Dutch elections underscore risk to EU climate ambition amid political instability
** Please note: You can find a factsheet outlining the key climate and energy issues in the Netherlands, as well as the stances of the six hightest-polling parties here. **
Dutch voters will head to the polls on 29 October for the second time in less than two years to elect a new parliament that will shape upcoming climate and energy policy. Snap elections are common practice in the country - since 1998, only one coalition has not resigned before the end of its four-year term.
The constant switching of governments has led to an ever-changing climate and energy policy landscape. The previous coalition government, for example, overturned the obligation to install hybrid heat pumps in homes, postponed the national implementation of zero-emission zones in cities, and withdrew subsidies for solar panels more rigorously.
These changes frustrated businesses that had already started planning for and implementing the regulations.
“Uncertain government policy is often cited as the main stumbling block for entrepreneurs in the energy transition,” Olof van der Gaag, chair of the Dutch Association for Sustainable Energy (NVDE), told Clean Energy Wire.
While it is natural for a new government to create its own policies, the frequent snap elections and subsequent government-formation periods in the Netherlands come with high uncertainty and standstill.
“If you have snap elections all the time, there's very few periods of stability,” said Christina Toenshoff, political scientist at Leiden University. “A lot of investments in new energy projects or car models, for instance, require planning security,” she added. Election years and the period immediately afterwards create “the highest level of policy uncertainty where companies tend to freeze what they do before making any big investment decisions”.
The Netherlands is not alone in facing a shifting political landscape. Economic powerhouses Germany and France, for example, also faced snap elections and political instability recently. This is harming the continent’s long-term climate and energy-policy planning and, with far-right populism rising, it may be difficult to reverse the damage being caused.
“Snap elections are a symptom of a wider problem. Governments seem to be becoming increasingly unstable and are finding it harder to reach consensus with coalition partners,” Leiden University’s Toenshoff told Clean Energy Wire.
“We fear delay, where acceleration is needed”
In the Netherlands, the PVV, a far-right climate-denying party, became the biggest party by a landslide following the last elections in November 2023. Their demands included pulling the Netherlands from the Paris Agreement and stopping the expansion of renewable energy.
Ultimately, the party’s more extreme campaign demands never saw the light of day and, as a new government was formed, the four-party coalition made clear that the Netherlands would stick to internationally agreed climate targets.
The coalition lasted 11 months. While the climate minister, Sophie Hermans of the centre-right liberal party VVD, started out optimistically, it soon became clear that the Netherlands was not on track to reach its 2030 climate target of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 55 percent, compared to 1990 levels.
Based on the current policy trajectory, there is less than a five percent chance that the country will achieve this reduction, according to The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL). The country also looks likely to miss its binding European targets for expanding renewable energy and reducing energy consumption.
The announcement that the Netherlands is set to miss its 2030 target was met with widespread dismay among business leaders, who criticised the unpredictability of the country’s climate policy.
“Entrepreneurs who responded to new government policy and invested in sustainable technology and upscaling production – like heat pumps – are at risk of going bankrupt due to changing policy,” stated an appeal signed by a wide range of organisations in early 2025.
Signatories ranged from the business community to the environmental movement and farmer representatives. These groups have often disagreed in the past but have now found common ground in calling for more stable climate and energy policies which would allow them to plan for the future. “We are deeply concerned: we fear delay, where acceleration is needed,” they said in the appeal.
One of the signatories is the Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers (VNO-NCW), which represents more than 80 percent of all medium-sized companies, including energy-intensive firms in concrete and glass manufacturing.
“The consequences of the deteriorating investment climate are particularly evident in industry. But fluctuating policies on heat pumps and solar panels are also causing uncertainty in the market,” the group said in a statement to Clean Energy Wire.
Businesses navigate how to implement long-term plans with short-term policies
Wavering policies make it harder for businesses to plan, with over three quarters of companies in the solar panel, heat pump and insulation sectors fearing job losses, explained van der Gaag from sustainable energy association NVDE.
“These skilled workers are incredibly important for the transition to a future-proof and independent economy. If they are forced to change jobs, there is a risk that they will not be easily found again when the sector needs them back,” he said.
“Policymaking for tackling climate change is extra complicated because it is long-term,” agreed Barbara Vis, professor of politics and governance at University Utrecht. “The often diffuse benefits emerge only in the long-term, while there are immediate, concentrated costs.”
Planning ahead will become more difficult as “the number of potential policy paths to a 55 percent emission reduction by 2030 without serious economic pain or social resistance is becoming increasingly limited”, warned environmental agency PBL.
The institute also cautioned that a subsidy scheme for sustainable technologies, which has provided important investment security, may lose effectiveness by 2027 following budget cuts introduced by the recently dissolved cabinet.
The Netherlands has mainly been governed by right-leaning parties over the past couple of years, but this has not necessarily translated into stable policymaking. “Some parties may share a similar vision, but when it comes to how that vision should be implemented, their ideas vary greatly,” said Vis. “You can agree on the destination, but not on how to get there. And for citizens and businesses, how you get there makes a huge difference.”
France, Germany, Portugal: Snap elections and climate-policy consequences around Europe
The Netherlands is not alone in holding snap elections which threaten to derail climate policy plans, although some countries have managed to remain more stable than others.
France: Political turmoil
France has been in a state of political crisis since its legislative snap elections in June 2024, marked by several government collapses under president Emmanuel Macron and a surge in support for the far-right National Rally party.
The political turmoil is harming policy planning around climate and energy: France’s plan charting its energy trajectory up to 2035 (the PPE3) is still pending after three years in consultations; the expansion of renewable energy has stalled; and it is unlikely that emissions will fall substantially this year. This means that the country is not on track to meet its climate targets for 2030.
There are also uncertainties surrounding the long-term financing capacity of EDF, the French state-owned electricity company behind the country’s nuclear fleet, which France is relying heavily on for decarbonisation.
New presidential elections will be held in 2027. A victory for the National Rally would have profound consequences for climate and energy policy in France and across Europe. The party has called the EU Green Deal a tool of “punitive ecology” that coerces and burdens French citizens. It uses so-called “greenblaming” as a tactic, presenting transition policies as detrimental to the French lifestyle.
Germany: Same, same but different
In Germany, the former coalition government led by chancellor Olaf Scholz came to an early end in November 2024 –which happened for the last time in 2005. As Scholz's coalition collapsed, many draft laws and climate strategies were still under discussion, including the country’s framework for allowing carbon capture and storage (CCS), and a strategy for backup gas-fired power plants.
Elections were held in February 2025, leading to the coalition of chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative CDU/CSU alliance and the Social Democrats (SPD). The new government has so far committed to existing climate targets and the continuation of the country's energy transition, but has also signalled plans to scale back ambitions for expanding renewables and hydrogen electrolysis as part of its increased focus on the costs of the energy transition.
Other climate and energy policies are also in the balance under Merz's leadership. In the run-up to the February elections, his party pledged to abolish the so-called “heating law”, which legislates a gradual phase-out of oil and gas boilers. This has created uncertainty for cities, as utilities draft plans to decommission their gas grid.
Another contested topic, which was left out of the coalition agreement, is Germany’s stance on the EU’s 2035 ban on the sale of new combustion engine vehicles. Merz says he is in favour of scrapping the ban, but coalition party SPD has so far declined to give its consent.
Portugal: Third time’s the charm?
Portugal has held three snap elections over the past three years. In early 2024, snap elections disrupted preparations for the country’s first commercial-scale floating wind auction.
The political transition made offshore wind investors take a “wait-and-see” approach due to “disrupted progress towards a stable regulatory framework and stirred market uncertainty”, as reported by Reuters.
EU rules help maintain climate ambition, but farming emissions remain a political hot potato
Although political uncertainty across Europe is hampering long-term climate-policy planning, political scientist Toenshoff said EU policies “help put some guardrails on what countries do”.
So far, new European governments formed following snap elections have kept to the agreed EU climate goals and tried to adhere to EU rules, she said.
One sector that remains difficult to navigate is agriculture, where reducing emissions is essential for achieving climate neutrality.
“Given the relationship between populism and farming in many places, it will be difficult to be ambitious about agriculture in the current climate. Snap elections and unstable governments certainly don't help,” said Toenshoff.
The last Dutch coalition included the agrarian-populist Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), and the coalition agreement saw farmers' interests prevail over environmental action. The party is polling much lower now.
Rising extremes in the EU
Increased political instability can at least partly be explained by the rise of extremes in politics. More far-right populist parties are coming into power and are gaining popularity across the continent, driving political divides. “As extremes have become stronger, there are more possibilities for government formation based on different ideologies, which makes policy formation harder,” said Toenshoff.
The future will likely bring more of two types of coalitions in European countries, she explained.
“You will either see iterations of coalitions of centrist parties who disagree on a lot, except on their opposition to the extremes”, or see coalitions of populist and non-populist parties ranging from the right to the far-right, as happened in the last Dutch cabinet.
Ultimately, both are unstable. “Unless politicians find a way to strengthen the centre and reverse the strand of populism, there is a risk we see more snap elections going forward,” said Toenshoff.
