A survey of MEPs by degrowth scholars Giorgos Kallis, Riccardo Mastini and Chritstos Zografos has uncovered some interesting data on opinions, shedding light on the growth dependency within institutions, such as the European Parliament, that makes them resistant to change, despite preferences for change within.
Their paper in Nature describes how they looked at four discourses: growth at all costs, green growth, growth agnosticism and degrowth, findings that even though EU policy is framed around a market based, green growth economy, there is no consensus for it.
Why does it persist? Possibly, (i) the centre right holds the balance of power and pushes its agenda successfully into policy even when others disagree; (ii) the left is split into green and socialist, with greens sometimes supporting liberal green growth; and (iii) MEPs with more radical personal opinions do not share them in public, adopting a more dogmatic official language in their communications.
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