How can Central and Eastern Europe navigate the green transition in a way that is fair, inclusive, and attentive to the realities of workers and communities?

This question was at the heart of the international Degrowth Conference "Bridging Green and Just in Central and Eastern Europe", held on 16–19 June 2026 in Kraków, Poland.

CELSI researchers Patrik Gažo (also affiliated with the Institute of Sociology, Slovak Academy of Sciences) and Jakub Barszcz both presented at the conference, drawing in part on recent research findings from the EcoMobility Transition project on mobility transformation in Slovakia and Central and Eastern Europe.

Patrik Gažo presented "From Green Growth to Degrowth? Classed Climate Orientations in Slovakia", exploring how different social classes relate to climate policies and the green transition in the Slovak context.

Jakub Barszcz contributed to the presentation "Techno-Economism Contra Sufficiency: the Crisis of the 'Green' in Central Eastern Europe", co-authored with CELSI researchers Monika Martišková, Patrik Gažo, and Pavol Bors, where he outlined a path toward potential sufficiency-based alternatives to techno-economic approaches.

The EcoMobility Transition project, supported by the EUKI initiative, is led by CELSI in cooperation with the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), NELA. Next Economy Lab, and Instytut Spraw Publicznych.

🔗 The EcoMobility project findings: https://ecomobility-transition.celsi.sk/outcomes/

A big thank you to the organisers — the Faculty of Management and Social Communication, Jagiellonian University in Kraków — and to the conference partners: Degrowth Poland, Masaryk University & NaZemi (CZ), University of Szeged (HU), and Technical University of Košice & Klima ťa potrebuje (SVK).

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