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

In 2018, the European Union laid the foundation for a large-scale energy transition: away from fossilbased en-ergy and towards renewable, sustainable energy solutions. A transition of such a large scale comes with chal-lenges. 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.

Automated summary

The European Union introduced the Just Transition Fund in 2021 to address justice issues arising from the energy transition, but research shows that the fund perpetuates past justice issues such as inadequate funding and lack of stakeholder participation.