Hello and welcome to the Centre for European Reform podcast, Unpacking Europe.

I'm Kate Mullinue and today we'll be looking back on 2025 and ahead to 26 with some of the researchers here at the CER.

This episode was recorded on Friday, December the 12th, and we covered a large range of topics,

which included the Green Deal, the impact of Trump's return on global climate action, Ukraine,

Russia, trade and the Trump administration's hostility to Europe.

We also discussed the EU-UK reset, Ursula von der Leyen's achievements and struggles so far,

the growth in popularity of the far right in 2025 and the EU's Middle East strategy.

To start, I'm joined by Elizabetha Cornago,

assistant director at the CER. Elizabetha, let's start with your take on what has happened to the Green Deal, which was Ursula von der Leyen's main project. Thank you, Kate. Yes, so many have said

the Green Deal is dead. I will not say so, but it is in a difficult phase

for two reasons. One very much to be expected in my view and the other props linked to the political

context. So the first reason is the one I expected. We are entering a more difficult phase of

decarbonization. Yes, the energy sector is greener and greener in Europe. We saw almost

40% of electricity produced with wind and solar energy in summer 2025. That's substantial progress.

But we are still in the relatively early stages of decarbonizing industry. And also the shift

to green transport and utility technologies is rather slow. Now, the reason I green transport and technology is rather slow.

Now, the reason I say this is expected is because moving away from well-known possible

technologies to new but increasingly mature ones is difficult because it requires all

households, all businesses to invest and change their behavior and change their production

both. These changes are feasible. Technically, EVs are on the road. It pumps are proven to work,

also for many industrial processes, but they are costly. So this is really an investment problem,

and so it makes for difficult politics. We have seen the impacts of this. A majority of EU countries

...