The symposium is based on the premise that understanding what is motivating citizens across the region to protest about climate change or air pollution, to decipher their mobilisation strategies and particular framings, requires a nuanced analysis of domestic political opportunity structures, resource availability, transnational linkages, and particular dynamics of political resistance to democratic backsliding and ethno-populism. We need to return to the fundamental question of whether it is, or ever was, appropriate to frame our understanding of environmental activism and politics in Central and Eastern Europe in terms of Western norms and trajectories. What has become increasingly clear is that the roles ascribed to civil society as ‘a provider of public services, moral blueprint, or control on power’ are Western concepts that remain essentially contested. Europeanization thrived on the implicit assertion that Western-style institutions and solutions were the only way forward. As these institutions and processes now appear less stable and perform differently than many had expected, it seems appropriate to question the foundations on which the transportation of ‘European’ environmental governance was based.