Climate change and EU membership : the journey of Central and Eastern Europe towards a carbon-free world

This chapter looks into the impact of EU membership on the carbon intensity of EU11 economies since joining the EU. EU membership boosted foreign trade and FDI, leading to a rapid re-industrialization of EU11 and making them the fastest converging group of upper-middle-income countries in the world. Nevertheless, EU11 economies maintained their previously established trend decline in carbon intensity. The convergence path of EU11 was unique among converging upper-middle-income countries in this regard. In other parts of the world, convergence was coupled with increasing carbon intensity.The role of EU membership in bringing about this unique trend is well identifiable. On the legal-institutional side, the adoption of the acquis and EU institutions, the environmental norms and the shared decision to reduce CO2 emission (to achieve the EU goals for 2020) required also EU11 countries to contribute. The EU not only set requirements, it also provided significant financial support through several channels to EU11 to help achieve these targets and to mitigate the social consequences of the measures involved.