Beyond ‘Fit for 55’: The emergence of the ‘Do No Significant Harm’ principle in EU law and EU funding mechanisms

Abstract This contribution aims to define the emerging principle of ‘Do no significant harm’ (DNSH) in EU law, using the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) of the European plan to tackle the socio‐ economic consequences of the pandemic, as a case study. There has been a proliferation of the DNSH principle in EU policies, documents and EU legal acts. However, at the current stage, there is a gap in the literature concerning the role of the DNSH in the EU legal framework. The RRF applies the principle of DNSH as defined in the Taxonomy Regulation and deploys it as an eligibility criterion for the disbursement of EU funding. Thus, the DNSH shapes Member States' actions by prioritising environmental objectives. By looking at concrete examples, this contribution argues that streamlining the principle DNSH ensures policy coherence with the 2030 EU's decarbonisation target, beyond the ‘Fit for 55’ Package.