Defusing contested authority: EU energy efficiency policymaking

ABSTRACT

EU energy efficiency policymaking has faced repeated contestation. Such contestation has been both sovereignty-based, when member states contest the EU’s authority to make policy on energy efficiency (subsidiarity claims), and substance-based, when concerns are raised about the choice or ambition of a policy measure. Yet, energy efficiency has become one of the five dimensions of the Energy Union. It is thus an example of EU policymaking advancing even under contestation. I investigate three main strategies to manage these contestations: (1) framing and reframing energy efficiency to enhance and consolidate authority at EU-level and to mitigate contestations over this authority; (2) developing the legal framework; and (3) applying flexibility in policy measures and employing mixed soft and hard governance tools. These strategies are employed, and interact, over both a ‘long game’ and a ‘short game’.

KEYWORDS:

• Subsidiarity
• Contestation
• Framing
• Energy Union
• Energy Efficiency

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the journal issue editors and the anonymous reviewer for very helpful and insightful feedback.

Interviews

Interview 1: NGO representative    10 January 2012

Interview 2: DG Energy Official     20 March 2013

Interview 3: DG Climate Action Official 10 March 2016

Interview 4: NGO representative    19 April 2018

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The Czech Senate, the Italian Senate, the Portuguese Parliament, the Austrian Bundesrat, the German Bundesrat, the Irish House of the Oireachtas, the Italian Chamber, the Luxemburgish Chamber and the Romanian Chamber.

2. European Commission recommendations on the draft NECPs, available at: https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/energy-strategy-and-energy-union/governance-energy-union/national-energy-climate-plans, last accessed: 13 November 2019.

3. Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.