Abstract
This article examines the emerging legal rationalities of EU's green industrial policy, questioning if they represent a departure from the neoliberal paradigm that prioritised safeguarding the competitive order. I argue that the European Green Industrial Plan signals a new role for law in the orchestration and balancing of public purpose and private accumulation. This shift can be understood through a dual thesis of 'market instrumentalism' and 'political capitalism'. Market instrumentalism denotes the emergence of a regulatory regime that casts off its agnosticism about value, seeking instead to shape markets in alignment with politically determined objectives. Political capitalism captures how public power politicises private accumulation, particularly through strategies of derisking that ensure private profitability while socialising investment risks. These two theses provide a framework to assess whether and to what extent elements of a post-neoliberal European order are emerging. On the one hand, the turn to market instrumentalism promises a demystification of markets, which are relegated from ends to means. On the other hand, the politicization of private accumulation constrains market instrumentalism by setting the preservation of private profitability as its condition. The article concludes with a reflection on how the space opened by green industrial policy could be harnessed to democratise the political economy of the green transition.
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