Europe’s far right casts itself as nature defender in push to slow down renewables

 

Europe’s far right casts itself as nature defender in push to slow down renewables

 

Right and left are unlikely allies against Brussels’ attempts to weaken environmental permitting laws.

 

May 18, 2026 6:00 am CET

By Leonie Cater and Elena Giordano

https://www.politico.eu/article/europes-far-right-casts-itself-as-nature-defender-in-push-to-slow-down-renewables/

 

BRUSSELS — Far-right groups in the European Parliament are painting themselves as protectors of the EU's natural habitats in a bid to slow down the European Commission's proposal to fast-track renewable energy projects.

 

The turn has made them an unlikely ally for nature-conscious lawmakers.

 

Climate change is a key driver of biodiversity loss in Europe and switching to renewable energy is at the heart of EU climate policy. But NGOs and green-minded MEPs warn that ripping up the rulebook on where and how green infrastructure projects are built isn't the answer.

 

“My approach in this opinion is pragmatic: we need to accelerate the energy transition, yes, but this should not come at the cost of Europe’s basic nature protection rules,” Green MEP Rasmus Nordqvist, who’s leading work on the file for the Parliament’s environment committee, told POLITICO.

 

That message is being echoed by the far-right Patriots for Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations groups.

 

Amendments to the Commission's proposal from Europe of Sovereign Nations cite nature protection as one of their chief concerns while also staunchly opposing the “politically driven acceleration of the expansion of weather-dependent renewable energy sources under the guise of the Green Deal, unless grid stability and security of supply are sufficiently guaranteed.”

 

Speed “must not come at the disproportionate cost of the environment,” Patriots MEP Ondřej Knotek echoed in a parliamentary debate this month as he offered his backing to Nordqvist, the Green lawmaker.

 

It’s an awkward twist in Brussels’ cleantech push: Reform designed to accelerate the rollout of renewables is creating common cause between Green and left-wing lawmakers worried about biodiversity, and far-right MEPs eager to defend national control over what gets built and where.

 

The need for speed

The Commission wants to reform permitting procedures to fast-track the development of new grids infrastructure and renewable energy projects. Its proposals, published in December, include changing how environmental assessments are conducted.

 

The Commission says the process for obtaining a permit to build renewable energy projects can take up to nine years, depending on the EU country and technology in question.

 

Among the measures proposed to fix that, the Commission wants to compel EU countries to always treat renewable energy projects as being in the “overriding public interest” during permitting procedures, giving them stronger legal weight when governments balance them against competing concerns, including environmental impacts. This means it will be easier for such projects to secure permits.

 

That’s rung alarm bells for left-wing MEPs concerned about nature protection.

 

Governments must retain their existing right to introduce exemptions to the “overriding public interest” mandate, warned Nordqvist in his draft report.

 

EU countries should be able to decide if they “wish to prioritise certain technologies over others, including due to their lower environmental impact, or because they want to provide certain particularly sensitive areas with a strict level of protection,” he wrote in the report.

 

Socialists and Democrats lawmaker Sakis Arnaoutoglou also wants to restore that right to EU countries, according to amendments seen by POLITICO, citing environmental concerns.

 

They're attracting unlikely allies from the other side of the political spectrum.

 

Knotek — speaking on behalf of the Patriots' lead on the file, MEP Viktória Ferenc — said he agrees with the Green MEP during an environment committee debate last week and will be backing him in the eventual vote.

 

The far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations group last week, too, filed amendments pushing back against elements of the Commission’s permitting reforms for renewable energy projects that could “compromise” nature conservation concerns.

 

Strange bedfellows

Far-right lawmakers are hardly your typical tree huggers.

 

The Patriots and Europe of Sovereign Nations have made rolling back the European Green Deal a priority for the current mandate, painting it as elitist overreach from Brussels.

 

Since their numbers swelled in the Parliament at the 2024 election, they've voted to hack away at numerous related laws, including the EU’s anti-deforestation law. The Identity and Democracy group — a disbanded political group which housed MEPs now belonging to Europe of Sovereign Nations and Patriots — also two years ago spearheaded an unsuccessful bid to kill the EU’s landmark nature restoration law. 

 

But the Commission's attempt to weaken environmental assessments to boost rollout of renewable energy — another bête noire of many on the far right — has prompted them to discover their inner environmentalist.

 

“Permit procedures should not be subject to rigid, blanket deadlines if this could compromise a comprehensive assessment of environmental and nature conservation concerns, impacts on affected citizens and communities, or necessary infrastructure adjustments,” reads a Europe of Sovereign Nations amendment to the Commission's proposal.

 

Environmental NGOs aren’t convinced. ClientEarth lawyer Ioannis Agapakis said the amendments “cannot obscure the broader political reality: ESN has spent years attacking the Green Deal, targeting NGOs and undermining decarbonization efforts, including by opposing renewable energy deployment itself.”

 

Still, Agapakis cautioned that “weakening environmental safeguards will not accelerate the transition,” acknowledging that Europe needs “more renewable energy and faster deployment.”

 

Troubled waters

Further complicating the patchwork of political alliances, Niels Fuglsang — a lawmaker with the center-left S&D who’s leading work on the file for the Parliament’s industry and energy committee — wants to expand on the Commission’s proposal by exempting electricity network infrastructure from some EU water protection requirements.

 

He warns some renewables projects still face having to produce “1,000-page reports,” as well as delays of up to two years over water quality concerns. He says he has yet to see evidence such projects had actually caused damage.

 

“We all want to protect nature and biodiversity and water quality,” Fuglsang told POLITICO. “But when paperwork slows renewable energy projects without really helping nature, then we need to look at how we can change that.”

 

His Green environment committee counterpart Nordqvist in a parliamentary debate last week told Fuglsang this would be “the wrong way to go,” noting that “many projects … actually have an impact on our water environment, especially where it’s in poor condition.”

 

The Commission, for its part, has argued that its proposal is “really central to push fossil fuels out of the energy system,” a position broadly backed by centrist lawmakers. The EU's climate ambitions are “central to the environment and to biodiversity,” it stressed.

 

A vote will take place on the file in Parliament in late spring or early summer.