Some ideas seem so necessary that it is tempting to assume they will simply triumph under their own steam. Sustainability was one of them. For years, we took for granted that merely listening to the science would be enough to guide policy down the right path. Human societies do not work that way. The road to hell remains paved with good intentions, and even the noblest causes quickly lose their way in an era of dogmatism and moral self-righteousness.
The backlash was not long in coming. While one half of Europe eagerly embraced the virtues of the green transition, the other began to view it as an existential threat to their way of life. The gilets jaunes in France sounded one of the first warning bells. Then the war in Ukraine hit, driving home with brutal finality that cold reality will always puncture political rhetoric. Europe championed the Green Deal while continuing to buy Russian gas from an autocrat. From that point on, sustainability could no longer be treated in isolation from energy security, strategic autonomy, or hard geopolitics.
Then Mario Draghi threw down the gauntlet. His landmark report did not dispute the necessity of the ecological transition; it questioned Europe’s actual ability to pull it off. A continent losing industrial clout, spending far less on investment than its global competitors, and treating regulation as its chief asset is ill-equipped to spearhead the most ambitious economic transformation of our era. Setting targets means little without the industrial muscle to deliver them. And Europe cannot afford the luxury of drifting into neatly regulated decline.
It would be a mistake to treat this change of direction as a roll-back of the Green Deal. The real choice is not between sustainability and competitiveness. That is a manufactured conflict, like so many others. Without an innovative economy, robust industry, and competitive firms, the green transition risks being reduced to little more than a wish list. Equally, lasting prosperity cannot take root in an economy that operates beyond the planet’s environmental limits. The two rely entirely on each other.
Without an innovative economy, robust industry, and competitive firms, the green transition risks being reduced to little more than a wish list.
Europe does not need to rein in its climate ambitions; it needs to scale up its economic ambitions. Less regulatory bloat, more innovation. Less political theatre, more capital investment. Less bureaucracy, more science. Less finger-pointing, more incentives. Sustainability will cease to be a cultural fault line the moment citizens view it not merely as an obligation, but as an engine of job creation, prosperity, and opportunity.
As Isaiah Berlin observed, politics’ greatest conflicts erupt when we assume we must choose between competing values that ought to coexist. Modern European history has been forged in that very crucible: the constant reconciliation of apparent contradictions. Free markets and the state. Liberty and equality. Tradition and innovation. That remains our defining challenge today: not choosing between prosperity and sustainability, but proving that both belong to a single vision of progress.
Competitiveness must not become a repudiation of sustainability, but the prerequisite that enables it.
That, in all likelihood, is what sets Europe apart from other global powers. The United States innovates at breakneck speed. China plans and executes on an unmatched scale. If Europe intends to stay relevant, it must show that a society can innovate without abandoning humanism, compete without eroding liberal democracy, and grow without borrowing against the planet’s future.
Europe still has a fighting chance. Not because time is on its side, but because it retains what made it a beacon in the first place: the ability to change course without betraying its principles. Competitiveness must not become a repudiation of sustainability, but the prerequisite that makes it possible. Open societies do not endure on ideals alone; they must also deliver prosperity. Perhaps the defining political task of our era is showing that the future belongs not to not to those who pit freedom, growth, and sustainability against one another, but to those bold enough to reconcile all three.
Pablo Blázquez is a Spanish journalist and editor, best known as the founder of the magazine Ethic, established in 2011 to examine the defining challenges of the 21st century through a humanist outlook committed to diverse perspectives. In 2023, his leadership of the publication and dedication to positive-impact journalism earned him the DUX Award for Emerging Leadership.