The struggle over support schemes for renewable electricity in the European Union: a discursive-institutionalist analysis

Abstract

The politics of EU renewable energy policy and legislation is analysed and an apparent paradox investigated. The liberalising philosophy of the internal market inspired an electricity liberalisation law in the mid-1990s. Continued support for neoliberal instruments (especially in key departments of the European Commission) further bolstered Commission plans to introduce a quota and certificate scheme. Despite this support, such schemes were rejected by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers in the legislative process leading up to the renewable energy laws of 2001 and 2009. The article investigates this apparent paradox using an analytical research framework based on discursive institutionalism. Relying on textual analysis and extensive interviews, it argues that the Commission´s preference for Tradable Green Certificates can primarily be attributed to its conformity with the market-oriented macro-discourse dominant in EU institutions, and shared by a substantial discursive issue network. The opposing coalition, however, was able to build a discourse around subsidiarity, good governance and flexibility that ultimately swayed the Parliament and Council.

Keywords:

• renewable energy
• tradable green certificates
• European Union
• discursive institutionalism

Notes

1. Directives are EU laws, usually adopted (as in the present case) by Parliament and Council. The two renewable energy laws at stake here are Directive 2001/77/EC and Directive 2009/28/EC (see References).

2. The aggregation of actors according to their language and conceptualisation of reality is not new. For instance, Hajer (1993; 1995) – standing in a more Foucauldian tradition – introduced the term ‘discourse coalition’ and Rein and Schön (1993) use the term ‘frame’ to refer to common discursive conceptualizations of a subject by actors.

3. In February 2009 Elisa Schenner conducted more than 20 semi-structured elite interviews in Brussels with decision-makers in the European Parliament, the Council and European Commission (Cabinet Piebalgs, DG Industry and Enterprise; DG Environment, DG Energy and Transport), with representatives of interest groups (EdF, Iberdrola, Eurelectric, Council of European Energy Regulators, Bundesverband Erneuerbare Energie Deutschland; Verband der Elektrizitätsunternehmen Österreichs, European Renewable Energies Federation) and NGOs (Greenpeace, World Future Council). All interviews were fully transcribed.

4. Sub-unit within DG Energy then closely aligned on DG Competition.

5. In the UK, the renewable energy market (tiny in those days) was dominated by the big electricity companies (generators and distributors). The Danish windpower industry was the global leader and accepted the dominance of the big power companies as a fact of life (Hirschl 2007).

6. An exception is Hvelplund (2001).

7. A rapporteur is in charge of a legislative dossier and seeks consensus for a report and proposal.

8. This would have meant that national participation in TGC depended on individual member states expressly joining such a mechanism (this was viewed as resistant to a Court challenge).

9. In retrospect, it appears that even the Swedish TGC scheme – sometimes viewed more positively than the others – is characterised by rents amounting to almost 80% of all payments to generators (most of it windfall profits). Also, it is specifically not designed to foster innovation (Bergek and Jacobsson 2010, pp. 1266–1267).