Presentation short abstract

Militarisation is swamping the EU’s sustainability agenda. Analysing the shift from the REPower to the ReArm EU, this article shows how Europe is tying itself to the US fossil-fuel regime. Thus, amidst rearmament, low-carbon demilitarisation strategies are problematically sidelined.

Presentation long abstract

Is the thrust for a bold environmental sustainability agenda in the EU being swamped by geopolitical considerations? In the spring of 2025, almost exactly three years after the launch of the REPowerEU, the centrality of the newly paired environmental and energy policy is giving way to rearmament of EU member countries. This article explains the shift from the climate to the military agenda by analysing the turn to the ReArm Europe Plan: ‘a once-in-a-generation surge in European defence investment’. Drawing on global and critical political economy, I use the notion of ‘fossil-fuel regime’ to show how the geopolitics of rearmament are easing the EU’s dependencies on Russia only to tie the continent to another fossil-fuel regime, that of the United States. In the midst of a militarisation craze, alternatives geopolitics based on non-military national security strategies, coupled with a rapid transition to low-carbon energy, are being sidelined. The article therefore concludes with a discussion of the road not taken: multi-level state planning of post-growth demilitarisation.