Can the climate crisis unite Europe?

Europe finds itself in an increasingly hostile geopolitical environment, but the European Union is struggling to bring its member states together around a common political project. Security, competitiveness, migration and democratic values ​​- all of these were considered the basis for deepening integration. However, this has proven to be insufficient.

Meanwhile, ecology, once at the very heart of the European political project, has been relegated to the background, a victim of a break with the certainty of the past and a shift to an uncertain future. Yet dismissing environmental priorities, including the fight against climate change, as outdated issues demonstrates a misunderstanding of both the crisis to which they are linked and their importance for the political unity of Europe.

It is enough to look back at the historical roots of European unification. Speaking at the Peace Congress in Paris in 1849, Victor Hugo expressed the aspirations of many generations of European intellectuals who dreamed of a federal republic capable of bringing peace and stability to the continent.

“The day will come,” said Hugo, “when we will see two great communities - the United States of America and the United States of Europe - reaching out to each other across the ocean, exchanging their products, their arts, and the fruits of their genius, arranging the world, transforming deserts into fertile soil, perfecting the work of God in the eyes of its Creator, and enjoying together the common good.”

However, the implementation of republican ideals within the framework of continental politics encountered a serious territorial problem. For centuries, republics were largely confined to city-states, as broad political participation over large territories was considered unattainable. The American Revolution changed this perception, demonstrating that a representative form of government could unite geographically dispersed populations into a single constitutional order that governed both the people and the physical space they inhabited.

In the early 20th century, thinkers such as the Italian economist Luigi Einaudi saw a federal republic as the only alternative to imperial domination and the fragile League of Nations. During the interwar period, support for federalism gradually grew. Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi's book Paneuropa (1923) and Philip Kerr's essay Pacifism Is Not Enough (1935) argued that only a federal system could ensure lasting peace.

A European federation came close to being created in 1940, when Winston Churchill's government, in order to stop the advance of Nazi Germany, proposed the creation of a full political union between Great Britain and France. The project collapsed after France concluded an armistice, but its chief architect, Jean Monnet, later became one of the leading advocates of post-war European integration and laid the foundations for the Treaties of Rome, Maastricht and Lisbon.

Today, as conflicts undermine the foundations of Europe's post-war prosperity, the federalist idea is gaining strength again, and the deepening climate crisis could become the key to further European unification.

With global warming already past the 1,5°C threshold, climate change is no longer a theoretical threat. According to the World Meteorological Organization, the European continent is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world.

In 2025, devastating floods and droughts caused more than €40 billion in damage, forcing Spain, Portugal and Italy to allocate billions to rebuild areas hit by the storms. As the crisis deepens, the cost of adapting to climate change is expected to rise further, making this a priority for the entire continent.

But it's not just about the cost. Modern life depends on our ability to organize and control the environment we live in. Few people expect to have to walk through flooded streets to get to work or sit in the dark for days, thanks to one of the key achievements of the 20th century - the infrastructure that transforms the changing natural environment into the predictable conditions on which industrial society rests.

For example, in the early 1900s there were almost no reservoirs in the world, so the population and agriculture were completely dependent on unpredictable rainfall. Today, reservoirs with a total volume of about 8.000 cubic kilometers retain almost 20 percent of the world's total river runoff.

In Europe, the pursuit of material security was also a political project. The expansion of voting rights went hand in hand with the organization and regulation of territories. The share of citizens with the right to vote rose from less than a third of the adult population in 1900 to practically 100% by the 1980s. During the same period, public spending on the continent increased from approximately 10% of GDP (mostly allocated to defense) to almost 50%, financing the key infrastructure and social systems that enable shared prosperity.

The space that Europeans inhabit today – including electricity grids, roads and flood protection systems – is the product of a political social contract that has linked democratic participation, economic development and the ability of states to shape the physical environment. However, extreme weather events are increasingly straining the systems built to contain them. This social contract is therefore beginning to unravel and undermine the foundations on which all other political goals rest.

This is why it is necessary to put the environment back at the heart of European integration. This means creating a political “we”, not by defining an external “they”, as many national projects have done throughout history, but by jointly fighting climate change.

European history itself provides an example of this: the Dutch polders, the draining of wetlands in Italy, the water tribunals in Spain. All of these are the results of centuries of collective environmental management, which has helped shape the civic identity of the European continent.

In addition, an emphasis on ecology could help define the broader purpose of the European project. As electrification, automation, defense needs, and large-scale infrastructure projects—from data centers to public transportation—reshape the continent, Europeans will have to decide what kind of space they want to live in. The environment is not just a natural given; it is also a political product that rests on state power and control over territory. Seen from this perspective, environmental policy can reconcile seemingly conflicting priorities—security, development, and the welfare state—within a single territorial framework.

Such an agenda requires institutions that will link local interests with continental priorities while at the same time exercising real territorial authority. While the federal government in the US collects taxes, operates a vast military apparatus, and owns almost a third of the country's total territory, the European Union has neither its own tax system nor a standing army. It does not even own most of the buildings in which its institutions operate.

However, the EU is gradually moving towards some elements of federalism through its agencies and treaty-based institutions - from the common market to the European Stability Mechanism. The European Union coordinates policies and pools the resources of its member states. In the fight against climate change, some European institutions, including the European Investment Bank, should evolve into development agencies with the authority to plan, finance and implement projects on a continent-wide scale.

Protecting the environment would give the European project what it has long lacked: a common goal rooted in the realities of everyday life. In a time of increasing climate shocks, protecting homes and businesses, as well as securing water and energy, are no longer just technical issues. They can - and must - become the civic foundation of a renewed European social contract.

The author is the scientific director of the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2026. (prevod N. R.)