Beneath the greener shroud: disability, just transition, and the ontological politics of exclusion in EU policies

Abstract

This article examines whether European Union just transition policies genuinely ‘leave no one behind’ or reproduce structural ableism through the rhetoric of inclusive green transformation. Using Carol Bacchi’s Foucauldian-inspired ‘What’s the Problem Represented to Be?’ approach, alongside disability studies, crip theory, and crip futurism, we analyse how these policies construct disability. We identify three limitations: they reduce disability to employment-related challenges, overlooking broader systemic barriers; position disabled people as policy recipients rather than knowledge producers and co-creators; and reproduce ableist assumptions about time, productivity, and progress that limit transformative potential. These discourses enact an ontological politics that shapes policy objects, subjects, effects, and the realities considered possible, thereby constraining the transformative potential of just transitions. We argue for a ‘crip transition’ paradigm that centres disabled communities as essential agents in co-creating more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable futures.