Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

This thesis takes its starting point in the European Green Deal – the European Union’s new
strategy towards a climate neutral union by 2050. It includes the overarching aim to combat
climate change and environmental degradation, and will affect the major parts of EU’s political
agenda for the upcoming decades. In terms of being a policy aiming for combatting climate
change and support further economic growth, it constitutes a framework and a foundation that will
define and direct the political work towards national, regional and local management levels
throughout the entire EU for a long time to come. With this in mind, this thesis is aiming for an
understanding of policy problems in the European Green Deal: how they are presented and what
presuppositions that underlines statements and measures. In order to investigate how different
geographical areas are mentioned in the policy initiative, an additional aim of the thesis is to
investigate how rural areas are mentioned and described in relation to different aims and
objectives. Based on a policy analysis combined with analysis of language, the press release of the
European Green Deal reflects a discourse where climate and environmental measures are based
and dependent on economic growth, while there also is a distinction made between rural and urban
environments in terms of aims and functions. This becomes clear in the light of how urban
contexts to a larger extent are associated and mentioned with explicit objectives and formulations,
while rural areas thru implicit problem representations are described as a natural resource in need
for adaption in order to contribute to a green transition. The analysis also shows how the European
Green Deal correspond to older policy perspectives presented by the European Commission,
which in turn creates a foundation for questioning formulations that emphasizes the European
Green Deal as something new. Instead, the policy strategy can be linked to policy perspective
based on ecological modernization theory, which is reflected by how measures and objectives are
constructed in order to combine growth, social development and climate measures.