Supranational authorities and private actors as drivers of single market integration? The state of the Union in electricity and banking

ABSTRACT

The creation of a European Banking Union and a European Energy Union have been two high-profile integration projects in a decade characterised by multiple crises. While recent research has focused on the direct effects of crisis on European integration dynamics, less attention has been paid to policy outcomes of market integration in sectors such as banking and energy. To address this gap, the study examines how distinct paths of integration, and the types of institutional change they involve, translate into patterns of sectoral governance. Further, it analyses the consequences of diverging patterns of sectoral governance for policy outcomes, examining whether the existence of supranational coordination bodies and public–private interaction is conducive to market integration. The findings from the analysis of the banking and electricity sectors suggest that while we see resilience and renewed integration in institutional terms, the change affecting policy outcomes appears to be more limited.

KEYWORDS:

• Financial markets
• electricity market integration
• European integration
• historical institutionalism
• private governance
• regulation

Acknowledgments

The article was researched and written while holding a COFUND-AIAS fellowship (European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 754513 and Aarhus University Research Foundation, October 2019-October 2022) awarded by the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS). The analysis draws on material gathered and research interviews conducted in the course of the research project “The State of the Union: The Politics of Integration in Banking and Energy” funded by the LOEWE Center on Sustainable Financial Architecture for Europe (Project SAFE funding agreement #21136).

I thank the two anonymous reviewers for their extremely helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. Further, I would like to express my gratitude for the helpful comments and guidance provided by the editors of the Special Issue. My thanks also go to the participants of several VISTA workshops for their suggestions. Moreover, I am indebted to Lucia Quaglia for providing extensive comments and feedback during a workshop organised at the Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE (Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe) where the author is an external researcher (funding no. 153101). Finally, I thank Kamila Duraj and Henry Hempel for their invaluable research assistance, and Amber Davis for providing excellent proof reading services.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by LOEWE Center on Sustainable Financial Architecture for Europe (SAFE) [#21136]; European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme Marie Sklodowska-Curie [754513]; ERASMUS+ Jean Monnet Network VISTA [2019 - 1609 / 001 – 001]; Aarhus University Research Foundation;