As EU leaders gather for the informal European Council on competitiveness on 12 February, a familiar argument once again dominates the Brussels debate. Europe, we are told, must deregulate – under the banner of “simplification” – and do so quickly, or risk economic decline and insecurity.
It sounds decisive. It also gets the problem wrong.
Competitiveness as assumption, not evidence
Across Europe, people are not frustrated because environmental or health protections exist. They are frustrated because everyday life is becoming harder, more expensive and more uncertain. Rent is unaffordable. Energy bills remain volatile. Chemical pollution quietly erodes public health and peace of mind, forcing people to worry about risks they cannot see or control. Clean air, safe food and drinking water no longer feel like things that can be taken for granted.
Energy dependence, climate damage and instability directly affect people’s safety, livelihoods and future. What citizens are asking for is not a weaker Union, but a more protective one.
The same forces weighing on people’s lives are also holding back Europe’s economy. Energy dependence, climate damage, fierce global competition and rising inequality are the real drags on Europe’s economic performance. There is no evidence that EU environmental regulations undermine competitiveness. On the contrary, decades of data show that strong environmental rules add value to the economy and society, while providing predictability and legal certainty for businesses.
What is striking is how often “competitiveness” itself is treated as a self-evident solution. The assumption that deregulation will restore growth, security and political stability is repeatedly asserted, but rarely demonstrated.
The promise behind today’s deregulation drive is an old one: ease pressure on industry now, and growth will solve all problems. But for millions of Europeans, that promise has worn thin. Quality of life is visibly deteriorating, even as policymakers insist that outdated laissez-faire ideas will put Europe back on track.
Who pays when safeguards are weakened
Instead, costs are being shifted onto people. Laws designed to keep polluters in check are being weakened in the name of urgency, quietly hollowing out the polluter-pays principle. Just last week, the European Commission itself estimated that inaction on PFAS “forever chemical” pollution could cost society up to €1.7 trillion by 2050.
Environmental impact assessments, public consultations and protections for health, nature and workers are increasingly portrayed as bureaucratic obstacles rather than democratic safeguards. In practice, this shifts the costs of pollution from those who profit onto households and taxpayers – through higher health costs, polluted water, degraded ecosystems and growing public clean-up budgets.
This has nothing to do with simplification or “red tape”. It is a political choice about who ultimately bears the real costs of pollution – whether it is paid by polluters, or quietly passed on to everyone else, including its victims.
From deregulation to democratic distrust
The frustration many leaders struggle to understand has a simple explanation: the current direction is not working for people.
When decisions affecting health and future generations are shaped behind closed doors rather than through open democratic processes, trust erodes. When polluting industries receive exemptions while households absorb the consequences, inequality deepens. And when governments or the EU appear more responsive to lobbyists than citizens, political polarisation intensifies.
Public resistance to this trajectory is already visible. In recent weeks, a broad coalition of civil society organisations launched the Hands Off Nature campaign, calling on EU leaders to stop dismantling environmental laws. In less than a week, more than 150,000 people have signed the petition, and the number continues to grow.
Late last year, in just ten days, nearly 200,000 citizens also responded to a European Commission consultation in support of existing nature laws – the highest level of public participation ever recorded.
This is not a niche concern. It is a mass public reaction to policies that increase exposure to pollution, climate risks and social instability – and to political processes that too often sideline citizens while amplifying corporate power.
The EU has built some of the world’s strongest protections for health, nature and democratic participation. These are not obstacles to progress. They are the foundations of a safe, resilient and prosperous Europe. Weakening them in the name of competitiveness does not make Europe stronger. It makes it more vulnerable.
Forests, wetlands and healthy soils support food production, protect drinking water and reduce the need for costly disaster response. Undermining these systems for short-term gain benefits a few today while imposing long-term costs on everyone else.
A choice about Europe’s future
Europe’s problem, then, is not a lack of competitiveness. It is a lack of care.
People are not asking governments to do less. They are asking them to do what only public institutions can do: defend shared goods, protect health and nature, and actively improve quality of life. That requires ambition and leadership, not retreat.
At the upcoming summit, EU leaders face a clear choice. They can continue down a path that trades long-term wellbeing for short-term profit. Or they can change course, defend the laws that protect people and nature, and show that European democracy still works for the many, not the few.
Only the latter stands a chance of restoring trust, resilience and democratic legitimacy in a Europe that desperately needs all three.