When the Accession Legacy Fades Away: Central and Eastern European Countries and the EU Renewables Targets

ABSTRACT

Renewable sources of energy are considered to play a crucial role in the transition towards a decarbonised economy. Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries’ positions vis-à-vis the European Union’s (EU) renewables goals do not form a homogenous group and have changed over time. After joining the Union, these countries initially supported the EU’s renewables targets due to post-accession compliance; however, once this accession legacy faded away, they started to pursue their preferences in a more assertive way, which resulted in different strategies and priorities. The development of CEE countries’ positions towards renewables targets is thus connected to the ‘emancipation’ of these countries and a more assertive way of pursuing their preferences at the EU level, once they were ‘freed’ from the influence of post-accession conditionality.

KEYWORDS:

• Central and Eastern Europe
• climate change
• compliance
• national preferences
• renewables

Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges the UACES Research Network `The Role of Europe in Global Challenges: Climate Change and Sustainable Development' for the organisation of a dedicated online workshop, and the co-editors for bringing this special issue to fruition. The Jean Monnet Network ‘Governing the EU's climate and energy transition in turbulent times’ (GOVTRAN: www.govtran.eu), which is funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, deserves credit for additional support. The author would like to thank Thomas Hoerber and Jonas Schoenefeld, the journal editors and four anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on previous versions of this article. The author would also like to thank Nada Kujundžić for language editing.

Notes

¹ See the works by Bocquillon and Maltby (2017) or Ćetković and Buzogány (2019), although the latter focuses on only six CEE countries.

² See the important contributions by Braun (2014; 2019).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency Grant No. APVV-16-0062.

Notes on contributors

Matúš Mišík

Matúš Mišík is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia.