The just transition fund – Did the European Union learn from Europe's past transition experiences?

Abstract

In 2018, the European Union laid the foundation for a large-scale energy transition: away from fossilbased energy and towards renewable, sustainable energy solutions. A transition of such a large scale comes with challenges. To cope with the ills that an energy transition brings the European Commission proposed the Just Transition Fund in 2021. It serves as a financial buffer and provides strategic support for the successful energy transition to decrease injustices. Programs that aim at resolving transition justice issues are not new to Europe. The question, therefore, arises whether issues that arose or could not be solved with these past programs are addressed by the Just Transition Fund. To answer this question, three case studies that were supported by the Initiative for Coal Regions in Transition were assessed with the just transition framework. This research shows that Just Transition Fund propagates many of the detected past justice issues. The most prominent justice issues found were distributive and procedural due to scarce funding and a lack of stakeholder participation.