Reinforcing unsustainable welfare in Europe? Growth-centrism, Eurocentrism and anthropocentrism in the 2024 EU Europarty election manifestos

There is an emerging body of literature on sustainable welfare suggesting that Europe needs sustainable welfare policies to mitigate the crises of environmental destruction and growing social inequalities. However, research about how such policies are politically embraced within the EU context is less developed. Therefore, based on sustainable welfare as a normative framework, this article focuses on political parties at the EU level and evaluates the ideologies and discourses that underpin their election manifestos. Critical discourse analysis and theories of postcolonial intersectionality are used to examine the 2024 election manifestos of what were then the three largest Europarties in the EU: European People’s Party (EPP), Party of European Socialists (PES) and Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party (ALDE). The findings indicate that the manifestos focus on economic growth, European superiority and the subordination of nature and non-humans. In contrast, the normative framework of sustainable welfare denotes a combination of social and environmental sustainability over economic growth and values solidarity with nature, non-humans and people in all parts of the world. Therefore, this article suggests that the Europarties do the direct opposite of aligning with sustainable welfare–reinforcing unsustainable welfare in Europe.