EU climate and energy governance in times of crisis: towards a new agenda

ABSTRACT

The EU has long pursued relatively ambitious climate and energy policies, often against the backdrop of what has been termed the EU ‘polycrisis’. This paper introduces a special issue which seeks to develop a better understanding of why, how and with which consequences the polycrisis and EU climate and energy governance have influenced each other. It draws on a novel framework of five broad crisis trends underlying the polycrisis. Most of the contributions suggest that EU climate and energy governance have advanced significantly despite, and sometimes even because of, the crisis trends. The countervailing effects of the trends and the effectiveness of actors’ strategies to advance EU policy against opponents go a long way to explaining this puzzling finding. As the EU seeks to fully decarbonise itself by 2050, interactions with the crisis trends are likely to intensify in ways which future research could fruitfully investigate.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate policy
• crisis
• energy policy
• European integration
• populism

Introduction

The EU has long pursued a relatively ambitious approach to climate governance.¹ Especially since the early 2000s, the ambition of EU measures has gradually increased, the mix of policies has broadened, and climate policy integration into cognate policy areas has advanced. This pattern of continuing growth culminated in the high profile European Green Deal (EGD) launched by the European Commission in late 2019.

However, the growth has occurred against a backdrop of enduring political turbulence within the EU which has often been associated with a ‘polycrisis’ (Zeitlin et al., 2019) or ‘crisis conglomerate’ (Falkner, 2016): a string of EU crises frequently considered to comprise the post-2008 financial and economic crisis, the 2014 Ukraine crisis, the refugee/migration crisis (2015) and Brexit (2016-) (Dinan et al., 2017). The COVID-19 pandemic could probably be added to this.

The existing literature has explored some aspects of the interplay between EU climate/energy governance and the polycrisis, arriving at sharply differing conclusions. Some have found that climate governance forms part of a potentially ‘positive agenda’ that can help to respond to the negative impacts of the polycrisis on the EU. For example, the Commission and others used the gas supply crisis in 2006/2009 to promote EU climate and energy policies (Jordan et al., 2010). Against the backdrop of continuing strong popular support for EU climate policy (Schulmeister, 2019), this may have enhanced the EU’s (output) legitimacy. Similarly, in 2019 the Commission presented the EGD as a new growth strategy for the EU and, subsequently, also as an instrument to weather the COVID-19 crisis (Dupont et al., 2020). Indeed, Nicolaïdis (2019) has proposed that addressing long-term challenges, such as mitigating climate change, could be a central plank of a new ‘constitutional settlement’ for the EU. Others, however, have claimed that the post-2008 financial and economic crisis constrained the development of both EU climate and environmental policy, at times leading to policy stagnation and even outright dismantling (Burns et al., 2020; Gravey & Jordan, 2020; Slominski, 2016). Furthermore, it has been argued that the rise of right-wing populism has complicated efforts to advance ambitious EU climate policies and rendered public support more fragile (Counterpoint, 2021; Fraune & Knodt, 2018; Lockwood, 2018; Schaller & Carius, 2019).

Although the literature has shed some light on the interaction between EU climate governance and individual elements of the polycrisis (such as the post-2008 financial and economic crisis), more comprehensive analyses of the interaction have remained in short supply. This special issue aims to address this gap and enable a more systematic investigation of the interaction. This introductory paper has three main objectives. First, we foreground the rest of the papers in the special issue by briefly documenting the evolution of EU climate governance since 2000. Second, we present a broad framework for exploring the ways in which EU integration dynamics underpinning the polycrisis have affected EU climate governance and vice versa. Third, we identify and discuss key findings emerging from the contributions in the light of our framework.

Central to our framework are five ‘crisis trends’ which we derive from the existing literature. These trends have arguably contributed significantly to the heightened precariousness of the EU. They are related to: (1) growing socio-political divisions; (2) the rise of post-factual forms of political communication; (3) growing legitimacy challenges; (4) increasing constraints on the effectiveness of governance; and (5) wider geopolitical shifts. By analytically disaggregating the polycrisis into underlying crisis trends and their EU manifestations, we aim to provide a more systematic exploration of actual and potential interactions between the wider dynamics of contemporary European integration and EU climate governance – a ‘remote’ policy field which unlike e.g., monetary and migration policy, has not been directly implicated in any of the ‘acute’ crises associated with the polycrisis.

The remainder of this article proceeds in four steps. The next section summarises the evolution of EU climate/energy governance and identifies the most salient staging posts and component parts. Subsequently, we introduce the five crisis trends. For each one, we discuss its general background, its salience for EU integration and its specific relevance to EU climate governance. This is followed by an overview of our common framework and an introduction to the individual papers in this special issue. The remaining sections present the main findings derived from the papers and identify new research challenges.

The evolution of EU climate governance

With roots reaching back to at least the early 1990s, the development of EU climate and energy governance has been especially dynamic in the twenty-first century. Several milestones stand out. In 2002/2003 the adoption of (1) differentiated greenhouse gas (GHG) emission targets across the then 15 member states and (2) a Directive establishing the emissions trading scheme (ETS) created a firm foundation for EU climate governance. In 2007–09 the Climate and Energy Package for 2020 was elaborated, which included a significant revision of the ETS and an agreement on the distribution of GHG emission reductions in the so-called non-ETS sectors at member state level. Finalised in 2019, the Climate and Energy Policy Framework for 2030 entailed revisions of the main existing climate and energy legislation, including electricity market rules, and two new Regulations on the Governance of the Energy Union and Climate Action (‘Governance Regulation’) and on land use, land use change and forestry. In 2019, the Commission launched a far-reaching overhaul of EU climate governance in the context of the EGD (for further details, see Delbeke & Vis, 2019; Jordan et al., 2010; Jordan & Moore, 2020; Kulovesi & Oberthür, 2020; Oberthür & Pallemaerts, 2010; Skjærseth et al., 2016).

Throughout this evolutionary process, EU climate targets have been gradually strengthened, especially for GHG emission reductions (Table 1). Under the EGD, the EU has committed to achieve a 55 per cent emission reduction by 2030 and full climate neutrality by 2050. Since the 2020 Package, the EU has also set itself targets for increasing the share of renewable energy and improving energy efficiency. These targets were upgraded from 20 per cent each for 2020 to 32 (renewables – binding) and 32.5 (energy efficiency – indicative) per cent, respectively, for 2030. A Commission proposal for a further strengthening of these energy targets for 2030 is expected around mid-2021.

Table 1. EU GHG emission reduction targets.

Year adopted (related UN climate development)	GHG emission reduction target (base year 1990)	Status
1990 (1992 UNFCCC)	Stabilisation by 2000 (CO2 only)	achieved
1997/98 (1997 Kyoto Protocol)	8% by 2008–2012	achieved
2007 (2009 Copenhagen COP 15)	20% by 2020	24% in 2019
2009 (2009 Copenhagen COP 15)	80–95% by 2050	add. measures required
2014 (2015 Paris Agreement)	40% by 2030	add. measures required
2019 (2021 Glasgow COP 26)	climate neutrality by 2050	add. measures required
2020 (2021 Glasgow COP 26)	55% by 2030	add. measures required

Source: Oberthür and Dupont (2021).

The EU has also developed an increasingly dense arsenal of policies covering nearly all relevant policy sub-sectors, such as buildings, transport, industry, power production, forests, renewables and energy efficiency. Beyond these, EU climate legislation addresses CO₂ emissions from motor vehicles, the energy efficiency of certain products (such as white goods), the energy performance of buildings, and emissions of fluorinated GHGs, among others. Today, the policy instrument mix includes market (ETS and various funds supporting climate-friendly innovation and investments), regulatory (e.g., CO₂ standards for cars, energy efficiency standards for products) and procedural elements (planning, reporting and review). Measures mainly focus on climate mitigation; climate adaptation policies remain less developed at EU level.

Meanwhile, EU climate governance has significantly evolved towards ‘climate policy integration’ (i.e., the integration of climate policy objectives into sectoral policies). As evident from the now established framing as climate and energy policy, policy integration is already implied in some of the policy developments mentioned above. In the 2010s, the EU extended climate policy integration towards additional areas such as finance and investment (via a sustainable finance taxonomy), the EU budget (Rietig, 2021), and external energy policy (Siddi & Kustova, 2021). In calling for all EU policies to support complete decarbonisation by 2050, the EGD seeks to accelerate and further expand this process. With a new ‘Just Transition Mechanism’ it also aims to make deep decarbonisation socially equitable.

The overall system of climate and energy governance has also seen significant changes. The 2018 Governance Regulation strengthened procedural governance by (among other things) requiring member states to elaborate and regularly update National Energy and Climate Plans. The relevant EU-level agency – the European Environment Agency – has made important contributions by undertaking a rich set of scientific, technological and policy assessments. One important element of the EGD – the proposed Climate Law to enshrine the climate neutrality target in legislation – is expected to create more opportunities for public participation in climate policymaking and determine procedures for the future elaboration of the EU’s emission trajectory.

Finally, the EU plays an important role in international climate policy. Ever since the negotiation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the early 1990s, it has tried to exert international leadership on climate change. While advances in internal climate governance have enhanced the EU’s external ‘leadership by example’, its diplomatic approach has gradually evolved towards a mediating form of leadership (Oberthür & Dupont, 2021). At the same time, international climate governance has been an important driving force for internal EU policy development. For example, key decisions on the ambition of EU climate policy have regularly been taken in the context of major UNFCCC meetings, such as the UN climate summits held in Copenhagen in 2009 and Paris in 2015 (see Table 1). Overall, internal and external climate policy have been closely inter-connected.

Finally, despite the polycrisis, the EU has so far achieved its climate and energy targets, often well ahead of schedule. By 2019, EU GHG emissions (without the UK) had declined by about 24 per cent and renewable energy accounted for more than 19 per cent of final energy consumption. However, renewable energy consumption was not yet in line with the 2020 target. Partly owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, all three headline targets for 2020 are expected to be (over-)achieved. However, both EU-level and member state policies will need to be drastically upgraded to achieve the raised 2030 target of 55 per cent, increased renewables and energy efficiency objectives (to be proposed in 2021) and, eventually, climate neutrality by 2050 (EEA, 2020).

Five crisis trends

Growing socio-political divisions

An identity cleavage that started to cut across the long dominant left-right political cleavage has arguably accentuated socio-political divisions. Its rise can be traced back to several factors, including: the partial transfer of core state powers to the EU and ongoing globalisation (e.g., Genschel & Jachtenfuchs, 2018; Hooghe & Marks, 2018); generational value change and a backlash against cosmopolitan and liberal values (Norris & Inglehart, 2018); socio-economic transformations, particularly the shift towards a knowledge economy; and rising economic inequality, feeding fears of a loss of social status amongst the most heavily affected groups (Gidron & Hall, 2020). While the exact nature of the identity cleavage has varied across different political, cultural and socio-economic contexts, growing regional disparities have arguably reinforced it (Rodríguez-Pose, 2018). The cleavage has resulted in representation gaps which have been exploited by new, often nationalist and populist ‘challenger’ parties, further fragmenting existing party systems (e.g., De Vries & Hobolt, 2020; Hall, 2020).

In the EU, this identity cleavage has been linked to two main socio-political divisions. First, following some early electoral gains in the 1990s, Eurosceptic, nationalist and populist parties/factions considerably increased their political influence after 2000. Growing nationalism has resulted in a ‘constraining dissensus’ on further EU integration (Marks & Hooghe, 2009), contributed to Brexit, and undermined some EU policies such as migration. Second, the identity cleavage has reinforced existing regional divisions across Europe. Whereas North–South divisions were pronounced during the post 2008 Eurocrisis, East–West divisions featured prominently in the 2015 migration crisis. These criss-crossing divisions have arguably shaped EU cooperation both generally and in particular policy fields such as the environment (Börzel, 2002; Jahn, 2021).

The existing literature suggests that the rise of Eurosceptic, nationalist and populist parties/factions and regional divisions has affected climate policy. For example, East–West divisions featured prominently in several political conflicts over EU climate policy after 2000 (e.g., Bocquillon & Maltby, 2017). Furthermore, nationalist and right-wing populist parties have also tended to be climate-sceptic (e.g., Lockwood, 2018; Schaller & Carius, 2019), even though (our understanding of) the way in which the identity cleavage intersects with climate governance is still evolving (Huber et al., 2021; Jahn, 2021; Weko, 2021).

Rising ‘post-factual’ forms of political communication

Post-factual political communication refers to the politically motivated dissemination of ‘information’ which denies or ignores well-established facts and available evidence. The growing politicisation of expertise has arguably undermined trust in increasingly expert-based policymaking. Less resourceful groups have been disadvantaged in the ‘politics of expertise’ and, as a result, have sometimes become especially receptive to the discarding of facts altogether. The rise of certain channels, such as cable TV and social media, has contributed to increasing post-factual forms of political communication by privileging immediate and emotionally appealing talking points, images and ‘fake news’. It has provided fertile opportunities for actors to spread conspiracy theories, myths and emotion-based disinformation (Bennett & Livingston, 2018; Davies, 2018).

Rising post-factual political communication has undeniably affected the EU. Policymaking at EU-level is particularly vulnerable to post-factual communication because it strongly relies on expert-input to design and justify policies (Schout & Schwieters, 2018). Disinformation and/or nostalgic conceptions of national sovereignty were, for example, successfully disseminated in the Brexit referendum and subsequent exit negotiations. Similarly, conspiracy theories were spread via social media prior to the European Parliament elections in 2019 (Browning, 2019; European Commission, 2019).

Climate and environmental policy are often considered to be especially vulnerable to post-factual political communication because they strongly rely on science and expertise. Accordingly, the scientific consensus on climate change as well as related expertise (e.g., on the impacts of climate change and the costs of inaction/action) have been a prominent target of post-factual political communication within and beyond the EU (Fraune & Knodt, 2018; Lamb et al., 2020).

Growing legitimacy challenges

An increasing reliance on out-/throughput legitimacy at the expense of input legitimacy has arguably left many liberal democratic institutions acutely vulnerable to challenges. ‘Technical’ tasks have been placed under the authority of independent and international bodies (such as central banks and regulatory agencies), thereby weakening input legitimacy (Steffek, 2014). This depoliticisation has created opportunities for re-politicisation outside established channels. It has made established parties and institutions vulnerable to the charge (often made by ‘challenger’ political parties and insurgent factions) that they are engaging in elitist forms of decision-making (Mair, 2009). The fallout from the post-2008 financial crisis further undermined out-/throughput legitimacy. The bending of rules during the crisis (Tooze, 2018) and various unrelated scandals involving liberal democratic institutions (Davies, 2018) lent further support to insurgent forces. Consequently, new challenger parties have grown significantly since the financial crisis, sometimes even outperforming established parties.

Similar challenges have arguably materialised at EU level. EU decision-making has long relied on out/throughput legitimacy, while lacking in input legitimacy (Follesdal & Hix, 2006; Schmidt & Wood, 2019). Consequently, the EU has been vulnerable to predominantly Eurosceptic challenges portraying it as an elitist institution that benefits privileged interests (variously ‘Germany’, ‘Eurocrats’, ‘Northern’ or ‘Southern’ countries etc.). Other aspects of the polycrisis have aggravated the situation by leading to the deliberate bending of EU rules and a disregard for common decisions, e.g., during the financial and migration crises (Hodson & Puetter, 2019; Schimmelfennig, 2018). Rising rule of law concerns within some member states have further aggravated existing legitimacy challenges (Kelemen, 2020).

By contrast, continuous public support for EU climate policy (e.g., Schulmeister, 2019) suggests that EU climate governance continues to enjoy significant (output) legitimacy. Nevertheless, the existing literature has noted that EU climate governance remains susceptible to legitimacy challenges (Counterpoint, 2021; Hofmann, 2021). Hence, various attempts to strengthen input legitimacy through enhanced stakeholder/public participation and consultation exercises have been made at different levels of governance (e.g., Knodt et al., 2020, p. 10; Fraune & Knodt, 2018, p. 4).

Increasing constraints on governance capacity

The wider literature is replete with examples of how globalisation and technological advances have reduced the effectiveness of governance. Complex international value chains and the growing mobility of capital, facilitated by active liberalisation, have resulted in greater international competition for inward investment and employment. As a result, individual governments’ capacity to pass effective regulation and autonomously determine taxes has arguably been more heavily constrained (Hale et al., 2013; Scharpf, 1997; see, however, Iversen & Soskice, 2019).

International cooperation has only partly made up for the loss of governance capacity at national level. While international institutions and agreements have proliferated, international decision-making has faced high hurdles. Given widely diverging and volatile interests, the dominant requirement for consensus has tended to push international decisions towards the lowest common denominator. Additionally, further growth of international governance (e.g., WTO dispute settlement procedures and investment protection tribunals) has frequently undermined remaining national competences, thereby further reducing national autonomy and creating significant potential for backlash, e.g., by civil society organisations, nationalist parties and powerful states. In addition, the proliferation of international institutions has provoked concerns about fragmentation, competition and coordination (Hale et al., 2013; Rodrik, 2013).

The EU’s role vis-à-vis this crisis trend has been somewhat ambivalent. On the one hand, the EU itself can be understood as an attempt to increase governance capacity by transferring authority to the European level (Jacoby & Meunier, 2010). In contrast to most international bodies, many EU decisions are adopted by a (qualified) majority. On the other hand, interest divergence among 27 member states is considerable and sufficiently broad (and sometimes even unanimous) majorities are required for decisions which touch upon core state powers (e.g., foreign and security policy, taxation). At the same time, the transfer of competences to the EU level has faced increasing dangers of backlash at national level, while international institutions have constrained EU-level autonomy (Genschel & Jachtenfuchs, 2018; Scharpf, 2017).

The existing literature has to some extent explored how this ambivalence has played out in relation to EU climate and energy governance. Perhaps most importantly, while EU climate policy has experienced steady growth, progress in some key areas, such as taxation and finance/budget, has been hindered by unanimity requirements and interest heterogeneity (Rietig, 2021; Weishaar, 2018). These constraints may become much more salient as the EU attempts to implement the more demanding objective of complete decarbonisation by 2050.

Wider geopolitical shifts

Finally, while an internationally dominant US initially guaranteed the liberal international order after the Cold War, global politics has since become more multipolar, with a pronounced re-emergence of great power competition and rising system competition between China and the US. China, Russia and India, among others, have emerged as great powers with significant and growing resources. In these circumstances, both established and emerging great powers have increasingly sought to achieve relative as opposed to absolute gains, adopting more aggressive stances vis-à-vis their main competitors. As a further result, new alliances have formed, such as China’s Belt and Road initiative and the loose BRICS grouping, while international institutions and multilateralism have come under greater strain (e.g., Hale et al., 2013; Kupchan, 2012; Mearsheimer, 2019).

These geopolitical shifts have profoundly affected the EU. On the one hand, the relative weight of the EU as an international player has decreased, making it harder for the EU to realise international objectives and thereby demonstrate ‘added value’ to its citizens. On the other hand, shifting geopolitics have also allowed member states to pursue their international objectives more effectively via the EU, thereby strengthening the case for more coordinated EU action (Biscop, 2018; Creutz et al., 2019; Howorth, 2016).

Regarding the implications of these shifts for EU climate governance, the existing literature suggests that the EU’s influence in international climate politics has declined, in part because of the EU’s shrinking share of global emissions. By contrast, shifts in climate geopolitics have further strengthened the rationale for joint EU action. Not least, a turn towards more strategic external action on climate and energy and a more effective deployment of the EU’s soft-power resources can be traced to these geopolitical shifts (Oberthür & Dupont, 2021; Siddi & Kustova, 2021; see also Petri & Biedenkopf, 2021).

Overview of the special issue

These five crisis trends constitute a broad reference framework for the rest of the papers in this special issue. As discussed above, the existing literature has predominantly investigated selected aspects of the interaction between the polycrisis, and EU climate and energy governance. Our framework, which is synthesised in Table 2, draws together the principal underlying drivers of the polycrisis and their manifestations. Our broad aim is to advance towards a more systematic and comprehensive investigation than is apparent in the existing literature.

Table 2. The five crisis trends: an overview.

Trend	Principal drivers	Main manifestations (EU level)
Socio-political Divisions	Political and socio-economic change: threats to identity & social status	Nationalist/populist parties Regional divisions
Post-factual Communication	Loss of trust in expertise Change of media landscape	Mythical views (e.g., of the nation, sovereignty) Conspiracy theories
Legitimacy Challenges	Reliance on out-/throughput at expense of input legitimacy Increasing disregard of rules	Vulnerability to output failure Vulnerability to accountability challenges
Governance Constraints	Globalisation/interdependence erodes effectiveness of national governance International cooperation cannot compensate and risks backlash	Provide rationale for governance shift to EU EU governance can also not fully compensate and risks backlash
Geopolitical Shifts	Multipolarity with rising bipolar system competition: relative gains	Declining EU weight EU under attack, but also rationale for EU-level governance

Source: authors.

The authors of the seven papers in this special issue develop specific analytical strategies to examine particular interactions implied in Table 2. More specifically, each paper analyses particular aspects of contemporary EU climate and energy governance and relates them to a (sub)set of the crisis trends. The papers span different governance levels (member states, EU institutions, the EU in international politics) and various elements of the trends. Contributions were selected following an open call for papers and discussed at an international workshop held in Rome in Autumn 2019.

The contributions by Detlef Jahn (2021) and Robert Huber, Tomas Maltby, Kacper Szulecki and Stefan Ćetković (2021) operate fully or partly at the national level and investigate the interaction between growing socio-political divisions, more specifically the rise of populist parties in the EU, and (EU) climate policy. Jahn analyses data on the participation of populist parties in government across the EU-28, relating them to historical changes in GHG emissions. Huber et al. investigate policy discourses, positions and actions of populist parties in six member states in relation to (EU) climate policy.

By contrast, Katharina Rietig (2021), Aron Buzogány and Stefan Ćetković (2021), and Franziska Petri and Katja Biedenkopf (2021) focus on EU-level climate governance, specifically the role of the European Commission and the European Parliament (EP). Rietig analyses the role of policy entrepreneurs within the European Commission, and of learning and policy feedback in efforts to mainstream climate change in the EU budget during the polycrisis. Buzogány and Ćetković explore data on voting behaviour in relation to key climate and energy legislation in the 2014–2019 Parliament. Petri and Biedenkopf draw on an original dataset to investigate the degree of continuity and change in plenary debates on foreign climate policy in the EP (2009–2019).

Finally, Marco Siddi and Irina Kustova (2021) and Sebastian Oberthür and Claire Dupont (2021) turn to the external role of the EU covering, respectively, international energy and climate policy. In particular, their contributions investigate the sources and manifestations of a strategic ‘turn’ in the EU’s external policy.

Key findings

Three main findings emerge from the contributions to this special issue. They concern: (1) the effects of the crisis trends on EU climate and energy governance; (2) the nature of the underlying driving forces; and (3) the role of interactions and feedbacks.

Effects: strengthening of EU climate and energy governance

The contributions predominantly focus on the crisis trends of Socio-political Divisions and Geopolitical Shifts, but also address Governance Constraints (see further below). Concerning growing Socio-political Divisions, the contributions suggest that EU climate policy has so far defied the rise of populist parties, while the impact of regional East–West divisions appears to have been limited. The contributions by Huber et al. (2021), Buzogány and Ćetković (2021), Jahn (2021), and Petri and Biedenkopf (2021) all show that right-wing populist parties, which have been increasingly well-represented in national parliaments/governments and in the EP, have regularly opposed more ambitious climate policies. Nevertheless, neither Huber et al. (2021) nor Buzogány and Ćetković (2021) find compelling evidence that rising populism has obstructed EU climate and energy policy. Instead, in their sample of twelve legislative acts, Buzogány and Ćetković observe that the EP has consistently supported more ambitious measures than the Commission and the Council. Similarly, in their analysis of EU foreign climate policy discourse in the EP, Petri and Biedenkopf (2021) identify a remarkably stable and broad consensus supporting relatively ambitious EU climate policy.

Concerning regional divisions, in particular Buzogány and Ćetković (2021) investigate the impact of East–West divisions, but do not find them to be a strong predictor of voting behaviour of EP members. Similarly, Rietig (2021) shows how regional divisions between Northern net-contributors and Eastern/Southern net-recipients ultimately did not prevent an increase in the target for climate mainstreaming from 20 to 30 per cent in the 2021–2027 budget.

Examining concrete policy outcomes (as opposed to the focus on legislative outputs and political discourses of most contributions), Jahn (2021) offers an important counterpoint. His statistical analysis reveals a strong correlation between the participation of right-wing populist parties in national governments and rising GHG emissions, at least in the short term. By contrast, this effect was absent for (less frequent) left-wing populist government participation. As right-wing populists predominantly participated in governments in Central, Eastern and Northern Europe, whereas left-wing populists did so in Southern member states, he reveals that the impact was also regionally differentiated.

Turning to the external domain, Siddi and Kustova (2021) and Oberthür and Dupont (2021) demonstrate that the EU has responded to Geopolitical Shifts by employing a more strategic approach. Siddi and Kustova argue that in the area of EU external energy policy towards Russia this development partly combined with increasing political attention to climate change concerns at the EU level. Oberthür and Dupont analyse how the EU maintained a leading position in international climate policy by developing ‘exemplary leadership’, based on internal climate policies, while cultivating a more varied, flexible and mediating ‘diplomatic leadership’. They identify a potential to develop this role into a fuller ‘grand climate strategy’.

These findings suggest that Socio-political Divisions and Geopolitical Shifts have clearly affected EU climate and energy policy both internally and externally without, however, significantly arresting the broad historical development summarised in Section 2. The contributions in fact suggest that EU climate and energy policy has advanced not only despite, but to some extent even because of the crisis trends (e.g., the emergence of a more supportive coalition in the EP in response to the rise of populist parties).

Driving forces: countervailing effects and responses

The contributions reveal two main reasons why, overall, the crisis trends failed to arrest the development of EU climate governance. First, the trends themselves generated countervailing effects. In the EP, growing Socio-political Divisions not only led to a rise of populist parties opposed to ambitious EU climate policy, but also, as Buzogány and Ćetković (2021) point out, to increasing political fragmentation. As a result, the previously dominant centre-right and centre-left political groups cooperated with the Liberals and Greens who generally supported ambitious EU climate policies. This finding also aligns with the broad and stable support for EU policy which Petri and Biedenkopf (2021) detected within the EP. Furthermore, the growth of radical right-wing populist parties was partly neutralised by the increasing representation of radical left-wing populist parties favouring more ambitious EU climate policy. This effect can also be found at member-state level, as the contributions by Jahn (2021) and Huber et al. (2021) show. Finally, right-wing populist opposition to EU climate legislation proved to be weak, with positions varying according to factors such as specific national climate policy requirements, the level of each country’s dependence on energy imports, and political composition of its national government (Buzogány & Ćetković, 2021; Huber et al., 2021).

Second, EU-level actors actively responded to the crisis trends in ways that facilitated continued policy progress. Rietig’s (2021) account of climate mainstreaming in the EU budget emphasises the role of the Commission as a policy entrepreneur: while member states were unwilling to increase climate spending during the financial and economic crisis, DG Climate Action successfully advanced its mainstreaming efforts by minimising the immediate (as opposed to longer-term) impacts. Subsequently, the Commission relied on policy path-dependence to counter resistance from Eastern and Southern net-recipients and propose a somewhat increased level of ambition which was raised in the ensuing policy process.

The Commission also takes centre stage in Siddi and Kustova’s (2021) analysis of the emergence of a more strategic approach to EU external energy policy. They argue that it sided with Eastern member states who were concerned that construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline would increase Russia’s influence in Europe. Proposing internal market legislation apparently intended to undermine the project, the Commission took a highly political decision to support the pipeline’s opponents against a number of powerful proponents, above all Germany. Finally, Oberthür and Dupont (2021) analyse how member states and the Commission collaborated to adapt the EU’s international climate leadership strategy to: (1) the Union’s diminishing relative power in an increasingly multipolar world; and (2) the rising geopolitical significance of climate change; but also (3) to the proliferation of international fora (related to the crisis trend of Governance Constraints).

Interactions and feedback effects

The existing literature has tended to consider the crisis trends in isolation. However, several contributions point to considerable interaction amongst the trends (in particular, between Socio-political Divisions and Governance Constraints), thus confirming the value of our more comprehensive and systematic approach (see Table 2). Specifically, regional divisions reinforced Governance Constraints in the Council when East/South–North divisions on the EU budget and East–West divisions on external energy policy hampered agreement on increasing the climate mainstreaming target for the budget and on the amendment of the Gas Directive, respectively. By contrast, the governance capacity of the Commission and the EP appeared to have been hardly affected by these regional divisions (Rietig, 2021; Siddi & Kustova, 2021; see also Buzogány & Ćetković, 2021). Similarly, Petri and Biedenkopf’s (2021) analysis suggests that Socio-political Divisions (as manifested in the rise of (radical) right-wing populist parties) and Geopolitical Shifts did not undermine the broad discursive consensus on EU external climate leadership in the EP, and hence also failed to reinforce Governance Constraints in this case.

Siddi and Kustova (2021) illustrate the potential for feedback effects arising from actors’ responses. They suggest that the Commission’s (less so, the Council’s) increasingly strategic external policy approach further strengthened the Geopolitical Shifts that gave rise to it in the first place. First, EU efforts to modify the investor protection clauses of the Energy Charter Treaty to better align them with the evolving EU climate policy objectives arguably endangered the Treaty’s integrity. Second, by potentially restricting Russian gas supplies, the aforementioned amendment of the Gas Directive created tensions with non-discrimination obligations under the World Trade Organization. Both reactions threatened to undermine multilateral norms, thereby reinforcing the corresponding Geopolitical Shift. Furthermore, the authors suggest that, given the politically divisive experience of Nord Stream 2, the EU’s increasingly strategic approach to external relations more generally may reinforce related (East–West) divisions within the EU.

Similar feedback effects may emerge from the pursuit of a ‘grand climate strategy’ advocated by Oberthür and Dupont (2021) to strengthen EU international climate leadership. Already, the Commission’s plans for a carbon border tax/levy, presented in outline in the EGD, appear likely to generate tensions with some of the EU’s international partners, potentially leading to conflict within the World Trade Organization and even retaliatory measures (Dias et al., 2020). However, whether and to what extent an EU grand climate strategy would indeed reinforce existing Geopolitical Shifts would depend on the eventual form it took.

Conclusions: towards a new research agenda

Drawing on a novel framework which decomposes the EU’s polycrisis into five crisis trends, this special issue has generated several novel insights into the interactions between the trends and EU climate and energy governance. First, the trends, in particular Socio-political Divisions, Geopolitical Shifts, and Governance Constraints, have clearly affected but not arrested the development of EU climate and energy governance, be that internally or externally. Second, these results can be attributed to countervailing effects (e.g., a relative strengthening of pro-climate forces in the EP) and targeted responses by actors such as the Commission, which have tended to be overlooked in the existing literature. Third, the trends interacted with variable intensity and results, while policy responses at times generated significant feedback effects on the trends. For instance, Socio-political Divisions increased Governance Constraints in the Council, but not in the Commission and the EP, while the EU response to Geopolitical Shifts reinforced the latter.

The special issue broadly confirmed the analytical value of our framework for exploring the interaction between climate and energy governance and the EU polycrisis/European integration at large. Focusing on longer-term crisis trends enabled us to look beyond the direct policy effects of the polycrisis on EU climate and energy governance, which may be quite limited given the latter’s ‘remoteness’ from the ‘acute’ individual crises (see e.g., Slominski, 2016). Instead, the crisis trends bring the more indirect but deeper links between the polycrisis and climate and energy governance into focus: While the trends both contributed to the acute crises and were further reinforced by them, the papers in this special issue demonstrate that there were also considerable interactions with climate and energy governance. Furthermore, as the trends are highly general and extend far beyond climate and energy, they provide a link to the wider dynamics of contemporary European integration. Finally, by facilitating a more systematic and comprehensive analysis of the interaction of the different trends and feedback effects, our framework has gone beyond the tendency of the existing literature to focus on individual trends or specific aspects thereof.

This special issue could only make a start in exploring the interactions between the crisis trends and EU climate and energy governance; it leaves a rich agenda for future research. We highlight three points. First, there is ample room for a fuller exploration of the complete array of trends. In particular, the contributions only considered Post-factual Communication and Legitimacy Challenges in passing (e.g., Huber et al., 2021; Jahn, 2021). Equally, many aspects of the three other trends remain to be explored, as do interaction and feedback effects. As the EU’s commitment to fully decarbonise by 2050 implies an historical economic and social transformation, the crisis trends will likely become more politically salient (and possibly more constraining) and research on their interaction with EU climate and energy policy even more exigent. A fuller consideration of the crisis trends may also facilitate the exploration of the links to the wider dynamics of European integration (as reflected in, e.g., the debate about ‘the future of Europe’).

Second, many aspects of EU climate and energy governance remain to be explored, ranging from specific policies, such as the ETS, to different governance approaches, and policies dealing with adaptation to the impacts of climate change. In addition, the growing political appetite for greater climate policy integration could link many more EU policies to climate and energy governance, including agriculture, transport, the budget, economic governance and environmental policy more broadly. Exploration of these additional aspects promises to complement, nuance and further develop the findings of this special issue.

Finally, most of the contributions focused on policy positions and legislative outputs rather than policy implementation, outcomes (emissions) and impacts (atmospheric concentrations). Jahn’s (2021) analysis is a valuable exception presenting evidence for interactions between the crisis trends and actual GHG emissions. While this effect may have resulted from various factors, including changing expectations of economic actors, it points to a general need to further explicate the causal mechanisms linking the trends to implementation and broad-based behavioural change. Overall, additional research on the interaction of the crisis trends with the later stages of the policy process would be highly welcome, since what ultimately matters in climate policy are policy outcomes and impacts.

Acknowledgements

This article and special issue were prepared in the context of the Jean Monnet Network Governing the EU’s climate and energy transition in turbulent times (GOVTRAN: www.govtran.eu), with the support of the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. We would like to thank the other special issue contributors for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article, and the journal editors for their patient guidance and support. Ingmar von Homeyer and Sebastian Oberthür gratefully acknowledge support by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel’s strategic research programme ‘Evaluating Democratic Governance in Europe’. Andrew Jordan gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the ESRC CAST centre and the ERC project DeepDCarb.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Commission.

Notes on contributors

Ingmar von Homeyer

Ingmar von Homeyer, PhD, is senior researcher at the Brussels School of Governance, Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

Sebastian Oberthür

Sebastian Oberthür is professor of environment and sustainable development at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and professor of environmental policy and law at the University of Eastern Finland.

Andrew J. Jordan

Andrew Jordan is professor of environmental policy in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia.

Notes

1 Throughout this article, we use the term (climate/climate and energy) ‘governance’ to denote the sum of all relevant policies and related policymaking.