Contested energy transition? Europeanization and authority turns in EU renewable energy policy

ABSTRACT

In a context of multiple crises, the European Union’s climate and energy policies have become highly politicized and contested. Based on a comparative study of renewable energy policies in ten EU member states, and adopting a circular view of policy change and Europeanization to account for overlapping sovereignty claims between the national and the European level, this article unravels the authority debates over successive rounds of negotiation, adoption, and implementation along three EU directives. Following an exploratory process-tracing method, we investigate how policymaking authority originally delegated to the EU becomes contested by the member states and how these authority conflicts are managed. We find that the Europeanization of renewable energy policy is accompanied by an issue-specific renegotiation of authority between the EU and its member states which, in times of crises, can trigger instances of de-Europeanization and even a partial weakening of European integration in this policy domain.

KEYWORDS:

• Energy transition
• renewable energy policy
• contested authority
• policy feedback
• Europeanization
• EU energy and climate policy

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Jenny Fairbrass, Anna Herranz-Surrallés, Pierre Bocquillon, Maya Jegen and Aviel Verbruggen as well as the panel participants at the UACES Annual Conferences 2018 and 2019 in Bath and Lisbon and at the 4^th International Conference on Public Policy 2019 in Montreal for valuable comments and suggestions. An anonymous reviewer is also thanked for critically revising the manuscript and suggesting substantial improvements.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Since the 2009 RED directive the EU renewable energy policy covers three sectors (electricity, transport and heating and cooling). This article focuses exclusively on the electricity sector.

2. This information is available at the Commission webpage: https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/energy-strategy-and-energy-union/governance-energy-union/national-energy-climate-plans.