EU Energy Governance Research Articles

EU energy governance—moving targets and flexible ambitions between opacity and opportunism?

Abstract This article examines the robustness of the architecture of European energy and climate governance and the instruments developed to execute climate governance based on EU-wide targets and the ambition of ‘net-zero’ by 2050. Its primary focus is on the quality of the European energy and climate governance process.The Commission’s primary task is to monitor closely national efforts to achieve the EU’s binding targets for example on energy efficiency, greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction and renewables production, to report regularly on progress or lack thereof. Although a considerable literature on climate governance has now evolved its focus is primarily on the tools available to the Commission to realize the Union’s climate and energy governance strategy in the absence of legally binding national targets. Many important and central questions about this governance process remain largely unanswered and unresolved. Legally binding union-wide climate targets are embraced by the new EU Climate Law of 2021, and various measures to promote renewable energy, energy efficiency and emission reduction are expressed to be ‘legally binding’ on the European institutions. But what does this mean in practice – especially in the current ‘energy emergency’ situation? Are there any effective legal constraints if the Commission’s actions or its failure to act is likely to imperil the timely realization of these ‘binding’ European wide targets. The first part of this article analyses the climate and energy governance and assesses the Commission’s role and responsibilities. Two additional and inter-related instruments of European ‘net zero governance’ are dealt with in the second and third parts. These are the reliance on delegated acts (part two) and the use of state aid control (part three). The scope of the Commission’s discretion when drawing up delegated rules has become an essential element of the ‘net zero’ governance process. An assessment of the application of the Treaty state aid rules to national schemes to support fossil fuels provides useful legal as well as policy insights. It serves as an important testing ground for policy coherence and continuity in pursuing the Union’s climate goals. This assessment contributes to a practical appraisal of the quality of governance from the perspective of this article – in terms of the scope of discretion open to the Commission to continue to approve such subsidies even in the light of the Climate Law’s binding targets.

Energy Communities and the Tensions Between Neoliberalism and Communitarianism

The convergent development of (renewable) distributed electricity sources, storage technologies (e.g., batteries), ‘big data’ devices (e.g., sensors, smart meters), and novel ICT infrastructure matching energy supply and demand (smart grids) enables new local and collective forms of energy consumption and production. This socio-technical evolution has been accompanied by the development of citizen energy communities that have been supported by EU energy governance and directives, adopting a political narrative of placing the citizen central in the ongoing energy transition. But to what extent are the ideals that motivate the energy community movement compatible with those of neoliberalism that have guided EU energy policy for the last four decades? Using a framework inspired by Michel Foucault’s idea of governmentality, we analyze the two political forms from three dimensions: ontological, economic and power politics. For the ontological and the economic dimensions, neoliberal governmentality is flexible enough to accommodate the tensions raised by the communitarians. In the dimension of power politics however, the communitarian logic does raise a fundamental challenge to neoliberal governmentality in the sense that it explicitly aims for a redefinition of the ‘common good’ of society’s energy supply based on democratic premises.

Exploring EU energy governance and policy under a demoi-cratic lens: citizen participation, output legitimacy and democratic interdependence

ABSTRACT This paper applies the demoi-cratic theory to EU energy governance and policy, and explores whether the demoi-cratic criteria of equal legislative powers between statespeople and citizens and the supremacy of multilateral law through participatory jurisprudence apply to EU energy affairs. More specifically, it zooms in on democratic pathogenies deriving from lack of citizen engagement in energy policy-making at national, transnational and supranational levels; the impact of the lack of citizen participation on the output legitimacy of energy decisions; and democratic externalities and their consequences in the energy realm. It concludes that energy policy-making fulfils neither of the demoi-cratic criteria. This is due to the top-down mode of EU energy policy, and the dual EU failure to benefit from citizen engagement in the design and implementation of energy policy, and to recognize and deal with the democratic externalities emanating from the heightened democratic interdependence within the EU.

Following, Challenging, or Shaping: Can Third Countries Influence EU Energy Policy?

Can non-EU member states influence the EU’s energy policy? The Europeanization of energy policy in third countries is often described as a one-directional process in which these countries essentially adopt the EU <em>energy acquis</em>. Our article questions this dominant view by exploring whether and how third countries can influence the formulation and implementation of EU energy policy. We argue that relative differences in third country influence depend on their access to relevant venues and actors of EU policy-making as well as their structural power resources. We develop a typology linking these two factors to the outsider, follower, challenger, or shaper roles that third countries assume in EU energy governance. We empirically probe our argument in three case studies representing different models of EU–third country cooperation. Our cases include a group of nine Southeast and East European countries (Energy Community), Switzerland (bilateral arrangements), and Norway (European Economic Area). The analysis shows that it is access and structural power which together define the extent to which third countries are able to influence the formulation of EU energy policy and customize its implementation to their domestic needs. We find that while the Energy Community members are followers in EU energy governance, Switzerland and Norway are shapers. Strikingly, the influence of these two non-EU members may occasionally even surpass that of smaller EU member states. This highlights that third countries are not merely downloading EU energy regulation but sometimes also succeed in uploading their own preferences. Our contribution has implications for the post-Brexit EU–UK energy relations and qualifies claims about EU regulatory hegemony in the wider region.

How to reach the EU renewables target by 2030? An analysis of the governance framework

In the absence of post-2020 national binding renewable energy (RES) targets, ensuring Member States’ contributions which add up to the EU-level target by 2030 poses a challenge to the EU governance framework. Even without national targets, Member States remain key players to reach a 2030 RES target.The key question that results from the dealignment of targets at the EU level and instruments at Member State level is how the EU energy governance framework can be designed so that the binding EU target can be achieved based on appropriate measures implemented by Member States. A governance framework should (1) ensure that Member States submit the highest possible RES pledges (adding up to the required RES share at EU level), (2) ensure that Member States put in place appropriate measures to achieve their pledges. The EU approach to this governance framework can be labeled as Open Method of Coordination, i.e. a soft governance approach. However, as this may not be sufficient, the question arises as to how it can be complemented by more direct and powerful governance elements.Against this background, this paper elaborates on the possible design of the EU energy governance to ensure compliance with the 2030 RES target.

Conflicting energy policy priorities in EU energy governance

In the last decade, energy policies across EU member states have shifted, with fears emerging over the feasibility of the decarbonisation targets set up at European level. In many cases, the changes have been triggered by weakened economic conditions linked to the last international economic crisis (2008), but in some others, they respond to national political preferences that have been given priority over long-term goals related to sustainability. The second half of 2016 was particularly full of events that on one hand, introduced uncertainty over markets, and on the other hand, may condition the progress (both weakening it and leaning it towards the wrong path) towards the Energy Union, the latest attempt to achieve energy market integration by the EU institutions. This paper will focus on three events to analyse their influence over EU’s energy governance patterns: The first is the Brexit vote and the implications over budget availability for emissions reduction projects. The second is the election of Donald Trump as president of the USA, with his declared disbelief in climate change. Finally yet importantly is the latest decision by OPEC to cut production in order to increase oil prices. With the exception of Brexit, these events are external to the EU, but all of them will have an impact over EU energy policy decisions. Bearing in mind that goals set up for 2030 are already ‘softer’ than expected compared to the 2020 ones, the question is whether those events could push policymakers more towards European targets concerned with security of supply, conflicting with emissions reduction goals.

Translating bioenergy policy in Europe: Mutation, aims and boosterism in EU energy governance

Supranational policies move from their places of spatial design towards domestic and local materialization, a journey on which policy programs are subject to multiple loops of translation in various spatial contexts. These loops involve shifting rationalities, historically formed path dependencies and distinct constellations of stakeholders, all of which affect the means of their implementation within national and regional socio-spatial environments. This article evaluates the complexity of governance assemblages based on the translation and mutation of European Union bioenergy policies. As part of the transition towards a low carbon economy, EU member states have been given the responsibility to choose their own approaches within the common EU 2020 renewable energy framework. While EU documents highlight energy security, energy union and sustainability, a contested policy translation process reformulates governance means and aims along the way and sometimes causes the generic targets to vanish. Thus, context dependent decision making assemblages are portrayed as shaping the policy process and the advancement of renewable energy in various directions. The article bundles the empirical results of case studies in Finland, Germany, Estonia, France, and Norway, as well as EU institutions in Brussels to conceptualize peculiarities that guide policy design, translation and boosterist processes in transnational governance.