A liberal actor in a realist world? The Commission and the external dimension of the single market for energy

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the European Commission's external energy policy through the lens of the regulatory state. It argues that because of the nature of its institutions, policy tools and resources, the Commission remains a liberal actor even as the world leaves the benign pro-market environment of the 1990s and becomes more mercantilist – or ‘realist’. The article tests seven hypotheses related to two key challenges as perceived by the Commission: building energy markets, and making them work. It finds that the Commission seeks to project the single market beyond its jurisdiction to deal with transit infrastructure problems; extend international regimes to cover energy trade; deal with monopolists such as Gazprom through classical competition policy; and fix global energy market failures with clear regulatory state tools. Importantly, however, some actions by the Commission can be seen as an attempt to counterbalance external actors, or as second-best efforts to address energy market failures.

KEY WORDS:

• The Commission
• energy policy
• external relations
• regulatory state

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the EU FP7 large-scale integrated research project GR:EEN Global Re-ordering: Evolution through European Networks, European Commission Project Number 266809. We also thank the three referees for their helpful comments.

Notes

1 The reporting in Agence Europe was checked against a full data set of more than 800 energy-related acts, including a large number of technical decisions, reported by the Commission in the same timeframe.

2 Between 2000 and 2013 the Commission investigated a number of possible abuses of dominant position by Mircosoft on the EU market for computer operating systems, including the company's linking of Media Player and Internet Explorer to its operating system. Microsoft received fines of several hundred million Euro, and was required to alter the Windows software sold in the EU. The list of investigations and cases is available on http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/case_details.cfm?proc_code=1_37792, accessed 25/02/2014).

Additional information

Biographical notes

Andreas Goldthau is Marie Curie Senior Fellow and Visiting Scholar, Geopolitics of Energy Project, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Nick Sitter is Professor in the Department of Public Policy, Central European University, and the Department of Accounting, Auditing and Law, BI Norwegian Business School.