Europolis Climate Biopolitics From the Perspective of the Idea of the Common Good

Abstract

The article addresses the tension between the European Union’s climate biopolitics – particularly as embodied in the European Green Deal – and the personalist order of “Europolis”, a multi-level political community that redefines its common good in climate terms and whose pillars are the principle of subsidiarity and a two-dimensional view of the common good (substantive and instrumental). Its aim is to critically assess whether, and to what extent, the implementation of the Green Deal – characterised by the predominance of the logic of neo-functional spillover and technocratic governance – violates the freedom of the individual and undermines the coequality of local communities and Member States by shifting the costs of transformation onto them and reinforcing centre-periphery dependencies. Methodologically, the study combines normative analysis grounded in political philosophy (personalism, the common good, and posthumanism), doctrinal legal analysis (Article 5 TEU and Protocol No. 2) and qualitative content analysis of key EU policy documents [COM(2019) 640 and legislative acts of the Fit for 55 package], complemented by case studies illustrating the expanding role of the ECJ (ECJ2). The approach adopted captures both the normative dimension (the dignity of the person and the principal of subsidiarity) and the institutional dimension (integration mechanisms and the distribution of costs and benefits). The central thesis is that, although the Green Deal presents climate protection as an element of the common good, in practice it assumes the form of climate biopolitics, in which power over population (biopower) is intertwined with power over infrastructure and energy markets (energopower). The effect is a narrowing of the space for subsidiary co-governance and the moralisation of the practices of everyday life. This dynamic does not strengthen citizens’ sense of security; rather, it often deepens anxiety and the experience of incapacitation – especially in the context of the war in Ukraine, economic uncertainty, the climate crisis, and migration-related tensions.

The conclusions are threefold. Firstly, climate protection must be upheld as a substantive common good, but the way it is implemented must be rooted in the primacy of human dignity. Secondly, a “reverse” interpretation of subsidiarity is needed: the EU level should actively strengthen the capacities of lower levels of governance to co-produce policies, rather than merely delegate implementation. Thirdly, the biopolitics of concern must be transformed into a biopolitics of co-responsibility through deliberative mechanisms of participation and the reduction of asymmetries of business influence, so that Europolis remains a viable community of the common good rather than becoming a project of technocratic control.