In many respects, the European Union is at the forefront of sustainable development (SD) strategies, for a number of reasons. As one of the first areas of the world to have benefited from the ndustrial Revolution, it is also one of the first to have had to develop responses to the impact of pollution and the depletion of natural resources. Secondly, it is one of the players in the international system with the most ambitious strategies in this field and has already achieved significant results in several areas (e.g., peaking carbon emissions in 1990, well before any other area in the world). Finally, the EU’s political system makes it the most appropriate institutional laboratory for tackling the many SD challenges that need to be addressed at the most effective level.
The aim of this issue of L’Europe en formation is to take stock of the EU’s SD strategy, examining its development, achievements, weaknesses… The term “sustainable development” is understood in its environmental dimension, which essentially includes climate, water and biodiversity (the circular economy strategy can be seen as complementary to the previous three). The challenges posed by the EU’s political and institutional architecture are also taken into account.
Among the many topics that could be covered in such a special issue, the following ones should be prioritised:
– The climate strategy of the EU, between ambition and insufficiencies
– The evolution of EU water policies since their inception
– The way the EU includes biodiversity in its SD strategy
– The challenges and strengths of multi-level governance in environmental policy making in the EU
– Can the EU be considered as a role model in this field?
Contributions are accepted from researchers and practitioners from all fields of social sciences, and can be written in English or French. Interdisciplinary contributions are encouraged, as well as theoretical, conceptual and methodological approaches.
Proposals (in English or French) should be submitted by 1 April 2025, to the editor-in-chief and the coordinator of the thematic issue, at: europe.formation@cife.eu.
Proposals should include the title of the proposed article, a brief presentation (500 words) and the CV of the author separately.
Proposals will be submitted to the editors of the thematic issue. Once the proposal is accepted, the article should be submitted before 15 July 2025. Once received, each article will be submitted to a blind peer-review procedure.
It will be published in the Winter 2025 issue (expected month of publication: December 2025) on the scholarly journal website cairn.info.
The papers, of 5,000 to 10,000 words in length (including footnotes and excluding bibliography), may be written in English or French. An abstract of 150 words should be added to the article (with a
translation in the other language if possible), as well as a brief presentation of the author (50 words).