mednis. So when tens of thousands of singers called for Mednis to take the stage and perform it anyway, the resulting eruption of the song became a collective act of courage. In that moment, imagination broke through censorship, and art became a rehearsal for freedom. 

The 1990 Declaration of Independence was not an abrupt rupture but the culmination of decades of cultural self-assertion.

With perestroika and glasnost in the 1980s, suppressed voices began to surface. The Baltica folklore festivals of the late 1980s allowed Baltic peoples to publicly share their traditions once again. The USSR was an attempt to erase national characteristics and create a transnational culture. Celebration of suppressed national heritage was also a celebration of cracks that were appearing in the walls of the USSR. The red-white-red Latvian flag was illegal for decades; in 1988, it was raised over Riga Castle and became a visible act of reclaiming history and national identity. The Baltic Way the following year transformed that symbolic reclamation into a living reality and became a visual signifier of the change that was happening within Latvia and the Baltic states.  

The 1990 Declaration of Independence was not an abrupt rupture but the culmination of decades of cultural self-assertion. The late 1980s had prepared people to see themselves as free long before independence was officially restored. During the Barricades of January 1991, when Soviet forces sought to crush the movement, citizens responded with creativity rather than violence – building barricades, documenting events, and strengthening the community of Latvia.  

Carrying the legacy forward 

This legacy continues to shape Latvia today, as an assertive Russia once again poses a threat to freedom and independence. During the final concert of this year’s Latvian School Youth Song and Dance Festival, Dumpinieku popūrijs (“The Rebel’s Medley”) electrified the audience. Tens of thousands of schoolchildren sang fragments of rebellious rock songs from the 1980s and 1990s – songs that had defined their parents’ youth under the shadows of censorship. Among them was Dzeguzes balss (“The Cuckoo’s Song”), written for Rolands Kalniņš’s film Četri balti krekli (“Four White Shirts”, 1967). That film, banned for two decades, told the story of a young songwriter whose work is misunderstood and censored by Soviet authorities. The film, itself a target of Soviet censorship, was rediscovered after independence and screened at Cannes in 2018. The performance of Dzeguzes balss in 2025, with thousands of young voices singing the songs of subversive defiance from their parents’ youth, offered an image of continuity. Joy replaced fear, and what was once forbidden became a shared inheritance. This joyful act of remembrance is perhaps the truest antidote to censorship and despair – the affirmation that imagination, once awakened, cannot be erased. 

In this sense, Latvia’s story transcends its borders. It reminds us that culture is not merely a reflection of a nation’s health; it is how that health is sustained. Every song sung in defiance and joy, every film daring to imagine freely, strengthens the architecture of survival. In times of uncertainty, imagination may not promise an easy future, but it ensures that a future remains possible and shines the light that helps to find the path forward. To imagine is to resist extinction. To create is to affirm existence. And to share culture is to keep Latvia alive. 

The challenge now is to carry forward the momentum born from such moments of imagination and to transform inspiration into endurance.

In late September 2025, Latvia entered a period of political turmoil that started when one of the parties of the government, the agrarian Union of Greens and Farmers (ZZS), voted together with the opposition in favour of withdrawing Latvia from the Istanbul Convention on violence against women. While the final decision has been postponed for a year, this vote against women’s rights brought together thousands of people in protests. On 6 November, at least 10,000 people gathered in Riga – one of the biggest protests since the Singing Revolution era. Protests were also happening in other cities in Latvia and outside of Latvia’s borders: people gathered in Vilnius, Tallinn, Paris, Brussels, Madrid, The Hague, London and other places. Protestors used Latvian folk songs and powerful symbolic imagery from Latvian culture to show that women’s rights are non-negotiable. Imagination played an important role in bringing this and other protests to life as well: the carefully and consciously selected symbols from Latvian folk culture (such as the use of folk costumes and certain songs) helped to emphasise that violence against women goes against traditional values.  

The challenge now is to carry forward the momentum born from such moments of imagination and to transform inspiration into endurance. Cultural and political awakenings are not singular events but ongoing processes that demand care, participation, and renewal. The task is to build communities that can translate the emotional power of art, song, and memory into tangible structures of justice and empathy. And to trust that these communities will be able to stand up against injustice during times of uncertainty. It is exactly what we are now seeing in Lithuania: a strong community standing up against threats that endanger its very existence. Culture is not only the platform that can be used for protest but the very source of strength that is needed to stand up against anti-democratic threats.  

Latvia’s experience shows that imagination not only sustains a nation through darkness – it also builds the scaffolding for a better world. The true work of imagination begins after the song ends, when communities commit to living out the values they have sung about. To keep imagining together, to dream together, is to keep living together, to preserve the light that guides us toward a more humane, creative, and resilient future. 

Dutch Elections: What Went Wrong for the GreenLeft-Labour Alliance? 

On 29 October 2025, the Netherlands held parliamentary elections. That same night, Frans Timmermans, the leader of the joint list of the GreenLeft (European Greens) and the Labour Party (Party of European Socialists), stepped down. The joint list lost 3 per cent of the vote (and five seats) compared to 2023 and fell from second to fourth largest political force in the country. Why did it perform so poorly? And, as the two parties prepare for a full merger in 2026, what are their future prospects? 

The Labour Party has historically been the largest centre-left party in the Netherlands. Between 1946 and 2017, it was either the largest or the second largest party in parliament.1 It was in government for about 40 of the last 80 years, in coalition with either the Christian Democrats or the conservative-liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD, ALDE), supplying three prime ministers. 

Compared to other European parties of the same political family, the Dutch Labour Party has been more environmentalist and open to post-materialist values. Like many social-democratic parties in Europe, it laid the basis for the welfare state in the 1950s, but later pivoted towards third-way politics in the late 1980s, reflecting the neoliberal consensus. It veered again to the left following the global financial crisis. Yet between 2012 and 2017, in government with the VVD, it pushed through an agenda of austerity, budget cuts, and structural reforms. In the subsequent elections, it fell from 25 to 6 per cent of the vote, and it has never fully recovered. 

The GreenLeft was formed in 1989 from the merger of four parties that were all related to the Labour Party. The Communist Party of the Netherlands and the Pacifist Socialist Party believed that Labour was too moderate and too willing to make compromises with centre-right forces, whereas the Political Party Radicals and the Evangelical People’s Party split from Christian-democratic forces, seeking closer cooperation with Labour.  

In the merger in 1989, the four parties adopted a green profile. Later, in 2004, the GreenLeft co-founded the European Green Party. Within its party family, the Dutch GreenLeft is more left-wing on economic issues than many European Green forces. Despite participating in coalition formation talks in 2006, 2012, 2017, and 2021, the GreenLeft has never been part of the government. The party’s electoral support fluctuated over the years, reaching its highest in 2017 (9 per cent). 

Moving closer together 

The idea to form a joint list emerged in 2021. Both the GreenLeft and the Labour Party did poorly in that year’s elections, outperformed by the social-liberal Democrats 66 (D66, ALDE), which surged to second place, promising “new leadership”. That promise was not fulfilled, as the Christian Democratic Appeal (European People’s Party) and the VVD persuaded D66 to form another centre-right government.  

However, that election brought the GreenLeft and Labour closer together. Already during the campaign, the leader of the GreenLeft Jesse Klaver indicated that he wanted his party to cooperate more closely with Labour. During the coalition talks, the two parties negotiated as one bloc. Once they ended up in opposition, their cooperation intensified. 

As journalist Coen van de Ven detailed in his book about the merger process, cooperation was strongly supported by both party leaderships and bases, with the notable exception of some critical voices within the Labour Party. These critics feared that a merger would result in a more amorphous left-wing party, unable to win back the working-class voters that the Labour Party lost in 2017. This wing also tends to have more conservative views about immigration, often citing the Danish Social Democrats as a source of inspiration.2

In spring 2023, the two parties formed a joint parliamentary group in the Senate, and in the fall, they ran on a joint list for the general elections under the leadership of Frans Timmermans, then first vice-president of the European Commission. By running together, the parties hoped to become the largest political force in the country, presenting voters with the concrete possibility of a progressive government. The joint list secured 25 out of 150 seats (up from 17 previously held by the two parties combined) but fared well below expectations. What’s worse, the far-right Party for Freedom won the election, conquering 37 seats and forming a right-wing coalition government. 

The GreenLeft-Labour Party remained in opposition. In June 2024, the alliance won the European elections as a joint list under the leadership of Green MEP Bas Eickhout, securing 21 per cent of the vote and eight seats in the European Parliament. Meanwhile, plans for a merger took shape, with members of both parties voting overwhelmingly in favour. A draft for a new manifesto of principles was written by the parties’ think tanks, focused on the value of solidarity. 

When the right-wing government fell after slightly more than a year of infighting and incompetence, the GreenLeft-Labour Party geared up for new elections, still as a joint list. The alliance drafted a clearly left-wing and green manifesto, with particular emphasis on building more homes to tackle the housing crisis. On migration, however, the joint list moved to the right, reflecting a broader shift in Dutch politics. The manifesto accepted the notion that government policy should establish a maximum number of immigrants, and criticised labour migration as a driver of exploitation and social problems. It also endorsed the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum, including the agreements with third countries outside of the EU to take asylum seekers. 

A decisive campaign 

However, the plan to replace the right-wing government with a progressive one led by Timmermans did not materialise. The key reason for this was the unexpected surge of D66. Its leader, Rob Jetten, claimed that the elections were less a choice between Left and Right than about the “vibe” you feel with a party. D66 projected an optimistic vibe, emphasising that ambitious plans become possible if parties work together.  

While the position of D66 on migration does not differ significantly from that of the GreenLeft-Labour Party (if anything, D66 is more liberal on labour migration), the party presented itself as more nationalist. At his party’s convention, Jetten stood in front of a big Dutch flag, trying to reclaim this symbol from the Right.  

Throughout the campaign, Jetten was also seen as more sympathetic than Timmermans. However, while polling for D66 and GreenLeft-Labour was relatively stable in the months before the elections, D66 registered a surge in the last weeks of the campaign (see Figure 1 below), attracting votes first from the Right and then from the Left too. This surge started when the PVV’s frontman, Geert Wilders, pulled out of a debate with the leaders of the largest parties, and Jetten took his place. In that debate, Jetten said that under his leadership, the Netherlands would build 100,000 new homes – a promise Timmermans dismissed as unrealistic, seemingly unaware that the joint list made the very same commitment in a political ad aired just before the debate.  

Figure 1. Red line: GL-PvdA; Black line: D66, with 95 per cent confidence interval. The circles indicate the election results. Source: Peilingwijzer. 

This is just one example of a poorly run campaign which, as journalist Yasmin Ait Abderrahman noted, clearly lacked focus. In a clumsy attempt to prevent D66 from winning over left-wing voters, the joint list started focusing on healthcare in the last weeks before the elections, even though this hadn’t previously been part of its core campaign themes. Moreover, the leadership was isolated from the rest of the party and not receptive to feedback.  

It is therefore unsurprising that Timmermans lost to the optimism, consistency, and strong organisation of D66, which continued to surge in the last days before the elections while the alliance dipped. Polling indicates that the GreenLeft-Labour Party alliance lost about five seats to D66. 

Competing for the same voters? 

In many countries, Greens and Social Democrats traditionally appealed to different voters: the former to university-educated urbanites, and the latter to a working-class, unionised electorate without university degrees. In the Netherlands, by the time the GreenLeft and the Labour Party started working together, this was no longer the case. In the 2017 elections, the Labour Party had lost its traditional working-class base, and both parties now mainly appeal to highly educated voters, even though the Greens’ electorate remains substantially younger than Labour’s. 

In this year’s elections, both the GreenLeft-Labour alliance and D66 got most of their votes among university-educated citizens (about 20 per cent each – see Figure 2 below). They performed the worst among people with degrees from vocational colleges. Both parties did slightly better among people with a high school diploma, which is likely explained by their appeal among younger voters who don’t have a university degree yet.  

Figure 2. Red bars: GreenLeft-Labour; Purple bars: D66, with 95 per cent confidence interval. Source: Leiden University Election Survey. 

Differences between the alliance’s electorate and D66’s are more pronounced in terms of economic and cultural views (see Table 1 below). The GreenLeft-Labour Party performs very well among voters who are economically left-wing (in favour of income redistribution, against excessive inequality) and culturally progressive (in particular on immigration): 50 per cent of them voted for the joint list. However, the alliance fares poorly among economically left-wing, culturally conservative voters (13 per cent), among economically right-wing, culturally progressive voters (10 per cent) and among economically right-wing, culturally conservative voters (only 2 per cent).  

D66 attracts a comparatively more economically right-wing electorate: 27 per cent of economically right-wing, culturally progressive voters, and 24 per cent of economically left-wing, culturally progressive voters. Despite its adoption of a much more nationalistic rhetoric, the party does only slightly better among culturally conservative voters than the GreenLeft-Labour Party. All in all, the electorate of D66 was only slightly more culturally conservative than the GreenLeft-Labour Party, and quite a bit more economically right-wing. 

Table 1: D66 and GreenLeft-Labour Party in a two-dimensional model 
  Economic 
  Left Right 
Cultural Progressive GL-PvdA: 50% D66: 24% GL-PvdA: 10% D66: 27% 
 Conservative GL-PvdA: 12% D66: 13% GL-PvdA: 2% D66: 9% 

Table 1. Source: Leiden University Election Survey. 

A first reckoning 

The joint list’s election result was received as a devastating loss, leading to the resignation of Timmermans, quite a bit of soul-searching, and a return to talk shows of the social-democratic critics of the cooperation. By joining forces, the two parties hoped to expand their appeal. Instead, they got less than 13 per cent of the vote (a decline compared to 2021, but an increase compared to 2017). The result clearly shows that cooperation with the GreenLeft has not reversed the Labour Party’s decline since 2017.  

However, it is also important to note that the gap between the most voted party – D66 –  and the GreenLeft-Labour Party was only 4 per cent. While some commentators concluded that the joint list has structural problems, it could be argued that it was simply outclassed by D66 in the final stretch of the campaign. 

The GreenLeft-Labour Party appeals to an electorate that is, in general terms, quite similar to that of D66. Under these circumstances, it is significant that both these forces ended up in the top four. Compared to the joint list, D66, which is more economically centrist, has been able to appeal to voters from a broader set of parties, while the GreenLeft-Labour alliance consolidated its popularity among left-wing progressives, to the detriment of the other left-wing parties. 

Of the many Dutch political forces that are left-wing in at least some respects (including an animal rights party,  a pensioners’ party, a left-wing populist party, a pro-European social-liberal party, a Christian-social party, and a party for bicultural citizens), nearly all lost votes and none won more than three seats.  

What next?  

What will happen next largely depends on the outcome of the ongoing coalition talks. Currently, the negotiations are clearly moving in the same direction as in 2021, when D66 promised a progressive coalition but eventually capitulated to the VVD’s veto and entered a centre-right government. As the largest political force, D66 is in a stronger position today than four years ago, but the party is again caving to right-wing demands. 

For the future of the new party that GreenLeft and Labour will officially form in 2026, the stakes are high. If it stays in opposition, as seems likely, the new party may be able to win over the more progressive wing of the D66 electorate (as it did in 2023). If it were to enter the coalition, it would have to navigate a complex merger process while at the same time trying to maintain a clear ideological profile in a government with only parties to its right.  

This article was commissioned in collaboration with the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.

  1. With one exception, between 2002 and 2003. ↩︎
  2. However, research by Tarik Abou-Chadi and Markus Wagner, among others, consistently shows that conservative positions on migration cost Social Democrats votes, instead of benefiting them electorally. ↩︎

Een schild zonder zwaard 

In november onthulde de Europese Commissie het langverwachte Democracy Shield-initiatief, bedoeld om bedreigingen zoals desinformatie en buitenlandse inmenging tegen te gaan. Hoewel het het systeemrisico erkent waarmee de Europese democratie wordt geconfronteerd, schiet het schild tekort om de grondoorzaken aan te pakken: op betrokkenheid gebaseerde algoritmen, dominantie van Big Tech, geopolitieke afhankelijkheid en diepe verdeeldheid die Europa kwetsbaar maken voor polariserende boodschappen. Een interview met Alexandra Geese, lid van de Groenen in het Europees Parlement.

Alice Stollmeyer: Wat vond u, om te beginnen met iets positiefs, overtuigend in het door de Commissie gepresenteerde European Democracy Shield? 

Alexandra Geese: De analyse van het probleem is overtuigend. Het is een duidelijke erkenning dat de manier waarop algoritmen werken – op betrokkenheid gebaseerde rangschikking en handmatige manipulatie – een systeemrisico vormt voor het publieke debat en verkiezingsprocessen, en dit wordt nu vermeld in een Commissiedocument. Deze analyse gaat dus verder dan het simpelweg de schuld geven aan kwaadwillenden; het erkent dat de dreiging waarmee we worden geconfronteerd een combinatie is van een systeemrisico en kwaadwillenden die van dat systeem profiteren. 

Op basis van artikel 34 van de Digital Services Act (DSA) moet de Commissie digitale platforms dwingen mitigerende maatregelen te nemen. In plaats daarvan kiest de Commissie ervoor er niets aan te doen, en dat is zorgwekkend. 

Het Schild duidt de bedreigingen nog steeds als overwegend buitenlands en negeert grotendeels interne gevaren zoals democratische terugval, de opkomst van extreemrechts, aanvallen op het maatschappelijk middenveld, corruptie, media, krimpende civiele ruimte – noem maar op. Hoe verklaart u deze blinde vlekken?

Het is een politieke keuze. De Commissie erkent dat er een risico is voor de democratie, maar noemt de krachten achter dit risico niet omdat ze machtig zijn. Extreemrechtse partijen zitten in het Europees Parlement, en een van de redenen waarom de civiele ruimte krimpt, is dat de [centrumrechtse] Europese Volkspartij (EVP), waar de eigen politieke meerderheid van de Commissie vandaan komt, actief campagne voert tegen NGO’s. Er is ook enige terughoudendheid om de problematische invloed van Amerikaanse technologiebedrijven aan te pakken die desinformatie en extremistische politieke krachten stimuleren. De regering-Trump bedreigt de EU-Commissie en helaas heeft de Commissievoorzitter Ursula von der Leyen toegegeven aan de chantage. 

Als de Commissie, de hoedster van de Verdragen, niet moedig en uitgesproken is in het beschermen van Europese waarden zoals democratie en de rechtsstaat, zou het Europees Parlement dan zijn rol kunnen opvoeren?

We hebben een reeks suggesties gedaan, al moeten we niet vergeten dat het Parlement ook politieke meerderheden heeft. 

Ten eerste vragen we de Commissie om gevolg te geven aan haar erkenning dat algoritmen een systeemrisico vormen. Met de DSA hebben we een wettelijk kader dat daar perfect bij past. Als Groenen vragen we ook om substantiële financiering voor alternatieve sociale mediaplatforms. Als je een platform wilt opzetten met een bedrijfsmodel dat niet afhankelijk is van technmiljardairs, niet afhankelijk is van monitorende reclame en niet gebaseerd is op giftige algoritmen, moet je bereid zijn een paar miljoen euro aan startkapitaal op tafel te leggen. We moeten iets duurzaams bouwen dat de democratie versterkt in plaats van verzwakt. Het Democracy Shield heeft slechts een paar passages over Europese sociale mediaplatforms en ze zijn erg vaag. Er zijn een aantal initiatieven waarop we kunnen voortbouwen, en de Commissie zou met hen moeten praten en hen moeten helpen van de grond te komen. 

We moeten ook Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera steunen in de Google adtech-zaak.1 We hebben een ander advertentiemodel nodig omdat alle inkomsten naar Google en Meta gaan, terwijl de pers naar lucht snakt. Dit zijn precies dezelfde bedrijven die algoritmen gebruiken die giftig zijn voor de democratie. Er zou ook een initiatief van de Commissie moeten zijn om met uitgevers en adverteerders te praten en te kijken hoe een ander, Europees bedrijfsmodel van reclame eruit zou kunnen zien, maar ik weet niet zeker of we daarvoor een meerderheid hebben in het Europees Parlement.

Er bestaat meer consensus over het belang van het tegengaan van buitenlandse inmenging en transparanter zijn over de risico’s die deze met zich meebrengt. In Duitsland zijn er bijvoorbeeld geruchten het geweld vóór de meest recente federale verkiezingen zijn uitgelokt door buitenlandse krachten en stochastisch terrorisme [waarbij de opruiende retoriek van prominenten gewelddaden inspireert]. Maar tot nu toe is er niet veel over openbaar gemaakt. 

Zou de EVP voorstander zijn van meer transparantie over buitenlandse bedreigingen? 

Het is in hun belang, omdat ze hebben laten zien dat ze heel veel geven om directe buitenlandse invloed en hybride oorlogsvoering. 

Vanuit mijn perspectief zou de focus vooral moeten liggen op het beteugelen van giftige algoritmen, want als je dat doet, pak je het probleem bij de wortel aan. Als je je niet langer kunt richten op groepen mensen die bijzonder kwetsbaar zijn en openstaan voor een bepaald soort radicaliserende inhoud, kun je je destabilisatiedoelen niet zo gemakkelijk bereiken. Maar als we het daar niet over eens zijn, omdat niemand president Trump, die nu de olifant in de kamer is, boos wil maken, zou in ieder geval transparanter zijn over deze kwaadaardige operaties een positieve eerste stap zijn. 

U hebt al gezegd dat het nodig is om op betrokkenheid gebaseerde ranking aan te pakken als de oorzaak van het probleem. Hoe zou dat er in de praktijk uitzien? 

Ten eerste hebben we een onderzoek nodig naar hoe op betrokkenheidetrok gebaseerde ranking bijdraagt aan desinformatie en deze versterkt en stimuleert, niet alleen politiek maar ook commercieel. Ten tweede moet de Commissie, als mitigerende maatregel, op betrokkenheid gebaseerde rangschikking verbieden. 

De platforms beweren dat interactie de keuze van de gebruiker is, maar dit verhaal is helemaal verkeerd. Als ik op straat wordt aangevallen, omdat gebruikers systematisch worden aangevallen door polariserende inhoud en desinformatie, zou ik kunnen reageren. Maar ik heb er in de eerste plaats nooit voor gekozen om aangevallen te worden. We moeten dus afstand nemen van betrokkenheid en naar echte gebruikerskeuze. Dat is de taak van de platforms om erachter te komen hoe het moet worden geïmplementeerd, en er is veel expertise van mensen die vroeger bij deze bedrijven aan vertrouwens- en integriteitsteams werkten. In een omgeving met echte gebruikerskeuze gaan sommige mensen nog steeds media consumeren die we als desinformatie zouden kunnen beschouwen. Maar ik denk dat het een kleine minderheid zou zijn. 

Ten derde moeten we erkennen dat met name Elon Musk actief het algoritme manipuleert om polariserende politieke inhoud op X te pushen. Er zijn nu solide studies die dat consequent aantonen. In Duitsland heeft X extreem-rechtse en pro-Poetin-inhoud versterkt, die in de Duitse context ook populair bij uiterst links. In het VK heeft het de voorkeur gegeven aan Rupert Lowe, een extreemrechtse extremist die nog radicaler is dan Nigel Farage. En in Polen heeft X de opkomst van Konfederacja voortgestuwd, een partij die rechts van wet en rechtvaardigheid zit. Het is duidelijk dat Musk individuele politici kiest en hun bereik vergroot. Hier is het criterium niet eens betrokkenheid of het aantal volgers. Het is een duidelijk voorbeeld van politieke manipulatie dat de Commissie niet kan negeren. 

Afgezien van het beteugelen van ontwrichtende algoritmen, wat is het perspectief van de Groenen om de dominantie van Big Tech over de belangrijkste infrastructuur aan te pakken?

De DSA zegt heel duidelijk dat je geen gevoelige gegevens in je targetingprofiel kunt hebben. De volgende stap had een stuk wetgeving moeten zijn dat deze bepalingen uitbreidt van platforms tot alle gegevensmakelaars. In plaats daarvan gaat de digitale omnibus van de Commissie in de tegenovergestelde richting: zolang een gegevensmakelaar niet over de technologie beschikt om de gegevens terug te traceren naar het individu, is het prima om gevoelige gegevens te bewaren en aan anderen te verkopen. Het is de bedoeling om dit legitiem te maken met het oog op AI-training, zodat mensen er niet meer tegen kunnen protesteren. Het Democracy Shield roept dit niet uit of behandelt het op geen enkele manier, en dat is een absoluut schandaal. De richt- en monitorende capaciteit van deze bedrijven is een van de redenen waarom onze democratie gevaar loopt. 

Een ander belangrijk aspect is de handhaving van de Digital Markets Act (DMA), die concurrentie en antitrustmaatregelen zou moeten aanpakken. Wat Google nu doet met zijn “AI-modus” en “AI-overzicht”, maakt de vrije pers monddood en de Commissie pakt dat niet op een zinvolle manier aan. De remedie is om fondsen op te zetten voor de media, een actie die extreemrechts al aanvalt als ondersteuning voor “linkse” verkooppunten. Als je publieke middelen aan specifieke media geeft, moet je rechtvaardigen hoe je ze toewijst. En dat is geen gemakkelijke taak. In plaats daarvan moet de Commissie een Europees sociaal platform ondersteunen, een soort media-aggregator die journalisten een duurzaam bedrijfsmodel biedt. We hebben een structurele verschuiving nodig, geen noodmaatregelen die geen gevoel van urgentie hebben. Sommige delen van Oost-Europa zijn al mediawoestijnen en zelfs in mijn land, Duitsland, zijn uitgevers wanhopig. 

Emmanuel Macron heeft onlangs gezegd dat we ongelooflijk naïef zijn geweest in het toevertrouwen van onze democratische ruimte aan Amerikaanse en Chinese platforms waarvan de belangen helemaal niet het voortbestaan of het goed functioneren van onze democratieën zijn. Mis het European Democracy Shield een geopolitieke kans om aan te dringen op digitale soevereiniteit?

Ja absoluut. Er is geen analyse van het probleem. Als de sancties van Trump tegen het Internationaal Strafhof bijvoorbeeld geen aanval zijn op onze democratische instellingen en de rechtsstaat, weet ik niet wat het is. Het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken zegt in feite dat de VS pro-democratische partners uit de regering in Europa willen halen, wat de overname van extreemrechts inluidt. Toch wordt niets van dit alles genoemd in het Democracy Shield, inclusief de aanvallen op de DSA. De EU moet op diplomatieke wijze duidelijk maken dat zij dit soort inmenging in haar binnenlandse aangelegenheden en de rechtsstaat niet zal tolereren. 

Dit niet aanpakken is een gemiste kans en het geeft Trump een legitimiteit die hij niet langer geniet in zijn eigen land. De Commissie behandelt hem alsof hij er voor altijd zal zijn, en de alliantie tussen technologiebedrijven en de MAGA-beweging zal voor altijd blijven bestaan. Maar in de VS is er heel weinig steun voor Big Tech, de goedkeuringspercentages van Trump zijn ongekend laag en zelfs Republikeinen die halverwege 2026 herkozen worden, beginnen Trump als een probleem te beschouwen. Amerikanen zijn buitengewoon ongelukkig met het polarisatieniveau dat het politieke debat heeft bereikt, tot het punt dat ze niet meer met hun buren kunnen praten.

Dat is precies wat we in Europa niet willen doen. Als ik Europese politici hoor praten over “vereenvoudiging” om meer op het Amerikaanse model te lijken, maak ik me grote zorgen. We willen wel innovatie en technologie in Europa, maar we willen dat het democratisch is. Onze gegevens weggeven en afstand doen van democratische waarden is niet waar we heen willen.

Ziet u Europese leiders klaar staan om op te komen voor deze waarden? 

Macron en Sánchez [de Spaanse premier] doen het, maar niet genoeg. Ik heb hoge verwachtingen van de nieuwe Nederlandse regering, maar laten we eens kijken hoe de coalitieonderhandelingen evolueren. Ik ben minder optimistisch over Duitsland omdat de nieuwe regering volledig lijkt te capituleren.  We hebben ook Oost-Europese regeringen nodig om hierover een sterk standpunt in te nemen.

De volledige invasie van Rusland in Oekraïne vormde een epochale verschuiving (wat Duitsers Zeitenwende noemen) omdat het ons ervan bewust maakte dat de vrede die Europa als vanzelfsprekend beschouwde niet voor altijd was en dat we voorbereid moeten zijn op externe agressie. Het door Trump gepresenteerde 28-puntenplan vertegenwoordigt een andere game-changer. Voorheen was de chantage dat als Europa zijn digitale wetgeving zou handhaven om zijn democratie te beschermen, de VS de steun aan Oekraïne zouden staken, zijn troepen uit de NAVO zouden trekken en de tarieven zouden verhogen. Geconfronteerd met die keuze, was het argument dat we in Europa hoorden dat het belangrijker is om het grondgebied van Oekraïne te verdedigen door voortdurende Amerikaanse militaire steun te verkrijgen dan door onze democratische ruimte te beschermen. Nu is het duidelijk dat de twee dingen niet langer in oppositie zijn omdat de VS openlijk de kant van Poetin hebben gekozen. 

Sommige Europese regeringen hebben al gezegd dat ze het plan niet steunen. De tweede stap zou moeten zijn om onze democratische ruimte te beschermen, zodat Rusland de harten en geesten van ons volk niet wint. Het is veel gemakkelijker om verkiezingen te houden als je goed bent in het manipuleren van de digitale ruimte dan om een oorlog op het slagveld te winnen. Voor Rusland is het zoveel gemakkelijker om Poetin-vriendelijke partijen aan de macht te brengen dan om een oorlog tegen de NAVO te winnen.

Wat u in wezen zegt, is dat wanneer je  het doelwit bent van hybride oorlogsvoering, het reguleren van platforms niet alleen gaat over het beschermen van democratie – het gaat ook om veiligheid.

In de hybride toolbox voor oorlogsvoering van het Kremlin is desinformatie of informatiemanipulatie slechts een van de vele instrumenten naast corruptie, economische dwang, cyberaanvallen en sabotage, zoals we onlangs hebben gezien. In de mededeling over het Democracy Shield ligt de nadruk van de maatregelen van de Commissie echter vooral op feitencontrole. Wat is u mening daarover?

Het voelt alsof we terug zijn in 2018, toen we nog steeds geloofden dat mensen toegang geven tot de feiten het probleem van desinformatie zou oplossen. Alle bewijzen tonen echter het tegenovergestelde aan: feitencontrole is niet effectief in het tegengaan van desinformatie. Ik ben niet tegen het verifiëren van feiten, maar ik zie het als een onderdeel van wat journalisten al doen als ze hun werk goed kunnen doen. Zolang we de algoritmen niet veranderen, zal desinformatie meer mensen blijven bereiken dan kwaliteitsinformatie kan. Investeren in feitencontrole en mediageletterdheid wordt vaak een excuus om niets anders te doen. Dit wordt nog problematischer wanneer factchecking wordt gefinancierd door dezelfde technologiebedrijven die desinformatie mogelijk maken. 

Voor technologiebedrijven is het ook een handige manier om de verantwoordelijkheid om desinformatie te bestrijden op individuele gebruikers te verleggen.

Precies. Een goed voorbeeld hiervan is mediageletterdheid, een andere favoriet van de Commissie die vaak gepaard gaat met feitencontrole. Het is het idee dat mensen hun bronnen moeten controleren en echte inhoud moeten kunnen onderscheiden van valse inhoud. Maar vandaag lezen de meeste mensen alleen de krantenkoppen op sociale media, en dit blijft in hun hoofd. Alleen een kleine elite heeft de tijd om dieper te gaan en de bronnen te verifiëren, en zelfs dan is dit zelden effectief. 

Er is de paradox waar bedrijven die honderden miljarden aan winst maken de last van het bestrijden van desinformatie verleggen naar individuen die al worstelen met stijgende huisvestingskosten – bijvoorbeeld door ze twee keer te laten betalen: één keer met hun gegevens en één keer met de tijd die nodig is om erachter te komen wat betrouwbare informatie is. En als het geen individuen zijn, worden schoolsystemen gevraagd om onderwijs in mediageletterdheid te bieden. Maar scholen hebben ook geen middelen, en dit gaat in ieder geval niet in op de psychologische en emotionele dynamiek achter de verspreiding van desinformatie. Onderzoek toont aan dat gebruikers waarschijnlijk zes tot tien keer vaker desinformatie zullen zien dan feitelijke informatie, en er zijn aanwijzingen dat dit voldoende is om desinformatie “meer waar” te maken dan feiten voor onze hersenen. 

Ik maak me ook zorgen over een belangenconflict. De European Digital Media Observatory, die anti-desinformatie-activiteiten in heel Europa in kaart brengt en coördineert, ontvangt financiering van de Commissie, maar heeft ook een besluitvormende rol in het Europees Media- en Informatiefonds (EMIF), dat 25 miljoen euro van Google ontving. Ik heb hierover een schriftelijke vraag aan de Commissie gestuurd en het antwoord was dat er geen belangenverstrengeling is. Maar ik denk dat de organisatie die Europese netwerken voor feitencontrole coördineert, ver verwijderd moet zijn van elk soort Big Tech-geld.

Wat is uw mening over het voorstel, genoemd in het Democracy Shield, om een Europees Centrum voor democratische veerkracht op te richten om gemeenschappelijke bedreigingen zoals desinformatie en verkiezingsinterferentie te weerstaan?

Het is een goed idee voor anti-desinformatie-initiatieven uit verschillende landen om met elkaar te praten omdat desinformatiecampagnes mondiaal van aard zijn. Maar ik weet niet zeker hoeveel bereidheid er is in Europese landen. En ik vraag me af of het opzetten van een andere organisatie het meest urgente is om te doen, vooral als deze niet bevoegd is om gevolg te geven aan haar bevindingen. 

Maar het is essentieel om van elkaar te leren. Roemenië moest zijn presidentsverkiezingen opnieuw houden omdat er botnetwerken werden aangelegd, influencers werden betaald, bepaalde culturele grieven werden gebruikt om een extreemrechtse kandidaat een boost te geven, en vervolgens deed de op betrokkenheid gebaseerde rangschikking de rest. TikTok slaagde er niet in deze operatie te detecteren, terwijl het andere politieke inhoud op het platform verminderde.  Het is een modus operandi die we in veel landen zien. Als de Roemeense autoriteiten hun ervaringen en conclusies op een zinvolle manier zouden kunnen delen, zouden we manieren kunnen vinden om deze operaties tegen te gaan. Zo kunnen we 90 dagen voor de verkiezingen de op betrokkenheid gebaseerde rangschikking uitschakelen. Ik vrees dat de Commissie om dezelfde redenen zelf geen actie onderneemt, zal zeggen dat individuele landen de op betrokkenheid gebaseerde rangschikking niet kunnen uitschakelen, want dat is haar bevoegdheid onder de DSA. Maar we kunnen veel leren van wat er is gebeurd in Roemenië, Moldavië, Polen en andere Oost-Europese landen die voorop lopen in deze hybride oorlog.

Dit interview is gepubliceerd in samenwerking met de Heinrich Böll Stiftung.
Vertaling: Floris Meijers | Voxeurop

  1. Google heeft in september een boete gekregen van de Commissie wegens het overtreden van de EU-antitrustregels door de concurrentie in de reclametechnologie-industrie achter te stellen en haar eigen online reclametechnologiediensten te begunstigen ten nadele van concurrerende aanbieders en online uitgevers. ↩︎