Private authority in tackling cross-border issues. The hidden path of integrating European energy markets

ABSTRACT

We investigate private authority in European Union (EU) energy governance in order to address two research questions: First, how has authority been conferred on, and acquired by private actors? Second, to what extent has this lateral shift of authority been contested and on which grounds? The paper links the literatures on regulatory governance and private authority. This allows us to shed light on an issue that tends to be neglected in the discussion about the transfer of competencies in the energy field: the horizontal transfer of authority. In our case study about the role of transmission system operators (TSOs) in the creation of an internal electricity market, we identify three distinct settings where both the level of sovereignty-based contestation and the shift towards private authority vary. We find that private rulemaking has gained in importance due to functional expertise requirements, but also because it provides an escape route in a context of political contestation.

KEYWORDS:

• Energy policy
• electricity
• infrastructure
• governance
• private authority

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the academic association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES) for the funding of the Collaborative Research Network on European Energy Policy (2015–2018), which was the breeding ground for this special issue. We are also grateful for Universiteitsfonds Limburg (SWOL) for co-funding the authors’ workshop in Maastricht, in April 2018. Research for this article was supported by the European Union’s Sixth Framework Programme (FP6-CITIZENS, New Modes of Governance NEWGOV, grant agreement ID 506392, Project 5 “New Modes of Governance in the Shadow of Hierarchy”) and by the LOEWE Center on Sustainable Financial Architecture for Europe (Project “The State of the Union: The Politics of Integration in Banking and Energy”, SAFE funding agreement #21136). Moreover, the article was researched and written during a sabbatical fellowship awarded by the Johanna Quandt Young Academy (JQYA) to Sandra Eckert in the period from October 2018 to February 2019. The article was finalised when Sandra Eckert held a COFUND-AIAS fellowship (European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 754513 and Aarhus University Research Foundation) awarded by the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS) as of October 2019. We also thank several colleagues who provided detailed comments on our paper, with special thanks to Francesca Batzella, Katja Biedenkopf, Helene Dyrhauge and Rosa Fernández, as well as all the colleagues of the UACES CRN on European Energy Policy. Moreover, we are indebted to the editors of this special issue, an anonymous reviewer and the JEI editors for their helpful comments and guidance. Finally, we thank Amber Davis for providing excellent proofreading services.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Aarhus Universitets Forskningsfond;European Union FP6-CITIZENS, New Modes of Governance NEWGOV [ID 506392];LOEWE Center on Sustainable Financial Architecture for Europe [#21136];Johanna Quandt Young Academy;European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme Marie Sklodowska-Curie [754513].