What the EU gets wrong on climate and gender backlash
The EU is witnessing the growing politicisation of issues once considered pillars of liberal democracy. Public support for democracy is declining and rule-of-law violations are rising. Pushback against the European Green Deal is gathering momentum, and anti-gender equality backlash has intensified, with far-right forces attacking equality policies and feminist discourse. These are not separate phenomena but symptoms of a broader backlash against liberal democratic principles.
While majorities continue to support both climate action and gender equality, dissatisfaction with how these policies are implemented has created political opportunities for far-right forces to exploit the gap between public values and institutional delivery. The anti-feminist and green backlashes align across three dimensions: declining trust in institutions, erosion of liberal values and the reconfiguration of mainstream politics.
1. Declining trust
Anti-feminist and green backlashes reflect and fuel distrust – not only in experts and science, but also in democratic institutions and their capacity to deliver fair policies.
Many within the green backlash movement perceive climate policies as unfair and costly. This scepticism, in part, stems from opaque decision-making processes in the EU that leave citizens with a sense of limited policy influence. It is also fuelled by the weakening of intermediary organisations such as trade unions and civil society organisations (CSOs), and concerns about European competitiveness vis-à-vis the US and China, whose climate commitments are seen as more volatile and uncertain. These groups have formed unlikely alliances, prompting climate policy weakening and rollbacks in the EU.
Similar dynamics of perceived unfairness and exclusion drive anti-feminist backlash. Economic decline among certain groups, particularly young men, fuels a sense of institutional abandonment and resentment towards gender equality policies that are framed at benefiting women at their expense. Far-right narratives attribute women’s gains to ‘feminist policies’ rather than structural economic changes.
Still, some argue that the narrative of widespread opposition is overstated. Eurobarometer data shows that most EU citizens continue to support climate action and see gender equality as beneficial to all. Yet limited inclusion in policymaking allows far-right forces to offer simple scapegoats – environmentalists or feminists – for complex structural failures rooted in inequality, automation and globalisation.
2. Erosion of values
Both backlashes undermine liberal democratic values and threaten hard-won and long-established rights. The green backlash has coincided with the increased vilification of environmental activists, while parallel attacks on women’s rights, including reproductive rights, and LGBTQ+ rights have intensified. Poland's near-total abortion ban and Hungary’s ban on Pride events, other LGBTQ+ public gatherings and broader ‘anti-LGBT law’ from 2021 demonstrates this. Beyond legislative rollbacks, pervasive gender-based violence, affecting one in three women in the EU, underscores the ongoing struggle for gender equality and the fragility of these rights.
These trends reflect a pattern of constraining civic participation, freedom of assembly and expression, bodily autonomy, and physical safety. Both backlashes share a common logic: restricting minority rights and silencing dissent in the name of protecting an ill-defined 'majority' interest.
3. Political realignment
The two backlashes are also reshaping European politics, fracturing the centrist coalition and mainstreaming far-right positions.
The European People’s Party (EPP) has pivoted from a climate pioneer to a Green Deal critic following the 2024 EU elections. It increasingly seeks support beyond the traditional pro-EU coalition, notably the far right, to dilute aspects of green legislation.
Far-right movements instrumentalise both issues to build broad coalitions. France's National Rally frames climate policies as ‘anti-working class’, while far-right parties describe gender equality as an ideological imposition that targets men.
Both share a populist rhetoric of defending ‘ordinary people’ against elitist agendas. By linking economic anxieties with cultural grievances, far-right movements have created cross-cutting alliances that transcend traditional left–right divides.
From scapegoat to solution
The convergence of anti-feminist and green backlashes poses a coordinated challenge to the EU’s liberal-democratic pluralist foundations. Yet the diagnosis also suggests a pathway forward.
The problem is less about public opposition than institutional failure: polling consistently shows majorities support both climate action and gender equality. Rather, it is institutional failure to deliver policies that are both ambitious and just.
This failure is twofold. First, technocratic, top-down policymaking excludes the public, breeding perceptions of unfairness. Second, institutions have failed to tackle the material roots of insecurity that far-right forces exploit.
The solution requires that Europe make decision-making more inclusive, through deliberative innovations that link public will to policy priorities, while addressing economic precarity.
Only by closing both the democratic and economic gaps can Europe rebuild institutional trust and counter these interlinked backlashes. Otherwise, continued institutional paralysis will deepen polarisation and threaten the very foundations of European democracy.
This commentary forms part of a series leading up to the European Policy Centre's 2025 Annual Conference. Click here to learn more.
Anna Crawford is a Policy Analyst in the Sustainable Prosperity for Europe programme.
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