• Speaker: Dr. Ioannis Kampourakis, Associate Professor of Law and Markets at Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam
• Discussant: TBC

With the Green Deal, Europe faces a pivotal question: is the EU leaving behind its neoliberal model of governing markets, or are we simply seeing old ideas return in greener packaging? In this lecture, Professor Ioannis Kampourakis examines this dilemma through the lens of the European Green Industrial Plan, the EU’s flagship strategy for driving the green transition.

The starting point of the analysis is that law does not merely regulate the economy: it constitutes it. By allocating coercive power, entitlements, and burdens among different actors, law shapes the institutional forms within which economic activity and capital accumulation take place. Any inquiry into “what comes after neoliberalism” must therefore ask whether new legal structures and rationalities are emerging, and what kinds of socio-economic arrangements they enable or constrain.

Against this backdrop, Kampourakis demonstrates that the European Green Industrial Plan represents a significant shift from the neoliberal paradigm. First, it treats markets as instruments, directing investment and production toward political objectives such as achieving climate neutrality, ensuring supply security, and fostering strategic autonomy. Second, it expands the role of states through subsidies and “derisking” strategies that support private investment while shifting costs onto public budgets.

These changes open up a broader debate: is this the beginning of a post-neoliberal European order, or a new way of protecting private profitability during the green transition? And if the EU is already reshaping markets for public purposes, could this momentum be used to democratise economic decision-making more broadly?