With the re-election of Ursula von der Leyen as European Commission president, a new pact amongst centrists has materialised, prioritising continuity and stability. The alliance that supported her comprises exists of the same actors that backed the 2019-2024 programme, now joined by the Green Group/EFA. Despite widespread fears, the heavily anticipated European elections did not end in chaos, nor did they put the far right in the driver’s seat of the Parliament.

Much ado about nothing?

At first sight, this might look like proof of a resilient, bulletproof democratic European majority. This reading can be further underpinned by the reassuring only-third-place finish of Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN) in France’s parliamentary elections. However, it would be a mistake to continue business as usual without appreciating the extremely close shave the last weeks actually were.

The rise of far-right parties across Europe has been widely discussed over the last decade. These debates usually focus on a variety of factors like inflation, the housing crisis, cultural conflict, social change, rising immigration rates, and the strong social media presence of far-right parties whose punchy messages are being rewarded by sensation-focused algorithms. Under the surface of this rather complex picture, however, lies a uniting explainer: People feeling socially marginalised – i.e., not cared for – are more likely to support the far-right, as shown by a 2019 study of 25 European countries.

And, indeed, we see this in practice: in Germany, for instance, over one-third of Alternative for Germany (AfD) voters assess their economic situation as “bad” or “very bad,” and more than 50 per cent feel their values are being dismissed in public. Similarly, the French RN being perceived as “the party that cares most about the problems of people like [their voters]” is among the strongest voting predictors for multiple-time RN voters. This is confirmed by the fact that half of the French citizens who expressed dissatisfaction with their lives were set to vote for the RN in the recent parliamentary election.

Tackling voters’ feelings of being left behind, dismissed, and dissatisfied – in short, uncared for – should thus be a top priority for progressives and democratic actors.

Tackling the twin crises of care

Tackling voters’ feelings of being left behind, dismissed, and dissatisfied – in short, uncared for – should thus be a top priority for progressives and democratic actors.

The good news is that there is a straightforward political answer to this question: overcoming such feelings of not being cared for requires – simply – a focus on care. 

The bad? That our current “care” framework is faced with a dual crisis. On the one hand, this predicament encompasses the ecological crisis – including not only the climate emergency but also biodiversity losses and (air) pollution. In other words, there is a lack of care for the planet and our environment. On the other hand, we are facing a strained human care system, resulting from high workload, low pay, low social status and the wide presence of unpaid care work.

And worse, both crises are expected to deteriorate over the coming decades, not only as a result of our ageing societies and insufficient action to fight the ecological emergency, but also through a mutually reinforcing dynamic. The planetary crisis will indeed worsen the existing care burden dramatically and is set to negatively affect citizens’ overall wellbeing. One of the already tangible examples here is the increasing frequency and intensity of heat waves as a result of the changing climate. More care-prone populations, such as people over the age of 60, are also the most vulnerable to the effects of such extreme weather events, increasing the care burden further. Additionally, the mental health impacts of such events as well as of climate change in general are expected to put extra pressure on the strained care system.

The human care crisis and its lack of climate- and future-ready infrastructure in turn has significant ecological consequences, and a further neglect of it will make its “greening” nearly impossible. Aside from the effects of investment bottlenecks and the consequent struggle to bring down emissions and pollution from the care sector, this side of the twin crises is expected to negatively affect the fight against ecological degradation in indirect ways, too. A lack of care leaves people feeling left behind, dismissed and marginalised. This in turn leads to lower social cohesion, which is heavily connected to the so-called “green backlash” that limits the space for further climate action and environmental policies. Addressing the ecological crisis without considering the social one thus provides only short-term gains – if that.

The common culprit

In addition to reinforcing one another, the two crises also share the same root cause: they both stem from a system that is based on profitability and competitiveness; a framework that is all about ‘growth, growth, growth’; one where success is measured purely based on GDP, hard facts, and crunched numbers, fostering an ultra-short-term focus.

Neither the Earth’s ecosystem nor (unpaid) care work is visible in such an overly narrow economic mindset. This contributes to the perception that ecological and human care are not only infinite but also non-essential for the workings of a profit-driven society, and worse, that they are (economic) burdens whose costs should be reduced in the name of productivity. This outlook has often led to the erosion of levers that are key to a caring society, such as public services and ecologically-sound policymaking.

Centring the care economy, and care more broadly, is the major political opportunity for Europe in the next few years.

An antidote against the extreme right

Back to the good news: consciousness is steadily growing among a – sometimes unexpected – coalition of voices questioning this uniform economic thinking. Even the World Economic Forum has recognised the “global care economy [as] one of our most valuable assets” that is not receiving “the attention it deserves.”

Centring the care economy, and care more broadly, is the major political opportunity for Europe in the next few years. Activating this potential requires overcoming the twin crises, and thus political fragmentation and the divides between the different kinds of care. This would essentially make the green mission a social one and vice versa.

Solving a Rubik’s Cube

Our European policy framework – as aptly described by Maria Nikolopoulou from the European Economic and Social Committee – currently resembles a Rubik’s Cube where “everything is interconnected and linked but we have no overarching strategy.” While EU flagships like the European Green Deal and the European Care Strategy aim at mitigating the respective care crises, they fall short when it comes to addressing their intersectionality.

The EU’s new mandate has to overcome these issues, and this is not as tall an order as it sometimes seems: many hooks and entry points can be instrumentalised to bring about a caring society.

Von der Leyen’s Political Guidelines might overemphasise competitiveness, defence and security, but at the same time they give us levers to work with. This is especially the case where the priorities outlined reflect the demands of the Greens/EFA, who secured compromises from the Commission President for their endorsement. The renewed commitment to climate targets and a focus on adaptation, the recognition that we need to “reconcile care and career,” and the creation of Commissioners for Housing and Intergenerational Fairness hint at the opportunity for care to take a more prominent stance during the new mandate.

The announcement of Europe’s first-ever Affordable Housing Plan, under the new Commissioner for Housing, for instance, presents such concrete potential. Providing rights to affordable housing and decent living standards clearly aligns with the ambition to centre care in EU policy. However, because of the above-mentioned interdependence of the social and green missions, the concrete design of this initiative needs to be built on systemic thinking. If the plan fails to incorporate the ecological dimension – e.g., by addressing affordability, sustainability, and (energy) efficiency – it could be unable to truly tackle the twin crises of care. Moreover, an incomplete plan could even inadvertently worsen one crisis while attempting to solve the other.

The same is true for the new green policy flagship – namely the Clean Industrial Deal – which lays the foundation for achieving a 90-per cent emissions reduction plan by 2040. While a clean industry is vital for pursuing the green mission and the continued adherence to the European Green Deal, neglecting the social mission would undo the positive steps taken towards a caring society. It is thus crucial to combine this new flagship with a renewed – and strengthened –Just Transition commitment and strong social and environmental conditionalities.

Ultimately, these two examples illustrate that although existing opportunities won’t materialise on their own, a systemic care-centred approach is within reach. Therefore, rather than burying our heads in the sand, let us stick with the analogy of the Rubik’s Cube. Admittedly, without a strategy, it is essentially insolvable. However, once you know how to approach it, it can be solved – and in a rather straightforward manner.

Solving the dual care crisis – and by extension, mitigating people’s feelings of being uncared for and thus turning to extremist voting – requires significant effort and some willingness for change, but it can be done. This effort isn’t just about cutting carbon emissions, nor is it solely about focusing on the human care sector. It’s about the type of society we want to create.

This article was informed by contributions during the launch event for the Green European Foundation’s Political Brief A European Green Caring Society: Overcoming Fragmentation, written with Céline Charveriat, and specifically draws on inputs from panellists Blanca De Riquer Gatell, Nicolas Galudec, Sylvia Lorek, Maria Nikolopoulou, and Robbie Stakelum.