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Clean energy transition
of the EU
Green power means in the international system
MA Thesis in European Studies
European Policy Studies
Graduate School of Humanities
University of Amsterdam
Author: BA Tomas Hos
Main supervisor: Prof. dr. Jamal Shahin
Second supervisor: Mr. dr. Anne van Wageningen
February 2014
I would like to thank my supervisor Prof. dr. Jamal Shahin for his willingness to provide me with
his valuable guidance, critical input and support throughout writing this thesis.
I would also like to thank Evert van Dijk, Jos Schoutsen, Corina Negru and my family for their
constant support during my whole studies.
Table of contents
Introduction .........................................................................................................................................................................1
1. Neorealist theory ...........................................................................................................................................................4
2. EU’s external governance...........................................................................................................................................8
2.1. CPE, NPE and Neorealist critique ...................................................................................................................8
2.2. External energy governance.......................................................................................................................... 13
3: Clean energy development..................................................................................................................................... 21
3.1. Sustainability and climate change .............................................................................................................. 21
3.2. Energy security ................................................................................................................................................... 29
3.3. Competitiveness, growth and employment ............................................................................................ 31
3.4. Internal legitimacy ............................................................................................................................................ 34
3.5. Coherence ............................................................................................................................................................. 35
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................................................... 39
Introduction
The energy sector in Europe is undergoing a great transformation. Although its form and pace
may differ per Member State, it cannot go unnoticed by the average European citizen.
Conventional ways of energy generation based on fossil fuels are abandoned as the European
Union moves towards a cleaner, more efficient and more sustainable energy sector. Examples of
this change are demonstrated by the construction of large off-shore wind parks by Denmark and
Netherlands, solar-panel installation in the Mediterranean countries and ocean-wave energy
experimentation in Scotland and some regions of the Sahara have been projected to supply the
EU with clean energy from a network of photovoltaic fields. The Netherlands and the UK develop
Carbon Capture and Storage, a new generation of highly efficient coal power plants with minimal
climate pollution. Most post-2004 EU Member States gradually marginalise their old coal-based
energy sector and replace it with low-carbon sources. Some of them prefer nuclear power,
whereas Germany has adopted a contrary strategy, opting to phase-out its nuclear energy sector
and substitute it with gas, coal and renewables. New international high-voltage transmission
lines have been built throughout the continent, both above and below ground, and in some cases
through the laying of submarine cable. Through the entire Union, biofuels are used as a
CO2-neutral fuel and unconventional shale gas has become an actively discussed topic. Because
of this new outlook, individual Europeans have been made aware of their own obligation
vis-à-vis clean energy and conservation, resulting in, for example, improvements in home
insulation and the adoption of low-energy bulbs. Hybrid and electric cars are generously
subsidised and electricity rechargers are becoming more commonplace at petrol stations. Even
though it may not be apparent at first sight, all of these developments are closely related to the
EU’s policy-making. Referring to the unsustainability of conventional energy generation and
economic growth, it is the EU which moves Europe towards more sustainability, efficiency,
wealth, social cohesion and security. To this end the Commission enacts legislation intended to
spur the Member States towards promoting and promulgating the transition process.
Probably the largest and most ambitious legislative bundle on energy produced by the EU
institutions thus far has been the Climate and Energy Package of 2009. The EU integrates climate
change mitigation into its energy policies resulting in stringent CO2 targets and deployment of a
new energy infrastructure. The strictness of the legislation is usually explained by the alarming
state of global climate, but also as a consequence of the EU’s international commitments. The EU
claims to lead the world by example towards more a sustainable future, demonstrating which
domestic changes must take place and how they should be carried out. The beginning of this
universal commitment was the Kyoto Conference in 1997, and recently, in 2009 the EU
reasserted its global commitment at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. To translate
the strong words to reality, the EU designed long-term strategies, frameworks and indicative
targets. The Climate and Energy Package comprises a significant part of this approach.
There is no doubt that Europe needs such a far-reaching strategy. The energy sector based on
fossil-fuel combustion is unsustainable from many points of view. Negative effects of greenhouse
gases emissions on the environment and climate, as well as the legitimate threat of fossil fuels
depletion are only two of them. However, these are not new conclusions. This gives rise to the
question as to why the Commission has so latterly embraced clean energy as a primary policy. It
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could be explained by innovative technological advancement enabling better clean energy
development; or by greater popular awareness of the damage wreaked on the environment
under the old fuel supply, and the subsequent revelations of ozone damage and climatic
warming. There can be little doubt that these motivations were complemented by the political
manipulation and the attractiveness to politicians of being on the clean energy bandwagon. It
must be asked if this noble defence of the public good inculcated in them fortitude to pursue this
policy to conclusion. If clean energy was convenient for the EU policy makers and high politics, it
was strengthened by the fact that there no longer was a reliance on the support of the presumed
enlightenment and normative responsibility of the elites and lobby groups. This thesis
elaborates on this critical view and focuses on the external advantage of the clean energy
transition. It concentrates on positive implications of the EU’s normative clean energy strategy
to its international position and external leverage. This expounds on the EU’s fervent dedication
to clean energy pursuance and presenting it as the most correct philosophy of life. Within these
parameters, the central inquiry of this thesis is how the clean energy transition can serve the EU
as a means to enhance its position vis-à-vis the other players of the international system.
The thesis starts with the hypothesis claiming that clean energy development serves as a tool to
enhance the EU’s external leverage. It presumes that even though the EU can be still seen as a
strong political bloc with considerable external leverage, its influence over other countries has
had a declining tendency. The EU’s civilian and normative tools instituted to realise its objective
appear to be partially ineffective. The energy sector shows how significant this ineffectiveness
can be. The preponderance of power remains in the energy-producing countries as a result of
which these countries are prevailingly resistant to the EU’s normative governance. Moreover,
future prospects do not promise any substantial alteration of this trend, unless the EU finds a
way to accumulate more power capabilities over such countries. The hypothesis claims that the
current energy transition serves the EU as a means to address the EU’s power loss. Clean energy
can introduce new sources of power over the other members of the international system and
limit power those members have over the EU. As a result, the EU should be better equipped for
its pursuit of external normative governance and realising its goals.
Concerning the structure of the thesis, the argument is developed along three main chapters.
The first chapter outlines the theoretical framework of the argumentation. The tone of the
hypothesis might have already indicated that the thesis is backed by the Neorealist theory of
international relations. The chapter explains the origins and evolution of Neorealism, but also its
suitability for this research. The second chapter pursues the EU’s external governance as a
normative power (NPE), summarises the scientific debate on this topic and offers an evaluation
of the NPE’s effectiveness, particularly vis-à-vis some energy exporting countries, with which the
EU intensely maintains economic and political relations. The chapter reveals the NPE’s
ineffectiveness in external dissemination of its values and norms, thus realising its self-regarding
interests. The last, third chapter further elaborates on the hypothetic argument by presenting
the EU’s ‘green’ and clean energy policies as a means to enhance the NPE’s external leverage. It
dismisses the power neutrality of the norms of clean energy and climate change mitigation and
points out that the energy policies based on climate change mitigation are power-loaded and
serve the EU’s self-regarding interest. Concretely, the chapter builds upon the following sources
of international power and legitimisation derived from the clean energy transition: international
policy leadership and its legitimacy, energy security, competitiveness and job creation,
multi-level coherence in policy preferences and the EU’s internal legitimacy.
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This thesis aims to contribute to the scientific debate concerning the EU’s normative external
governance. It responds to the argument by Ian Manners (2002) that the EU can be considered
as a power exerting influence through the ability of establishing norms, being in line with
universal human values and intended to protect and defend global public goods. This thesis
concurs with the EU’s discursive power capability and the universalist background, but
challenges the purity of the global and public goods mission as the EU’s primary aim. In this case,
this thesis claims that the EU’s normative approach in international relations is a tool to pursue
its self-regarding interest, thus ensuring its own security.
The argument of this research is inspired by a considerable amount of articles and other
publication dedicated to the study of the EU’s external governance, energy security and clean
energy transition. The following reflects the variety of authors and other sources consulted. Jan
Orbie (University of Ghent) and Richard Youngs (FRIDE) in particular outline the main
framework of the EU’s external action in general and in energy respectively. Both authors also
offer some evaluative conclusions on the EU’s normativity in external action, which is a key part
of the second chapter. Richard Youngs (FRIDE) and Sijbren de Jong (EU-GRASP, HCSS also focus
on normativity in the EU’s external energy governance. Edith Vande Brande, (University of
Ghent), Sebastian Oberthür (IES/VUB) and Louise van Schaik (Clingendael) provide a critical
analysis of the EU’s climate and clean energy leadership and policies, and emphasise their
positive implications for other policy areas and European integration. Paragraphs concerning
the securitisation of climate change and its consequences to the EU’s external relations are based
on Berry Buzan’s theory of securitisation (Copenhagen School). In return, this thesis offers a
contribution to these scientific works by proving the power function in the EU’s green Kantian
norms of sustainable development and climate change mitigation. In addition, next to scientific
debates, the thesis makes use of several newsletters, various policy briefs of external think-tanks
and research institutes, EU’s official documents and three interviews conducted with high
representatives either from the EU institutional setting or at the Member State level (Lithuania).
These interviews were made during the period of winter and spring 2013, when Lithuania was
presiding the European Council, when it was concerned about Russia’s strategic and energy
approach towards the Baltic region, while the EU was pushing through further legislation on
renewables and the energy transition and faced an imminent price war with China with respect
to photovoltaic panels. Interview transcripts are available on the occasion of a request at the
author.
This research discloses that the EU’s pursuit of Kantian normative governance in the form of
energy transition serves the EU’s self-regarding interest. Clean or ‘green’ energy rather
contributes to the maintenance or even enhancement of the EU’s external leverage as a
complement to its altruistic disguise. Therefore, energy policy, irrespective of its ‘colour’
continues to be a matter of realist and strategic consideration rather than a product of the EU’s
Kantian self-awareness. Clean energy and power are inseparable.
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1. Neorealist theory
Policy and decision-making are extremely difficult and opaque processes, resulting from diverse
interests, assumptions, compromises, constraining factors and other influences. When applied to
the international politics, its complexity becomes even more intense, since local occurrences and
developments can engender significant external repercussions while distant occurrences can in
turn have serious impact domestically. In this study, a relationship between international power
politics on the one hand and EU’s internal ‘green’ energy policies on the other is approached
through Neorealist perspective. Consequently, the main aim of this section is, firstly, to introduce
Neorealism in terms of its background, main laws and assumptions and, secondly, to establish its
suitability to this research topic.
Theories are a key tool in social sciences. They are mentally formed collections or sets of
assumed laws pertaining to particular behaviour or phenomenon. Theories are constructed
speculative and simplified processes arisen through inductive generalisation, abstraction,
isolation, aggregation and idealisation, in order to identify the central tendency among a
confusion of many other tendencies. Since theories describe only a part of reality, they are
distinct from the reality they concern (Waltz 1979: 2, 5-10). In other words, theories construct a
reality, but no one can say that it is the reality. Most importantly, theories have not only
descriptive, but also explanatory and predictive powers; theories reveal and rationalise
continuities both retrospectively and prospectively. The extent to which these powers are
corroborated by empirical proofs determines the usefulness of a concerned theory. So, when
applied to the study of international relations, theories claim to be able to elucidate actors’ past,
current and future actors’ behaviour, interactions and other processes within a system where
international relations are enacted (Waltz 1979: 69).
Neorealism gradually appeared in the 1970s as a revision of an old-fashioned Realist approach.
Realism has a long history of being a dominant conception of international relations, as it was
first applied already in antiquity. According to the Realist school, a limited number of poles, i.e.
dominant unitary states or blocs, are rational actors, which interact with each other in an
endemically hostile, anarchic and decentralised system. Their raison d’être is first to survive and
subsequently to preserve their integrity, by means of acquisition of as many power as possible,
to exert as much influence as possible. The amount of power is directly related to state’s
behaviour and probability of survival in international anarchy. So, according to Realists,
conceptualised power is both a means and an end in itself for a state. Ideally, security should be
guaranteed by obtaining a hegemonic position and imposing hierarchy to be able to exercise
power over rivals. Such a position may be reached also by military means. Another way to reach
security in the system is an effective balancing of revisionist (expanding) states by skilful
manipulation of opposition alliances. Overall, following from Hobbes’ homo homini lupus,
Realists argue that states are primarily self-interested and egoistic, and their existence is a
rational consequence of the principle of self-help, taking place in an anarchic environment of
conflict and competition (Schweller and Priess 1997: 6-7).
Nonetheless, Realism has been criticised by many international relations scientists
(Mearsheimer, Gilpin, Katzenstein and Layne) in particular for inconsistency and insufficiency in
methodological compactness. The greatest revision so far has been conducted by Kenneth N.
Waltz’s contribution to the scientific debate on the validity of Realism. Having anatomised the
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methodology of classical Realism, Waltz agreed on the basic attributes of international actors –
the states are unitary entities, driven by great security concerns and adversarially interacting in
an environment of anarchy. Nevertheless, Waltz argued that the old-fashion realist explanation
of actors’ behaviour was insufficient. Consequently, Waltz’s introduced structures, integral
components of the international system exercising power over individual actors, thus affecting
their behaviour. The structures arise from interaction between actors, number of these actors,
their position in the international anarchy or hierarchy and their individual size and possession
of other capabilities. However, the structures remain extrinsic to actors. The processes of
socialisation of states and competition among them are the paramount structures
(Waltz 1979: 2, 73-74). Moreover, crucially, Waltz (1979: 73-74) claims that
structure designates a set of constraining conditions. Such a structure acts as a selector (…).
Freely formed economic markets and international-political structures are selectors, but
they are not agents. Because structures select by rewarding some behaviors and punishing
others, outcomes cannot be inferred from intentions and behaviors.
Further, ‘structures are defined not by all of the actors that flourish within them but by the
major ones’ (Waltz 1979: 93) i.e. poles or states which are able to recurrently exert some power
over other states in fields of a strategic interest. This all implies that states’ outcomes cannot be
perfectly rational, such as Realists asserted. Waltz compares the international-political
structures with market structures, such as prices, market standards, fashion, company’s size and
know-how etc.: ‘[j]ust as economists define markets in terms of firms, so I define internationalpolitical structures in terms of states’ (Waltz 1979, 94). Overall, international structures emerge
from the interaction of great states and, subsequently, they constrain actors of the system from
taking certain actions whereas it propels them toward others (Waltz 1979; Evans and Newham
1998: 30; Gilpin 1986: 301-321).
As mentioned above, in an international system, actors interact by means of permanent tension.
However, this conflict atmosphere does not necessarily need to be understood as confrontation
by force. The mutual hostility driven by the struggle for survival and fear for rival’s relative
advancement can be also expressed as an endless competition. The subject of competition are
relative gains of capabilities, such as military and economic possessions, natural endowment,
population and territory size, and geopolitical position but also intangible attributes such as
actual polity, internal coherence and stability, bureaucratic struggles and other internal
processes, moral, discipline, productivity, levels of technology, research and development, etc.
The capabilities gathered, reached and built determine the position of their proprietors vis-à-vis
other actors in the system. Therefore, redistribution of capabilities has a direct influence on
states’ mutual positions and balance of power among them. Since states interact through endless
competition, they are oriented to acquiring relative gains rather than absolute, long-term gains
(Waltz 1979: 119, 131; Evans and Newham 1998: 8).
Moreover, cooperation between states appears only when gains with respect to certain others in
terms of security, wealth and stability are expected to be generated. Cooperation, however, is
difficult to be reached since states consider cooperation as a kind of interdependence. Being
interdependent or even dependent is perceived as a great vulnerability - states are exposed to
the possibility of existential failure and extinction. However, cooperation is sometimes
inevitable, e.g. due to international trade and balancing alliance cooperation, occurrence of some
collective threat or a hegemon etc. Yet, even within this cooperative framework, states look to
constrain each other’s gains, being primarily interested in maximizing their own profits and
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minimalizing dangers to themselves. Overall, states in international systems , firstly, seek to
develop the greatest comparative advantage vis-à-vis others through accumulation of
capabilities and, secondly, strive to have the smallest gap in the possession of capabilities with
respect to others, such as firms do on the market. (Waltz 1979: 65-70, 82, 97, 102, 106; Evans
and Newham 1998: 8; Collard-Wexler 2006: 400-406)
Such a perspective on cooperation is one of the main sources for many critics of Neorealism, one
of which is liberal institutionalism. Next to the notion of cooperation, its criticisms is focused on
the narrow-minded and insufficient definition of actors and their raison d’être. Liberal
institutionalists assert that even though states are dominant actors of the international system,
they are not the only agents. Aside from them, different public and private agencies, trade
unions, political parties, supranational and international bureaucracies, multinationals etc.
interact with each other too, from which the structure arises. Further, these actors are not either
unitary or rational and the authority inside them is decentralised. Actors’ purpose of being is not
only power or security, but also economic growth, welfare accumulation and civic stability.
Another point which makes Neorealists and liberal institutionalists irreconcilable rivals, is the
perception of international institutions. Neorealists ascribe no major role to institutions in the
system and cooperation is understood as negative interdependence leading to unsafe
vulnerability. By contrast, liberal institutionalists are convinced that institutions successfully act
to promote cooperation and that interdependence is advantageous, because costs of cooperation
appear to be lower than costs of non-cooperation. Liberal institutionalists’ greatest proof against
Neorealism is the paradigm of the West-European cooperation after the World War II. Overall,
liberal institutionalists argue that Neorealism fails to explain the logics of European integration
having so far resulted in European Union – why would that all happen if cooperation, integration
and interdependence were so threatening? (Grieko 1988: 488-503)
Naturally, some Realists have reacted on liberal institutionalism’s criticism. For example, Grieco
(1988: 505-507) reasserts the importance of relative gains, which constrain any kind of perfect
cooperation. So, he opposes the neoliberalists’ assumption that gains are acquired through
common endeavour. He states that if states cooperate, they are concerned about durability of
joint actions, number of participants, issue linkages etc., in order to minimise relative gains of
their colleagues or to minimise their own relative losses with respect to others. Further, Simon
Collard-Wexler (2006: 400-406) admits that Neorealism may seem to have been disproved by
the European integration on the one hand, but on the other, he asserts that Europe can find itself
in a temporary transition, whose consequence will be the formation of a new unitary, centralised
and rational actor having its security and preservation as the primary objective. The
establishment of the new world power Europe can be explained as a necessary self-help reaction
on the emergence of the fully anarchic multilateral and subsequently multipolar order, where no
geopolitical bipolarity guarantees relative stable position and security of the European
continent. Europe will have overcome its ontological limbo and internal incoherence and it will
fulfil the role of a postmodern great power, balancing Russia, USA, China or any other
superpower through competition and alliances. It will be equipped with great political, economic
and military power means, being derived from Europe’s capabilities, such as great population,
vast territory, natural endowment but also R&D advancements and post-modern, value-based
governance. The process of EU’s Internal Market can be seen as contributing to the emergence of
such Europe. This research is inspired by this forecast, being reflected in the Neorealist
interpretation adopted in this study.
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Furthermore, Criekemans (2011: 88-91) states, we are currently witnessing a great geopolitical
shift being represented by the on-going clean energy transition. Fossil fuels are being gradually
replaced by renewables and this entails enhancements in power and economic leverage of some
geopolitical regions on the one hand and leverage deteriorations of some other poles on the
other. New clean energy leaders are being moulded as a consequence of natural resources
endowment and intensity of capital investments leading to technology improvements, being
facilitated by the presence of leading companies in the energy sector. Hence, already today’s
stance towards the issues of clean energy will have great consequences to the allocation of
power in the future. Consequently, if any pole aims to preserve its leading position or any other
actor aspires to enhance its position, serious commitments to clean energy development are
now necessary. Even more importantly, if any actor of the international system intends to
become the future leader in energy, a leadership in the present clean energy development is
crucial. And if any pole intends to become an overall leader in the future, leadership in energy is
an important capability facilitating the fulfilment of this ambition. Such an interpretation
corresponds with the Neorealist approach, which, too, justifies the choice of a Neorealist theory
in this study.
Aside from the rational accounts, such as Neorealism, however, some Constructivist approaches
claim to explain the process of international relations. According to the Constructivists, actors’
behaviour and their mutual interactions are not purely rational. Rather, they are consequences
of preceding decisions and processes, and directly influenced or even determined by mutable
norms, ideas, beliefs, values and identities. In this way, actors do not have absolute control over
their own behaviour. So, differences between Realisms and Constructivism are substantial:
‘[w]hile some Constructivists would accept that States are self-interested, rational actors, they
would stress that varying identities and beliefs belie the simplistic notions of rationality under
which States simply pursue survival, power, or wealth’ (Slaughter 2011: 4) Due to the
complexity of influencing factors, the strength of Constructivist approaches lies mainly in its
explanatory dimension. Realisms, on contrary, seem to perform more satisfactory in terms of
anticipatory qualities based on Hobbesian assumptions of human nature (Slaughter 2011). Since
this study aims to understand the future consequences of the current decision making,
irrespective of their likely preceding and subsequent dynamics, the Neorealist theory appears to
be more suitable for fulfilling the anticipatory objective of this research.
Overall, this methodological chapter has offered a comprehensive introduction to the Neorealist
theory applied in this study. Firstly, the background, basic laws and assumptions of Neorealism
have been concerned. Neorealism has been represented as a predominantly rational theory,
where security concerns and extrinsic structures play dominant roles. Secondly, main criticisms
of Neorealism, such as Liberal Institutionalism and the Constructivist accounts were regarded.
However, finally, some defensive and revisionist reactions on these criticisms demonstrated that
Neorealism is, still, a suitable approach for this study: Neorealism seems to be able to explain
and predict the long-term consequences of the EU internal policy-making on energy in the
context of global international system to a satisfactory extent. The next chapter analyses the
discourse of the EU external governance, depicting the energy sector as an anomaly to the
general discourse of the EU external governance.
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2. EU’s external governance
The European Union is nowadays perceived as a major actor in the international system. The
European flag can be spotted on all continents and in nearly all countries of the world. The
presence of the EU is usually disguised as international trade, political delegation, projects of the
promotion of democracy, humanitarian aid, sustainable development, peacekeeping and others.
Hence, traditionally, the EU is described as a postmodern and pacifistic power, representing and
disseminating universal norms and values while excluding any kind of coercion in is external
activities. Nevertheless, recently, a lot of attention has been paid to the process of securitisation,
which clearly deviates from the EU’s appearance as a soft power. Elaborating on this, this
chapter is divided in two sections. Firstly, the basics of the EU’s external governance concept will
be outlined, focusing on EU’s civilian and normative character. Subsequently, drawing from the
preceding chapter, it will be exposed to some realistic criticisms, emphasising EU’s interests in
its security and historical preservation. The second part comprises an analysis of EU’s external
governance in energy, discussing both the civilian and normative assumption and Realist
criticisms. In this section, it will be argues that the EU’s external energy governance does not
comply with the Kantian governance assumptions, since its sense of raison d’être is derived from
realistic security concerns. Last but not least, following from the preceding two subsections, a
hypothesis will be revealed EU’s difficulties in external energy governance and current clean
energy discourse.
2.1. CPE, NPE and Neorealist critique
The roots of current external governance of the EU begin about 70 years ago. The emergence
and consequences of the Second World War demonstrated that the Westphalian state order on
the European continent did not function well anymore. Having experienced the bloodsheds of
the first half of the 20th century, Europe needed a profound change of its approach to
international relations and foreign affairs. The old-fashioned system of self-centred nation
states, whose sense of raison d’être was to ensure their existential security to themselves, was
seen as an indispensable cause of the rivalry atmosphere on the European continent, which had
so often sublimed to open violence. As a result of this new awareness, federalists,
neo-functionalists inter alia believed that the discredited Westphalian order had to be
dismantled and substituted by a new comprehension of international system.1 Its focus had to be
directed to multidimensional progression through peaceful and non-coercive governance,
derived from among others Immanuel Kant’s human universalism and cosmopolitanism.
(Stevens and Sakwa 2005: 36-42; Keukeleire and MacNaughtan 2008: 8-9; Orbie 2009a: 6)
One of the most influential concepts of foreign affairs based on Kantian assumptions was
developed in the 1970s by François Duchêne (1973). Even though he has never developed a
complete theory, he believed that Western Europe had evolved into a new ‘civilian’ power.
According to Duchêne, Europe, having learned from its own tradition and history, distanced
itself from the traditional power politics and, instead, adhered to ‘civilised’ and amilitary
governance, based on multilateralism and cooperation, realised through economic, diplomatic
1
The eastern part of Europe was omitted from this process due to its orientation towards the USSR.
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and institutional means (Twitchett 1976; Hill 1990). Security concerns would become secondary
to the promotion of a stable, non-divisive, non-argumentative international environment,
beneficial to all parties. Furthermore, human equality, justice, tolerance, interest for the poor
abroad and other characteristics derived from core European values have become important
elements of Europe’s external activities, thus diffusing EU standards internationally. In this way,
the Union committed to disseminating what it perceived to be universal, public goods
(Keukeleire and MacNaughtan 2008: 21). Overall, as Vasilyan (2007: 4) put it, Civilian Power
Europe (CPE) defines the EU’s nature, function, role, behaviour and narrative, all of which are
based on the Kantian universalist discourse.
Similarly, Ian Manners (2002) introduced his own concept of a Kantian Europe – Normative
Power Europe (NPE) by analysing Europe’s foreign affairs also from a value-based perspective.
Although Manners agrees on the most basic assumptions about CPE, he complements it by citing
the EU’s ability to construct norms in the international system through exerting discursive
power over opinion and ideas. In this way he has tried to move the debate from considerations
on EU’s international identity towards discussions on EU’s constructivist capabilities (Manners
2002: 239). In other words, the analysis moved from what the EU says and does to what the EU
is (Vasilyan 2007: 4). Further, he stresses that both concepts of CPE and NPE differ from each
other in the backgrounds of values adopted: whereas CPE has a merely communitarian or
national nature, NPE claims a universal, transnational validity of its norms (Manners 2006: 176).
However, according to some critics such as Diez (2005: 620), each civilian or normative power
sees its own actions and values as universal and more legitimate than those of others.
Nonetheless, Manners states that the EU’s normative difference originates from its historical
context, hybrid polity, and political-legal constitution. The EU has been built in a pacifistic postwar environment where international violence was condemned and where political commitment
enabled abandoning the Westphalian discourse. This moved Europe towards a hybrid sui generis
kind of governance, consisting of supranational and international elements. Even though this
new unit was elite-driven and its function has been restricted by conventions in a form of
treaties, it has been profoundly regulated by a strong legal order based on post-war universal
humanistic norms, derived from Kant’s ethics. Additionally, these norms are generally
acknowledged within the UN system to be universally applicable, thus legitimising the NPE’s
universal representation of human rights (Manners 2002: 240-242; 2006: 170).
Manners distinguishes two kinds of norms (Manners 2002: 240-242; 2006: 170). The first group
is composed of ‘core’ norms (peace, liberty, democracy, rule of law and human rights), while the
second group comprises ‘minor’ norms (social solidarity, anti-discrimination, sustainable
development and good governance). Both categories are derived from the intention to protect
and spread human dignity and equality. The difference between these two kinds of norms is, in
Manner’s words, that the ‘minor’ group is ‘far more contested’ and unsettled than the ‘core’
group. Applying it to external governance, he further elaborates by stating that all of these
universal norms and principles [have been placed] at the centre of [the EU’s] relations with its
Member States (…) and the world (…). The EU has gone further towards making its external
relations informed by, and conditioned on, a catalogue of norms, which come closer to those of the
European convention on human right and fundamental freedoms (ECHR) and the universal
declaration on human rights. (Manners 2002: 241)
The Treaty on the European Union (TEU Title V: 21) demonstrates it clearly:
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The Union shall define and pursue common policies and actions, and shall work for a high degree of
cooperation in all fields of international relations, in order to: (…)
(b) consolidate and support democracy, the rule of law, human rights and the principles of
international law,
(c) preserve peace, prevent conflicts and strengthen international security (…)
(d) foster the sustainable economic, social and environmental development of developing
countries, with the primary aim of eradicating poverty (…)
To sum up, Manners perceives EU’s governance through constructing and disseminating norms
as an internal obligatory commitment to Kantian ethics and human universality. This in turn,
naturally influences the Commission and Member States’ conduct of external relations (Orbie
2009a: 18).
As far as EU’s civilian and normative external governance is concerned, the EU is often described
as a ‘soft power’. Next to actual and short-term oriented possession goals furthering national
interests, the EU’s external governance is also concerned with milieu goals. As a result, the EU
aims to shape international conditions beyond its boundaries, thus controlling the international
environment in which it operates. These milieu goals arise from ‘what the Member States can all
agree on’ (Smith 2003: 107, 109). Applied to the NPE, the most conventional form of such a
milieu-oriented approach is a holistic, multilevel, multisectorial and multistructural method,
evoking ‘a preference for incentives through development aid, market access, political dialogue,
and persuasion in international affairs’ (Keukeleire and MacNaughtan 2008: 24, 25-28). It is also
effected through trade, peacekeeping, multilateralism, different kinds of conditionality, some
kind of association relation, enlargement prospects etc. As a consequence, universal human
standards are disseminated, and global public goods are strengthened, thus benefitting the
public welfare. Coincidentally, a new international environment is created, amenable to the
objectives of the EU (Orbie 2009a: 13; Manners 2002: 244-245).
As an example, one of the most effective instruments/ends of CPE has been the
Common/Internal Market. The EU is an extraordinary extensive and prosperous sales market
with a relative high market price levels and voluminous consumption. Bretherton and Vogler
(2006: 88) assert, that the magnitude of the EU’ Single Market has ensured that the EU can be
seen as exercising a form of trade duopoly with the US. Hence, it is very attractive to non-EU
countries to set for access to the Market in terms of export and investments. Consequently, as
Orbie (2009b: 36) put it, ‘[t]he possibility to decide on the level and the conditions of access for
particular countries/sectors to the world largest market [EU Single Market] constitutes a
considerable source of power (…)’. To fully exploit this source of power, EU often maintains
different types of bilateral agreements, where ‘for most of the participants in these bilateral
arrangements the Union is frequently a domineering actor’ (Bretherton and Vogler 2006: 78). In
this context and deferring to the EU’s normative mandate, the conditions for market access
mainly concern peace and security (e.g. Everything but Arms initiative), human rights, political
reforms, sustainable development, recognition and implementation of human equality through
free trade and multilateralism and other norms central to the EU (Orbie 2009a: 17, 18).
Additionally, opening the Internal Market to a third party is usually accompanied by the rule of
reciprocity, i.e. reciprocal opening of the third party’s market to EU’s exports and investment.
Overall, as a result of this gatekeeping, international structures become gradually altered, which
is beneficial to both the EU and its trading partner. The upshot of healthy free trade is the
10
propagation of the EU’s norms beyond borders, thus influencing human rights and instigating an
environment conducive to the Commission’s long term economic strategies. Simultaneously,
welfare, democracy, human rights etc. situation is believed to enhance (Orbie 2009a: 4-8). This
explanation of the EU as a civilian and normative power has raised many criticisms. For example,
in his critique of Duchêne’s concept of CPE, Bull (1982) suggests the latter’s conclusions are
contradictio in terminis, since Europe’s civilian commitment, its abrogation of the Westphalian
order resulted from the transference of its defence obligation to the US, NATO’s hegemonic
player. Hyde-Price (2007) labelled EU’s norm conditionality vis-à-vis countries of postcommunist European countries in the 1990s as creating a temporary hierarchy in Europe
through political ostracism and an economic carrot-and-stick approach, where EU membership
was the carrot and exclusion the stick. Other critics assert that a similar structure exist between
the Union and developing countries. Youngs (2010: 6) insists that ‘[t]he EU’s “civilian power” has
morphed into a “soft imperialism” that imposes norms in an inconvenient fashion in furtherance
of very direct short-term self-interest.’ Orbie (2009b: 45) states that despite its commitment to
multilateral free trade, the EU’s admission of goods to the Internal Market subjects to
protectionist tendencies, without emphasising value. The Union’s sugar policy can serve as a
good example of such behaviour (Baldwin and Wyplosz 2009: 366). Orbie (2009b: 62) concludes
that the ‘[r]ise of value-based objectives in inter alia Europe’s trade policy profile appears to be a
normative dressing over a free trade agenda (…), rather than a genuine commitment to reach
these [normative] objectives’, where, as will be later explained, free-trade agenda can be seen as
a key element of the EU’s most favourable international environment. Wood (2009) claims that
the EU’s projection of its norms and values to the Third World has not always met with success.
He argues that if the Commission’s advances are rebuffed by the potential recipient, or if it needs
more from the recipient, than vice versa, it seems powerless to effect a resolution. To sum up,
some scholars argue that the Kantian-normative rhetoric does not always correspond with the
actual performance of the EU.
A more radical view, put forth by Johan Galtung, perceived the establishment of the European
Common Market equipped with civilian governance as a major self-centred and protectionist
step, returning Europe to a highly global political global presence through its manipulation of
the economic and political environment, and its resultant exploitation of power. Beyond the EU’s
borders, many countries were embroiled in upheaval, social unrest and ideological change. Such
preoccupations facilitated the realisation of the ‘non-military formula for empire building’:
Europe was creating a hierarchic or asymmetrical relation between the Common Market
members and some others, especially those in the Third World, even though no military means
had been employed. Galtung (1973; Orbie 2009a: 6-7) concluded that true civilian content of
Europe’s governance was merely illusionary.
Realists have also entered the fray. While most of them insist that the bloc’s focus on liberal
values is utopic, even harmfully naïve, some such as Robert Keohane (1984: 122) perceive the
EU as a realistic player despite its value-loaded rhetoric. He stated that cooperation inherent to
both civilian and normative power, factoring collective interests and leading to apparent
win-win scenarios, is just a matter of necessity and efficacy in a the international environment of
the 21st century. More importantly, he interpreted it as a far-sighted self-interest rather than any
kind of idealism and naïve altruism. Similarly, Keukeleire and MacNaughtan (2008: 21-22) have
argued that the protection and extension of global public goods such as environment, health and
social areas are in the primarily of place self-regarding interest and, therefore, of secondary
11
benefit to other stakeholders (other-regarding interests). Thus the civilian governance agenda
serves the EU as a tool to alter the international milieu, primarily serving the EU’s own interest.
Based on this conclusion, this win-win situation is not a logical consequence of normative
governance, but rather a possible side effect. Consequently, they insist that the EU’s liberal
internationalism is a mere cloak for the maximisation of its self-interest (Youngs 2010: 1).
With respect to Realists’ criticisms, Sandra Lavenex argues that the recent developments of the
EU denote its ambitions to reassert its identity as a security community. She ascribes this
paradigmatic shift to a sequence of institutional changes inside the EU itself initiated in
Maastricht in 1991, and to the transformed international environment after the end of the Cold
War. Firstly, the EU has had to cope with a new multipolar world order, substituting preceding
bipolarity. Secondly, during this period, the geopolitical system of the USSR and its satellites was
dissolved and Yugoslavia fell into civil war – all of which was happening just next to the EU’s
borders. Thirdly, besides these developments, globalisation began to manifest itself through
diverse transnational processes all over the world and within the EU itself (Stevens and Sakwa
2005: 237-247) These new and sometimes unanticipated processes and developments ensured
that the EU’s mainstream perception of interdependence was changed substantially.
Importantly, Lavenex (2004) argues that interdependence and mutual vulnerability, in
particular between the EU and its neighbourhood, has begun to be observed as a potential
source of threats to security. Subsequently, these threats began to ‘play a central role in the
legitimation of political order’ (Lavenex 2004: 682-685), gradually substituting the prevailing
institutionalist perspective (chapter 1). Overall, the EU might have been behaving as a civilian
power, but because of geopolitical changes, globalisation and internal institutional
developments, the present EU’s governance has been increasingly focused on security issues in
order to preserve its own security.
Within this framework, the EU has aimed to secure its interior, its borders and neighbourhood
through a series of enlargements, the introduction of European Neighbourhood Policy, combined
with international dialogue. An inherent part of this border extension has been a full of partial
adoption of the acquis communautaire, where EU’s norms and values play a central role.
Crucially, Lavenex understands this border extension as ‘not only a benevolent projection of
acquired civilian virtues but also a more strategic attempt to gain control over policy
developments through external governance’ (Lavenex 2004: 682-685). In this way, trans-border
features threatening the EU’s security, such as environmental hazards, illegal migration,
trafficking, terrorism and various illegal practices can be effectively combated through
internalisation by the EU itself:
The EU will try to expand its sphere of governance in particular in areas which have become
securitized inside and where vulnerability is attributed to developments in the third country in
question. (…) [However,] securitization from this perspective does not directly derive from
objective external threats but is the outcome of framing processes within an evolving institutional
environment. (Lavenex 2004: 686)
To conclude, Sandra Lavenex argues that recent EU’s governance has been backed by
securitisation of EU’s external dependence constructed inside EU institutions.
More generally, it has been observed by some that the EU’s claim to be a civilian and normative
power, while implying benevolence, have in fact been a significant factor in the pursuit of its own
self-interest. Thus, this perception that the ability to sustainably shape and reshape structures of
12
the international environment by means of civilian self-obligation and designing valid norms, is
crucial to the bloc’s self-preservation in the international power struggle. Realists, therefore,
state that the concepts of CPE and NPE are subordinated to more essential, self-regarding
interests of the EU. The next subsection links these realist conclusions to EU’s external energy
governance.
2.2. External energy governance
External governance mainly appears in areas where the realisation of internal objectives has
external implications. Since Europe has been only limitedly endowed with energy sources,
Europe has had to rely on a variety of imports of raw energy sources, such as conventional crude
oil, natural gas and, recently, coal. Since the current European society has so far become highly
dependent on energy, ensuring energy inflow has evolved as an important concern of Europe’s
external governance. The main objective of this section is to analyse EU’s energy governance in
the theoretical context sketched above – a realist approach to the concepts of civilian and
normative power. It will be revealed that the realist critique is applicable to the EU’s external
governance, since it is primarily oriented towards energy supply security.
Energy issues as a part of Europe’s governance is not a new topic. The main reason why energy
has been a subject of supranational governance has been the perception of energy as a security
issue, since energy, like food and water, is a basic fundament for the functioning of a modern
society. In other words, energy governance derives its raison d’être from ensuring security of
European society. Integrating energy in Europe first appeared in the post-war 1950s, when ECSC
and EURATOM were launched (Belyi 2009: 205). However, the main objective of these two
projects was internal coordination rather than external governance. It was not until the early
1970s, with the advent of two major oil crises, that energy was explicitly included as a security
concern in Europe’s foreign policy. Nevertheless, even though Brussels began to push for a
common policy dealing with the security situation at a supranational level, ‘the political effect of
the crisis was translated into the nationalisation of energy policies’. As Belyi (2009: 205) put it,
‘since the oil crises, European energy policy as regards the question of supply and market
regulation has been removed from the political agenda of the European treaties establishing and
reinforcing the EU’. Consequently, no Common Energy Policy has been enforced up until now.
Only in 2007 did the European Council take a little step towards it, when it legislated that energy
issues were to acquire a limited legal basis in the Reform Treaty of Lisbon (Article 194). Yet the
scope of this legislation is predominantly focused on the internal situation, with less emphasis
on the external. In fact, the external dimension does not even merit an explicit mention in the
Reform Treaty. Overall, the security of energy supply, though a subject of European integration
since its very beginning, seems to remain predominantly a matter of the Member States (Belyi
2009: 204-206).
Despite the lack of Common Energy Policy, and a lack of inflow governance, the Union
endeavours to compensate through enacting measures internally as a response to external
geopolitical developments. However, prior to expounding on these measures, it is a prerequisite
to examine global energy developments and their impact on the EU. Firstly, global demand for
fuels has been growing, especially due to emergent major players such as China, India, Brazil and
other developing and post-developing countries (Verrastro etc. 2010: 14). Secondly, the EU has
13
become increasingly reliant on imports from and throughout unstable regions, such as the Gulf
States, Venezuela, Nigeria and Eastern Europe. The Eastern Enlargement in 2004 added to this
dependency, since the majority of the twelve admissions had been historically reliant on Russia
for their oil and gas needs. The consequences of conflicts in Iraq and disputes between Russia
and the Ukraine in 2006 and Belarus in 2007 revealed the extent to which the EU is vulnerable
in this matter. According to general expectations, this weakness will not soon be rectified.
Rather, ‘[t]he EU’s import dependency for oil was set to increase from 52 per cent in 2013 to 95
per cent in 2030, and for gas from 36 to 84 per cent over the same period.’ (Youngs 2009a 1-2)
Realists have warned that the alarmingly growing dependence has provided the energy
supplying countries with leverage over the EU while it deprived the EU of leverage over the
suppliers, thus having significant consequences to EU’s international position and balance of
power.
Thirdly, Russia is able and willing to use its energy resources as a political weapon in order to
consolidate itself as an ambitious superpower. This invariably has created an atmosphere of
distrust and uncertainty of supply in Europe (Khrushcheva 2011: 218-219, Interview 2).
Fourthly, since the energy supply (particularly crude oil and natural gas) is currently stagnating
and is not expected to meet the increasing demand in the future, energy prices have been rising
significantly (Natorski and Surrallés 2008: 71-89. 72). It is important to mention that Western
society has been built on cheap energy. However, for example 2009 oil price levels compared to
2008 were doubled. Importantly, high and volatile energy prices might negatively affect
Europe’s future growth and competitiveness. Only lower demand or higher supply could cause
the price to fall to its original value, neither of which is likely to fall when price fixing is at the
whim of the producer states (Luciani 2011: 4-5). Further, there are also energy transit routes
which might potentially grow but their overcrowdedness does not make it possible. Also, in
some cases, even though the natural endowment of energy sources could be still seen as
immense, it is impossible to access and extract them, because of insufficient technology levels or
inacceptable impacts on environment (Verrastro etc. 2010: 3-7, 11-14). Fifthly, it has been
proved that production of CO2 through energy generation in thermal power plants is one of the
main causes of global climate warming, implying that something must be urgently changed in
the whole energy sector (IPCC 2001a). Overall, the energy sector is facing great challenges,
demanding a more comprehensive policy in dealing with them.
The EU has already determined such a broad strategy. Since it can be involved in the energy
supply governance only through Member States, this strategy is focused on




building the internal energy market through sectorial liberalisation and enhancements of
inner, inter-state infrastructural interconnections, such as Trans-European Networks in
electricity and gas, gas and oil energy storage
promoting diversification of energy mix in terms of routes, supply countries, and
resources, with a particular focus on renewable energy
demanding control through energy efficiency and saving
investment in R&D
all of which are meant inter alia to secure energy supply EU-wide, thus strengthening mutual
solidarity among the Member States (Lahn etc. 2009: 11-12; European Commission 2013). Next
to the clean energy discourse described in the following chapter, market liberalisation has
become the key element of the EU energy strategy.
14
Not surprisingly, the Commission is the main normative promoter of market liberalisation, being
supported by its neoliberal background, free-trade orientation and commitment to value and
rule-based, ‘effective’ multilateralism (Hermann 2007: 61-89). According to the Commission,
non-market approaches, such as state-like and monopolistic structures and individual bilateral
agreements between Member States and energy supply countries, are economically inefficient
and lead, as a result of lacking competition, to unstable and unpredictable supply flows, growing
dependence, price volatility, contractual mismatch between supply and transit contracts
(De Jong 2012a: 3) and, consequently, loss of competitiveness, etc. Hence, the Commission
believes that negative consequences of any supply disruption can be diminished by the market,
flexibly offering energy from alternative suppliers. In this way, the exploitation of the EU’s
energy sources and market potentials could become much more efficient. Citing Nicolas Jabko
(2006: 92), ‘[t]he European Union, and especially the European Commission, stepped into
energy politics and regulation by becoming the watchdog of liberalisation’. Subsequently, the
Commission has pushed for unbundling of energy production from energy transmission or other
kinds of unbundling, rationalised by Barosso as follows:
If a company sells electricity and gas and at the same time owns the networks, it has every incentive
to make sure that its competitors do not get fair access to “its” grid. This includes, of course,
refusing to build the new lines and interconnectors that will bring more competition on its home
market. (RAPID 2007)
Consequently, national champions and international giants of the EU were to be dismantled,
removing destination restrictions and offering more space to free trade, and competition and all
benefits related to it. This process would necessitate a comprehensive involvement of
supranational coordination, possibly leading to Common Energy Policy, so much desired by the
Commission. Moreover, through linking liberalisation with energy security, the environmental
protection and climate change, social cohesion, economic competitiveness and other policy
topics, the Commission hopes to perform more efficiently. Not only are different objectives
achieved simultaneously but the outcomes are likely mutually supportive and synergic. For
example, linking energy market liberalisation and combating climate change, energy
dependence, falling competitiveness and rising unemployment, this transition offers a solution
to these problems areas (see chapter 3). To sum up, the Commission is convinced that the
market approach will provide the EU with sustainability, security, diversity in energy supply and
mutual solidarity, while excluding the negative sides of bilateral agreements. (McGowan 2008:
90-95; Natorski and Surrallés 2008: 75-77)
However, the process of market liberalisation has proved to be extraordinarily protracted due to
a lot of reluctance or even resistance from some nation states. Francis McGowan states that
re-emergence of national security thinking in energy can be observed since 2006 as a reaction to
the recurrent disruption of energy supply from Russia through the Ukraine and Belarus. As in
the 1970s, the post-2006 supply crisis has led to nationalisation of energy security. Opponents
argue that liberalisation or even subsequent Europeanisation of energy governance would
deprive nation states of the existing energy supply security by diminishing individual
negotiation power in energy matters vis-à-vis supply countries, in which the loss of strong
national energy champions would play a crucial role. The Commission’s incompetence in
resolving the various energy crises in the late 2000s merited such criticisms.
15
Therefore, it can be concluded that countries, where energy imports based on bilateral
agreements have had a long history and have been, yet, seen as relatively reliable, where energy
import dependence is high, where national champions are still cherished and where little
Europeanisation spirit rules, oppose the Commission’s liberalising approach, such as France,
Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Latvia, Luxembourg, Slovakia, the UK. Some of these
countries, such as France, Germany and Italy are even direct opponents of intergovernmental
cooperation, transparency and information-sharing on bilateral energy deals since security of
energy is, according to them, an exclusive concern of their national governance (Youngs 2009a:
34-38). Lithuania and Latvia are prime examples of how dependence on an energy supply
monopolist and the consequent fear of upsetting their supplier weigh heavily on their stance
towards EU liberalisation policy (Interview 2, 3). Such resource nationalism thinking is,
according to McGowan (2008: 99), demonstrated by similar tendencies in Africa, Latin America
and Central Asia. Only countries, which have a strong belief in virtues of the market
liberalisation, and countries which are strongly self-interested in deeper integration, such as
Spain, Lithuania (Interview 2) etc. support the liberalisation and subsequent Europeanisation of
the energy sector. Consequently, there is very little unity perceivable in the energy sector among
the involved parties of the EU. (Youngs 2009a: 36-39; 2010: 113; De Jong 2012a: 5)
Olga Khrushcheva (2011: 218) calls this disunity as ‘alarming incoherence’. Whereas some wish
to liberalise and further Europeanise their energy sectors, others see such developments as
unnecessary or even as inconceivable and essentially dangerous. Next to these positions, as
McGowan (2008: 99) states, some countries (the Netherlands and the UK) do support
liberalisation but oppose Europeanisation. It is not startling that such a diversity of internal
preferences among 27 Member States has very negative consequences to the external leverage
of the EU as a whole. Such internal inconsistency provides rivals with an opportunity to take
advantage. The lack of cohesion seriously undermines the collective bargaining power of the
Union and smaller and energy dependent Member States vis-à-vis energy supply countries and
major energy supply companies, while improving their negotiation power vis-à-vis the EU. Thus
with the abatement of negotiating power, the diffusion of the EU’s norms and milieu goals is
seriously compromised, and even is some quarters encounters complete resistance. In this way,
the asymmetrical relationship between the EU and its partners/rivals determines, what the
subjects of negotiation are and to what extent the EU can exert influence over these negotiations
(Kasčiūnas and Vaičiūnas 2007: 49). So, internal incoherence and disunity among the Member
States deprives the EU of a significant share of its external leverage.
With energy liberalisation being a milieu goal, Youngs (2010: 111) states that ‘[t]he rules and
regulations of the internal market are defined as the key foundation to the EU’s international
projection in energy matters.’ By exporting its own model of free trade and calling it as a
European value or norm, the EU aims to adjust the international environment in order to reach
its self-centred security objectives. The EU is handicapped by its monopolistic suppliers, who,
because of their vast natural resources capabilities, are able to wield an great array of power and
influence on it and its Member States. Investment opportunities of the supplier states in the
Internal Market often exceed those available to Europeans in these said states (Kasčiūnas and
Vaičiūnas 2007: 50). Unlike the situation in countries which have partly or fully adopted the
acquis communautaire, the free market idea has found significantly fewer supporters in the most
energy producing countries (McGowan 2008: 98). The Chatham House researchers (Lahn etc.
2009: 5, 22) conclude that ‘countries with energy resources are resistant to the predominant EU
16
model of market governance because they perceive it as operating in their comparative
disadvantage’, being bolstered by the ‘asymmetry of market between producer and consumer
countries in favour of the former’. Sijbren de Jong (2012a: 3) emphasises, that unbundled and
liberalised supply markets imply less demand stability for the suppliers. Therefore, it is little
wonder that the supplier states balk at embracing liberalisation. The EU’s inability to gain the
upper hand in bargaining can be attributed to its chronically high energy dependence and the
preferences disarray that permeates its Member States. Overall, it can be concluded that the EU’s
liberalisation efforts in supply countries have proved to be predominantly ineffective. (Belyi
2009: 208-211, 209)
The failure of dissemination of the liberal market approach in energy as one of the European
values is best represented by Russia’s position towards the Energy Charter Treaty. The ECT ‘is
designed to promote energy security through the operation of more open and competitive
energy markets, while respecting the principles of sustainable development and sovereignty
over energy resources’ (Energy Charter: 1994 Treaty). Then special attention must be paid to
the so called Transit Protocol, an essential part of the Treaty. Its present form
would address critical issues for energy transportation networks, in particular the conditions for
access to networks and the stipulation that tariffs charged for energy transit must be objective,
non-discriminatory and cost-reflective. (Energy Charter 2004: Energy Transit)
This article advocates market liberalisation through unbundling the market chain, dismantling
those structures that might inhibit free trade. It suggests free access to energy extraction and
production and other investment possibilities. Consequently, bilateral agreements would have
to be replaced by free market logic. However, since the monopolistic character of the Russian
energy sector appears to be politically advantageous more to Russia than to the EU, especially in
times of higher energy prices (Luciani 2011: 6-10) and alarming EU’s internal incoherence
(Kasčiūnas and Vaičiūnas 2007: 48; Luciani 2011: 6-10), Russia is provided only little incentive
to participate in this liberalisation process.
Participating in liberalisation would deal a body blow to Gazprom, a powerful Russian
monopolist and Moscow’s weapon in holding the EU to ransom. Despite being a signatory to the
Energy Charter Treaty (1991/1994), Russia never ratified it, thus negating its implementation.
In the language of realism, the EU has no sufficient leverage to compel Russia to implement
liberalisation in the energy sector. Russia’s huge resources allow it to repeatedly spurn the
advances of the EU (Belyi 2009: 211-214; McGowan 2008: 97-99). When it became clear that the
Energy Charter was not in effect in Russia, the 3rd Energy Package was introduced in 2007 (in
force 2009). The EU perceived this as a tool to ‘open the internal energy market in exchange for
access to foreign markets, also allowing for the protection of the internal market against those
states that have not liberalised their energy sectors in equal measure’ (De Jong 2012a: 2).
Barroso stated in 2007:
[W]e need to place tough conditions on ownership of assets by non EU companies to make sure that
we all play by the same rules. This is about fairness; it is about protecting fair competition. It is not
about protectionism. (RAPID 2007)
However, Russia and others understood it as legally incompatible with the EU-Russia
partnership and cooperation agreement provisions on non-discrimination, and thus very
disadvantageous to them. Since the reciprocity clause would have directly negative
17
consequences to Gazprom’s market share in the Internal Market, Russia saw it as depriving its
companies of a large share of profits. Subsequently, Russia reacted by adopting regulatory
measures in 2009 disadvantaging non-Russian companies, maintaining the monopolistic
character of Gazprom and regulating out European energy giants, such as BP and Shell, from the
Russian market. Algeria, with its state supported monopoly Sonatrach, supplies 18% of the EU’s
gas, adopted a similar stance to that of Russia. Consequently, both Russia and Algeria have so far
ignored the reciprocity clause. They see no need to unbundle particularly when the EU itself
does not appear to implement unbundling internally. Also, the EU has abandoned its liberal
argument to defend itself from external energy monopolist giants by liberalisation and
unbundling. As Sijbren de Jong (2012a: 5) puts it,
In the energy relations between the EU and Russia, reciprocal market access remains one of the
thorniest issues. (…) [i]t is fair to assume that hitherto Brussels has had little leverage in Moscow to
persuade Russia to change its position on the matter.
Basically, the EU does not seem to be equipped with sufficient capacity to disseminate its market
norm beyond its borders. As a soft power, the EU is unable to change the international milieu.
(De Jong 2012a: 2-3; McGowan 2008: 97-101; Youngs 2010: 113)
Furthermore, the EU’s dissemination of human rights and the rule of law through its external
energy policy has been non-convincing and ineffectual. The Commission has been extremely
cautious in its dealing with producer states, where human rights violations are prevalent, thus
putting its self-interest above the very values in claims to espouse. Andrei V. Belyi (2009: 208209) states that EU’s energy security strategy makes an exception to the EU’s appearance as a
postmodern civilian and normative power. For example, in the Gulf States, Belyi argues the EU is
‘unable to wield any influence comparable to that of the US’. As a part of its institutionalised
relations through the Gulf Cooperation Council, only security cooperation, arms sales and free
trade topic belongs to the subjects discussed, while other European values and norms are
usually excluded and ignored. Further, moving to Latin America, where Venezuela prefers to set
stronger national control over energy resources, the EU does not dare to push for
implementation of its norms, since the existing relationship between Venezuela and the EU is
already very frail (Youngs 2010: 115, 120). Furthermore, the Commission has been supervising
the construction of the new gas pipeline Nabucco from Azerbaijan and also from Turkmenistan
to Europe, two countries characterised by a large democratic deficit. However, Sijbren de Jong
(2012b) asserts that it has become clear that human rights, in particular the rule of law and
democracy have been decoupled from the EU deals in the gas-rich Central Asian countries. It has
been generally advised that
‘the Union should rather take a pragmatic stance and position itself better compared to Russia and
China who managed to seize opportunities, which the EU had largely missed’ prevalently because of
its inconsistent insistence on human rights reforms. (…) If the EU is serious about its attempts to
secure Turkmen gas – or other sources for that matter – an approach whereby priority in the short
to medium term is given to engagement through hydrocarbon cooperation gains increased
legitimacy through the argument that Russia and China do not play by the same rules. Moreover, it
is safe to say that after acquiring a gas contract, Moscow and Beijing are unlikely to care much
about democratic reform in the region. (De Jong 2012b: 5-6)
A gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to China has been already finished and put into operation.
So, put simply, if the EU conditions its interest in Central Asian and Caucasian gas by the
18
human rights, it will flow rather to Russia and/or China than to the EU. So, in the short term,
energy interests and human rights in Central Asia seem to be irreconcilable. Again, derived
from the examples of the Gulf states, Venezuela and Central Asian countries, the EU is
incapable of exerting influence in the international sphere due its internal incoherence, high
dependence and limited prospects for a substantial change, as previously discussed. Neither
EU’s normative conditionality nor the power of the Internal Market appears to be sufficient
and the international milieu has remained resistant to EU’s governance. Hence, in this
context, soft normative governance seems to be deficient.
Last but not least, Richard Youngs (2010: 9) argue, that the EU’s overall commitment to
normative milieu goals, such as effective multilateralism, liberalism and human rights has
indeed become increasingly vague. He states, that analyses of different policy areas of the EU,
such as energy strategy, show evidence ‘to sustain the single thesis that the EU’s external
policies are increasingly illiberal. Even though
[c]laims are still ritually made that the EU supports multilateral process as intrinsically valuable in
itself, regardless of the outcomes it produces (…), European governments are showing signs of (…)
contingent multilateralism – with EU member states more instrumentally selective in their
observance of international rules now that global system no longer provides for their own
overwhelming hegemony. (Youngs 2010: 36-37)
According to Realists, this ‘multilateralism of convenience’ (Youngs 2010: 31-33), i.e. EU’s
adaptation to the imminent multipolar world order, comprises EU’s instrumental cooperation on
a bilateral basis with emergent poles, such as China, India and Brazil in order to constitute
bandwagoning behaviour, ensure its own security and balance their geopolitical involvement in
strategic development in Africa. More generally, some argue that the EU’s commitment to state
equality and pure multilateralism is in practice constrained by the emergent multipolar political
order demanding a more realistic approach to foreign affairs. Consequently, current EU’s
promotion of multilateralism seems to be increasingly conceived as a means towards a managed
form of multipolarity, where the EU determines the basic rules of game and other norms. As
Youngs (2010: 37) put it, EU’s commitment to multilateralism is ‘a means of smoothing the way
to a managed form of multipolarity’, rather than a means to thicken or deepen liberal
cosmopolitanism. The EU is ‘”egoistically geopolitical” but seeks to mask this with rule-based
discourse’ (Youngs 2010: 115).
Overall, to conclude, this section has revealed that the EU is only partially successful in achieving
its milieu objectives (not only in the energy sector) through its value-based and normative
governance. The EU has proved to be constrained by three main factors:
1. high dependence on energy exporters and little prospect for a relief;
2. considerable internal incoherence characterised by wide diversity of preferences in
energy governance among Member States and between the Member States and the
Commission, e.g. Europeanisation and liberalisation of the energy sector;
3. the changing international environment generated by emergent multipolar world order.
The process of liberalisation of the energy market served as an example of EU’s milieu
means/objective governance, demonstrating its inability to implement a free market discourse
beyond EU’s borders. Since neither liberalisation nor commitment to human right, as normative
tools and milieu goals, have proven to be effective, it can be concluded that, in energy, the EU
19
lacks sufficient capabilities to successfully promote its favourable milieu, thus failing as a major
player in the emerging multipolar international environment. The next chapter will show how
clean energy development can address this issue.
20
3: Clean energy development
Low-carbon clean energy is often primarily understood as an environmentally sound strategy,
developed to address environmental deterioration caused through human intervention.
Environmental protection and climate change mitigation are thus presented as European norms,
by which clean energy development moves to a normative dimension (Manners 2002: 243).
However, this chapter aims at challenging this assumption emphasising that the EU’s clean
energy policies contain genuine elements of self-interest, aside from the normative justification
of sustainable development and combating climate change. The European Commission officially
states that the EU’s policy of clean energy development is designed around a triad of policy
objectives: energy security, competitiveness and climate change:
More renewable energy will enable the EU to cut greenhouse emissions and make it less
dependent on imported energy. And boosting the renewables industry will encourage
technological innovation and employment in Europe. (Commission: Renewable energy)
Historically, norms of sustainability and climate change seem to be the crucial driving force
behind clean energy discourse, because neither the energy security crises nor the urge to boost
the EU’s competitiveness have managed to deploy renewables, energy efficiency and other clean
energy aspects to such a revolutionary extent as the recent perception of environmental
degradation. Therefore, having outlined the current policy framework of clean energy
development, this chapter will further focus on the evolution of the EU’s environmental policies
and its integration to other, mostly energy strategies culminating in its acquisition of global
leadership in climate change policies. Energy security and competitiveness rationales will be
considered as next concepts officially justifying clean energy development, while greatly
profiting from the EU´s normative commitment to climate change mitigation and low-carbon
energy transition. Additionally, this chapter will also present two other concepts, which are
positively affected by clean energy development and which contribute to sustaining the EU’s
position both internally and externally, namely the EU project’s legitimacy and coherence on
energy policies. This chapter will show that clean energy development as in its official wording
cannot be labelled merely as a normative strategy, because has come to contain self-interest and
is a factor in what the Neorealists call the accumulation of power. This chapter concludes that
the EU’s normative commitment to climate change mitigation through clean energy produces
capabilities for effective external governance as a normative power.
3.1. Sustainability and climate change
Current policy framework
The current energy strategy in the EU was presented in the 2009 Climate and Energy Package
(Commission: The EU climate and energy package; Energy Roadmap 2050). As elucidated below,
climate and energy issues have become intensely intertwined as the energy sector is responsible
21
for approximately 80% of global GHG2 emissions (60% in Europe), which are the main cause of
climate deterioration (EEA 2012). The essence of this legislative bundle is the promotion of
sustainability in the energy sector by means of introducing 20/20/20 mandatory targets: a cut
of 20% (possibly 30%) of GHG emission from 1990 levels, an increase of the share of renewable
energy to 20% and improvements in energy efficiency by 20%, all of which are to be fulfilled by
2020 (Directive 2009/28/EC). Aside from these targets, the 2009 Climate and Energy Package
announced a comprehensive revision of the EU Emission Trading System (ETS), which is
according to Donald MacKenzie (2009, 137) ‘the Union’s main tool for combating global
warming’ launched in 2005. It was proposed that this should be achieved through the
substitution of a system of national caps by a system of a single EU cap, accompanied by yearly
cuts. Free allocation of emissions allowances should be gradually replaced by auctioning, applied
first in the energy sector. Related to ETS, national GHG targets are to be adjusted according to
relative wealth of individual Member States, which is known under the so-called effort sharing
decision on emission targets in sectors not included in the EU ETS regime, such as transport
(excl. aviation), waste, agriculture and buildings. Further, the EU declared its commitment to the
development and subsequent deployment of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) through the
announcement of a legal framework for the environmentally safe use of CCS technology in coal
and gas sectors (Commission: The EU climate and energy package ). The EU’s energy technology
policy established by the EU’s SET-Plan, (The European Strategic Energy Technology Plan),
should remain ensuring the overall boost in research, innovation and technological progression
in the clean energy development (Commission: SET-Plan; Commission: Roadmap 2050). For
completeness, Christian Egenhofer and Monica Alessi (2013: 2) complement this overview with
two more pieces of legislation related to the 2009 Package, namely the regulation on CO2
emissions by cars and new environmental quality standards for fuel and biofuels.
2009 Climate and Energy Package
1.
20/20/20 strategy
2.
ETS revision
3.
4.
5.
6.
CCS development
SET-Plan
Transport: cars
Fuels and biofuels
 20%/30% GHG reduction (1990 levels) by 2020
 20% of energy from renewables by 2020
 20% improvement of energy efficiency by 2020
 National caps replaced by a single EU system
 Effort sharing mechanism
Legal framework
Reasserted, further developed
CO2 to be reduced
New quality standards to be developed
In this way, the EU expects to approximate the realisation of its 2050 Energy Roadmap
objectives, a long-term set of targets in the socio-economic sector of energy (and other GHG
intensive sectors, such as transport) aiming at a significant decarbonisation of the concerned
policy areas. Therefore, the 2050 targets contextualise the current developments policies in the
EU’s energy and environmental sectors as intermediate processes aiming at the decarbonisation
of its economy and society. Even though there is no exact scenario of how Europe in 2050 should
look like, the European Commission states that the EU’s socio-economic sectors incl. energy
should resemble the following picture:
2
Greenhouse gases are chemical compounds which damage the ozone layer and contribute climate change. The most
common greenhouse gases are H20 (water vapor), CO2 (carbon dioxide), CH4 (methane), NO2 (nitrous oxide), 03 (ozone)
and compounds consisting halogen elements: F (fluorine), Cl (chlorine), Br (Bromine), I (Iodine) and At (Astatine). Levels of
greenhouse gases are usually measured in CO2 equivalent.
22
2050 Energy Roadmap
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Overall demand for energy per capita has been decreased by approximately 40% compared
to 2005/2006 values.
Energy supply has been technologically diversified: renewables count for 97% of electricity
consumption and 75% of overall energy consumption. Natural gas, coal and uranium have
become obsolete energy sources and are used only to a negligible extent.
Electricity plays a much more important role (incl. transport) than ever before.
Energy production has been highly decentralised and dispersed.
The risk of energy price volatility has been considerably lowered due to decrease in
external dependencies on fossil fuels (fall from current 58% to about 35-45% in 2050).
New technologies and infrastructural networks have ensured more efficient generation,
transmission, distribution and saving of energy.
All of these steps have made the EU generate about 80-95% less GHG than in 1990.
Source: Commission: Energy Roadmap.
As a part of the 2050 indicative trajectory, the Commission identifies natural gas, uranium and
coal used by Carbon Capture and Storage technology to be crucial transition fuels enabling
subsequent gradual marginalisation of ‘dirty’ fossil fuels by clean energy technologies. By 2050
none of these fuels should have an important share in the total energy mix of the EU. Aside from
this, the energy transition should be intensively stimulated by carbon pricing, intended to
increase the costs of energy generated from high-carbon fossil fuels, thus advantaging new, lowcarbon ways (Commission: Energy Roadmap). Overall, the Climate and Energy Package of 2009
and other legislative measures should be seen in the context of a long-term strategy towards
low-carbon Europe. Next to the Climate and Energy Package’s orientation towards the 2050
picture, it should be also put to a historical perspective to trace back its ideational origins.
Historical context
Current energy policies should be understood as a consequence of a gradually increasing
popular and political commitment to address the problem of environmental degradation. In the
EU’s institutional setting, this has been represented by the establishment of the EU’s
environmental policy at the Paris Summit in 1972 and its subsequent gradual integration in
other policy areas, including the field of EU energy. Edith Vanden Brande (2009: 161) indicates
that it was already in the 1970s when Europe witnessed the first attempt of environmental
policies to extent to other policy areas: the First Environmental Action Programme (1972)
unprecedentedly addressed issues of environmental degradation caused by unsustainable
economic growth, such as acid rain, thinning of the ozone layer, air quality and diverse kinds of
pollution. Vande Brande (2009: 161) further rationalises the politicisation and Europeanisation
of environment as a consequence of the societal change of the 1960s, when people began to
consider different social, environmental and humanistic sides of human life in an increasingly
critical way. Yet, until the end of the 1980s, policies with the spirit of environmental protection
remained to be perceived as economically constraining and thus unconstructive. This limited the
extent to which environmental issues were designed, implemented and integrated to other
policy areas. Therefore, the 1970s and 1980s was a period of gradual expansion of
environmental policies to other policy areas.
23
However, in the 1990s this situation changed significantly, as environmental issues became a
dominant part of a ‘new big idea’ of sustainable development. This implies that environmental
concerns were also addressed by the entrepreneurial sector and economic policies, aside from
public opinion. Vanden Brande (2009: 158-162) states that it emerged as a synthesis of
economic competitiveness, long-term thinking perspective and moral responsibility for
environmental preservation. However, the most persuasive argument of the promotion and
implementation of sustainable development has been a simple economic cost benefit analysis: in
the long run, costs of environmental pollution significantly outweigh the benefits of
unconstrained economic growth. Therefore, sustainable development is presented as a win-win
situation. From the Maastricht Treaty on, the discourse of sustainable development is anchored
among the main values of the EU as ‘a vision of progress that integrates immediate and
longer-term objectives, local and global action, and regards social, economic and environmental
issues as inseparable and interdependent components of human progress’ (Commission:
Sustainable development). Consequently, sustainable development has appeared in many
policies and programmes of the EU, notably its energy strategy.
Subsequently, the global threat of climate change has amplified the dynamics of the trend of the
extension of ‘green’ thinking and its integration across various policy areas and high
international politics, as the intervention of environmentalist policies became urgent. In 2001
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published an analysis Working Group I:
The Scientific Basis on the relation between human activities and climate
change/global warming. It concluded that




the global average surface temperature has increased over the 20th century by about 0.6°C,
temperatures have risen during the past four decades in the lowest 8 kilometres of the
atmosphere, [as a consequence of which]
snow cover and ice extent have decreased, [and]
global average sea level has risen and ocean heat content has increased. (IPCC 2001a)
Essentially, the IPCC states that all of these recent modifications can be ascribed to
anthropogenic factors reflected in excessive GHG forcing (i.e. production of GHG emissions) since
the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century (IPCC 2001b). If no action is taken to thwart the
present trend of economic growth based on carbon combustion and consequent production of
GHG, the IPCC predicts a gradual environmental deterioration, serious damage to biosphere,
atmosphere and kryosphere stability. There would be a massive transformation of conditions of
human life on the planet, such as geographic alterations leading to desertification, frequent
occurrence of climatic extremes, food and drinking water scarcity, global increase of ocean level
jeopardising coastal areas, glacier and permafrost melting and subsequent release of even more
GHG will most likely occur. In 2007, the IPCC (IPCC 2007) claimed to have definitively confirmed
the validity of climate change, re-insisting on the necessity to address the problem. Overall,
climate change was established as an undeniable transnational threat caused by irresponsible
and unsustainable activities of the humankind thus far. So, it was not only public opinion,
entrepreneurs convinced of the necessity of sustainability, but also science who oblige high
politics to pursue the issue of environmental degradation.
24
Evolution of the EU’s Climate and Energy policies
Energy Roadmap 2050
2020 targets
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
1998-2006:
12 Decisions/Directives/R
egulations related to GHG
emissions and climate change
mitigation mainly in energy
and transport
25
2010
2020
2030
2040
2050
Climate leadership: securitisation
Barry Buzan (2007: 118) emphasises that climate action, as any other action addressing
environmental threats, must be collective and on a global scale: ‘[v]ery few states have the
capability to control the macro-developments by themselves and so the appeal to national
security has no practical logic unless it can be linked to collective action’. The Commission
concurs, and states that ‘fighting climate change can only make sense on a global scale. Europe
on its own will not be able to halt climate change’ (Interview 1). Such a global transition must be
ideally pushed forward and supervised by a trustworthy and respected leader. Consequently,
the first step towards such a collective action was made by the UN (UNFCCC) 3 by means of the
Kyoto Protocol (adopted in 1997 and enforced in 2005). Officially, this international agreement
had two central aims: first, to multilaterally disseminate the IPCC’s conclusions and, second, to
persuade attending countries to collectively adopt necessary measures to address the climate
problem as a transnational threat. Therefore, the Kyoto Protocol and subsequent arrangement
committed involved parties to set legally binding targets on emitting GHG in developed
countries and introduced supportive mechanisms to realise these ambitions, such as the
Emission Trading System (ETS), Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint
Implementation (JI), the last two of which enabled developing countries to contribute to solving
the GHG issue (Roche Kelly, Oberthür and Pallemaerts 2010: 11, UNFCCC: Kyoto Protocol). The
Kyoto Protocol was elaborated and concretised by means of the Marrakech Accords in 2001 and
further internationalised at the UNFCCC Bali conference in 2007 (Oberthür 2008: 2,3). As the
necessity of collective addressing climate change was broadly recognised and as it was believed
to be a win-win scenario in line with the idea of sustainable development, the climate change
discourse was embraced by many countries as a new principal issue of international cooperation
and ‘high politics’ (Oberthür and Roche Kelly 2008: 35).
Prior to the conference in Kyoto, the leader in sustainable development and climate thinking was
the USA. For example, first emissions markets (SO2 and CO2) emerged in the USA already in the
1970s, during the Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations (MacKenzie 2009: 143, 148). However, it
became obvious during Kyoto that the EU claimed a front position in the emerging discourse of
climate change mitigation. The US abandonment of the Kyoto agreement assured the dominance
of the EU in climate issues and its assumption of the mantle of ‘green’ leadership in the world.
(Egenhofer and Alessi 2013: 1; Oberthür and Roche Kelly 2008: 36). In Vanden Brande’s words
(2009: 161), ‘[f]rom the 1990s (…) the EU declared itself as economically, politically, but also
morally predestined to exercise global environmental leadership’. This was considered to be a
relatively natural process on the basis of four main points. Firstly, as Miranda A. Schreurs
(2012: 5) put it, ‘[i]t was recognized that developed countries that have a historically larger
responsibility for greenhouse gas accumulations in the atmosphere should “take the lead in
combating climate change”’. Secondly, Sebastian Oberthür emphasises that the dissemination of
awareness of climate change and sustainable development and its translation to concrete
domestic actions, such as outlined in the 1997 White Paper on renewables, made the EU appear
as domestically the most progressive geopolitical bloc combatting climate change from the
1990s on. Ten years later, the EU unilaterally took measures in combating climate change,
announced its 2050 Roadmap and intermediate targets and in 2010 it even established a DG
3
UNFCCC is an abbreviation of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
26
CLIMA fully dedicated to combat climate action. In this view, the EU’s Climate and Energy
Package as outlined above is an essential part of the EU’s domestic action, a condition sine qua
non in gaining appearance of being a credible leader (Oberthür 2008: 2,3,4, 7-9). Thirdly, David
Criekemans (2010: 84-85, 88-90) concludes that the EU has been a geopolitical unit relatively
strong in clean energy technology fields: the EU Member States are globally the greatest investor
in research, development and innovation and in particular Germany, Spain and Denmark are
home countries to a number of large companies pushing progression forward. Fourthly, the EU’s
international identity as a normative power and global defender of public goods by civilian
means (see chapter 2) on the one hand, and its strong emphasis on the merits of international
cooperation and multilateralism on the other also predestined the EU to become the leader in
climate change mitigation (Vanden Brande 2009: 168; Egenhofer and Alessi 2103: 1; Roche
Kelly, Oberthür and Pallemaerts 2010: 260).
The EU’s normative leadership can be seen as a culmination thus far of the EU’s normative
commitment to addressing the climate problem and, generally, humankind’s unsustainable way
of life. Even though the climate change discourse might have already reached its climax in the
2000’s, the EU has retained its leadership position so far. Despite having appeared to attenuate
its proactivity on climate change at the Copenhagen conference in 2009, the EU still retains
global leadership in this matter. Louise van Schaik (2012: 17) states that, in the meantime, the
EU has reached more internal agreement and cohesion on climate policy, by which it could
recently appear as a united and well-organised political entity ready to make progress in the
internationalisation of climate change mitigation. Groen, Niemann and Oberthür (2013: 51-52)
also state that the EU’s post-Copenhagen activities on climate policies have reasserted the EU’s
leadership. An important factor in keeping the EU’s leading position credible is its clean energy
development and other climate related policies by which low-carbon energy strategies retain
their salience. Oberthür and Roche Kelly (2008: 39) state that the EU’s domestic action not only
provides the EU’s leadership with credibility but it also makes the EU’s leadership aspiration
attractive to internal players, as it is expected to reinforce internationalisation of the EU’s
internal commitments ‘to provide a level of playing field globally’, in which the EU’s has the first
mover advantage. These clean energy policies further legitimise the EU’s international
leadership in this area, which makes the policies very ‘power convenient’ to the EU. Even though
the EU’s official climate strategy is ‘leadership by example’ evolved from a paradigmatic
leadership (Oberthür and Roche Kelly 2009: 35, 39), Louise van Schaik (2012: 7, 8) summarises
four types and four styles of leadership most frequently applied to the study of the EU’s climate
policy:
Type
Style
Structural (related to actor’s hard
power, dependent on its material
resources)
Entrepreneurial (related to diplomatic,
bargaining)
Cognitive (related to definition,
redefinition of interests and ideas)
Symbolic (related to posturing of
political actors, but not followed by a
substantive policy measures)
Heroic (relies on long-term objectives,
accompanied by political will)
Hundrum (incremental, short term,
political will absent)
Transformational (leads to historical
changes)
Transactional (leads to incremental
policy change)
Source: Van Schaik 2012.
27
Contrary to the EU’s Kantian self-image, the EU’s leadership position is not power neutral, since
its transnational recognition naturally engenders an influence on the other players. Oberthür
and Roche Kelly (2008: 37) state, the EU’s ‘leadership approach correlates well with the notion
of the EU as a civilian power in pursuit of a rule-based global governance in keeping with its
normative preference for soft measures’. Therefore, it should be pursued in the name of the
preservation and enhancement of global public goods. Yet, Martin Chemers (2000: 27) states
that leadership in general is ‘a process of social influence in which one [actor] can enlist the aid
and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task’. In other words, leadership is a
kind of discursive hegemony, a process of indirect external governance during which a
hegemon/leader influences internal milieu and developments of other actors. Loren R. Cass
(2007: 9-10, 25, 27) states that ‘[a]ctors may use norms to pursue both ideational and material
interests’, so ‘[n]orms may emerge that do not necessarily reflect the beliefs and preferences of
most actors but rather reveal calculated norm compliance to achieve benefits and avoid costs.’
Therefore, dominance through climate norms does not need to be limited to the protection of
public goods. In such a case, the norm is a catalyst towards supremacy. Hence, climate
leadership is a power-loaded capability in the international system and a tool of exerting
influence over others.
The power quotient inherent in climate change discourse is accentuated by the extent to which it
is securitised. Climate change and the unsustainable way of life are presented as major threats to
the security of states and individuals. The EU has addressed it with great attention, emphasising
the salience of the climate threat, aiming to avoid the worst case scenario. In this context,
however, Barry Buzan argues that placing a topic on the security agenda is a decision with
manipulative elements and far-reaching consequences to the topic securitised but also to both
the securitising agent and the public as a recipient. Not only does securitisation of a
transnational topic appear as a deliberate policy answer to ‘dangerous’ political realities, but
referring to the dangerous ‘world itself is (…) a powerful tool in claiming attention for priority
items in the competition for government attention. It also helps to establish a consciousness of
the importance of issues so labelled in the minds of the population in large’. While this topic is
politicised and thus prioritised, it maintains popular support. Securitisation can even justify
taking extraordinary actions which do not always belong to the accepted mandate of democratic
governance. Therefore, Buzan (2007: 287-289) emphasises that securitisation is often purposed
to generate useful and convenient consequences to those who securitise. Because the EU has
adopted climate change mitigation as one of its external action priorities, it makes the topic
internationally securitised. As stated in the previous chapter, Sandra Lavenex (2004)
contextualises the EU’s involvement in transnational issues such as climate change in order to
ensure its own security, while a leadership position is the most effective way to pursue these
self-regarding interests. Hence, although climate change mitigation is usually seen as a global
Kantian norm, it is power-loaded due to its securitised background, with the Union being one of
the main beneficiaries of this power. In such a case, the EU’s self-regarding interest gains the
appearance of a universalist Kant-based NPE image. Reduced to clean energy policies, they
provide the EU’s climate international leadership with both external and internal credibility,
thus contribute to the maintenance of the profits derived from it. The following paragraphs will
address the two remaining aspects of the policy triad on which clean energy has been built:
competitiveness/employment and energy security. Analysis provided contributes to the
assertion that clean energy development is self-centred and meet the characteristics of
Neorealist logic of international competition and accumulation of power capabilities.
28
Clean energy development
Justification
Competitiveness
and
employment
Justification
Norm:
Sustainable development
&
Climate change mitigation
Energy
security
Environmental sustainability
3.2. Energy security
Another part of the policy triad legitimating the EU’s clean energy development is energy
security. The potential to which energy security can profit from clean energy development is
significant and these benefits serve clean energy development as an important non-normative
source of legitimacy. Currently, there is a large interdependence between the EU and non-EU
energy exporting countries, which has been regularly reminded by recent (threatening) energy
supply crises (Interview 1). However, scholars (Youngs 2009a: 44-49; Lahn etc. 2009: 10, 22;
etc.) emphasise that interdependency can be beneficial for both involved parties, if symmetrical,
because asymmetrical interdependence delivers asymmetrical distribution of benefits. In
Neorealist terms, asymmetrical distribution of benefits is convenient to the prevailing party,
while balanced dependence (in line with the logic of state equality and multilateralism) is
advantageous to parties which would be otherwise disadvantaged. Chapter 2 concluded that the
EU as a normative power is unable to effectively pursue its external interests vis-à-vis energy
exporting countries, such as Russia, Algeria and some Caspian countries due to asymmetrical
interdependence. A reduction of the EU’s energy dependencies on such energy exporting
countries could help the EU enhance its power position towards such energy exporting countries
and regions. Forthcoming paragraphs elaborate on the assumption that climate-based clean
energy development delivers improvements to the EU’s energy security/dependency and these
positive implications provide clean energy policies and actions with necessary legitimacy.
Firstly, clean energy development contributes to the reduction of demand for external fossil
fuels supply. Even though electricity consumption is expected to grow in the future, the Energy
Roadmap 2050 predicts marginalisation of oil, coal (if no CCS is applied) and eventually also gas
through energy efficiency, waste-to-energy and low-carbon energy installations, such as nuclear
and renewables (Commission 2009). The link between these internal developments and the EU’s
external relations is explained by Youngs (2009a: 27-28) as follows: ‘investing in domestic
29
energy efficiency was now [late 2000s] the best form of foreign policy. (…) [E]nergy security was
a matter of reducing external dependencies, rather than strengthening interdependencies; of
reducing pressures on foreign policy’. Oberthür and Roche Kelly (2008: 43) state that the EU’s
energy supply concerns of the 2000s and ‘the security of future energy supplies to Europe have
lent strong support to the development of stringent climate policies’. Consequently, Oberthür
(2008: 46) and Youngs (2009a: 29) have already expressed some concerns about the impact of
such a strategy on relations between the EU and energy exporting countries. So, some energy
producing countries have already been worried about the EU’s switch to low-carbon energy as
their European sales market is going to gradually dwindle. In a Neo-realist view, these countries
fear a loss of power over the EU, whereby the power scales could gradually turn to the EU’s
advantage. Consequently, the EU should be able to more effectively and pursue its external
governance vis-à-vis these countries.
Secondly, another important power advancement created by clean energy development is its
implication for the EU’s energy mix. The deployment of clean energy development introduces
new sources of energy, which have not only a substitute (above) but also complementary
function. The more the energy mix is diversified, the less dependent on a single source and/or a
single supplier a country or a region is. The positive effects of shale gas extraction on the EU’s
self-sufficiency are obvious (Commission 2012a: 138). Moreover, highly dependent countries
such as Poland and Lithuania have already expressed their particular interest in it, justifying
their choice by the assertion that gas is low-carbon fossil fuel of the future decennia, and
environmentally sounder than coal or oil (Teusch 2012; Youngs 2013: 14). Future construction
in the Internal Energy Market is also expected to strengthen these functions, especially due to
smart grids, high voltage energy highways, all of which are the result of the transition to
low-carbon energy. The case of Lithuania confirms the existence of such strategic
considerations. As far as oil, gas and electricity supply is concerned, Lithuania is largely
dependent on the Russian Federation. According to local reports and the Commission (Interview
2, 3; Commission 2012c), the Lithuanian border price for these energy commodities is among
the highest in Europe, when viewed from a purchasing power parity perspective. Therefore,
Lithuania considers diversification of supply as a main priority of its national strategy:
geographically, it builds new interconnections with neighbouring Member States and Sweden
and with the construction of a new LNG terminal and storage facilities. In addition, it has plans to
build a new nuclear power plant and further develop clean energy (biomass) in order to limit
Russia’s dominance over Lithuanian energy mix (Ministry of Energy of Lithuania 2010). A
Lithuanian spokesperson has stated the following:
this is the strategy how to influence Russia’s leverage over Lithuania. [Renewables] is a very
important option in a long term. (…) It contributes to the energy mix and having the whole
energy mix realised inter alia thanks to renewables, it could change the monopolistic
character of the Russian supply. (Interview 2)
The official further stated that ‘[i]n the future, when EU becomes greener, EU becomes stronger
against Russia’ (Interview 2). Overall, the case of Lithuania demonstrates that diversification of
supply both geopolitically and per source is a way to gain some power by which the EU should
be more resistant to pressures from energy exporting countries in both the political and
economic sense. As an EU official concluded: ‘[t]hat said, a diversification of energy supply of any
kind will lower the leverage others may have over the EU’ (Interview 1).
30
Additionally, some scholars (Verrastro etc. 2010: 24) state that clean energy development will
merely shift geopolitical dependencies, but will not significantly decrease them. They nuance the
enthusiasm based on the positive effects of clean energy deployment on energy self-sufficiency,
stating that ‘such optimism should be tempered by concerns over the global availability (and
concentration) of certain rare earth minerals and elements that will be used to build and run
those new energy systems’. They conclude that these precious minerals and elements (Dy, In, Pt,
Li, La, Re, Rh etc.) ‘may one day replace conventional fuels as strategic commodities (with
associated geopolitical consequences for suppliers and consumers)’. However, as these metals
are extracted in non-EU countries such as China, Canada, Russian Siberia and Sub-Saharan
Africa, the EU is unlikely to become dependent on a single country or region with a relatively
unstable polity. Further, import of precious metals are unlikely to cause infrastructural lock-ins
as in the case of Russia’s oil and gas supply. Hence, if clean energy development does not
promise a substantial decrease of external dependencies, it still does with respect to
diversification of these dependencies both geopolitically and per source.
Overall, all of these implications for the EU’s energy mix and external dependencies on fossil
fuels further justifies the move towards clean energy transition. Importantly, the positive effect
is mutually reinforcing but not purely normative: the power derived from gradual
marginalisation of fossil fuels, balancing interdependencies, enriching energy mix and
dispersion of dependencies makes clean energy development politically, strategically, but also
economically convenient to EU’s energy and overall security, while all of the positive
implications for energy security as summarised above are reached thanks to climate-related
clean energy development. Additionally, when considering clean energy from a long-term
perspective, fossil fuels prices are most likely to gradually rise in accordance with their
increasing scarcity. In order to retain the competitiveness edge, substituting oil and gas by clean
energy sources is probably the most rational decision possible. Hence, clean energy
development might be normative, but also a convenient power tool.
3.3. Competitiveness, growth and employment
Competitiveness, growth and employment is the last set of justification of the EU’s clean energy
development. As in the case of energy security, enhancements in these tree variables are
predominantly self-centred although derived from the EU’s commitment to green policies and
actions. They further impact on the Union’s internal environment and competitiveness, mainly
through the innovations they create, which are crucial to the retention of the EU’s credibility as a
leader in climate control and as a proponent of ‘green’ endeavours. This relationship between
the EU’s normative appearance and the self-centred aspects of competitiveness, growth and
employment makes clean energy development appear as even less purely Kantian-normative.
In the context of the EU, competitiveness, growth and employment became central elements of
the 2000 Lisbon Strategy, in which the EU proclaimed its ambition ‘to become the most
competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable
economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion’ (European Parliament
2000). Vanden Brande (2009: 162) points out that clean energy development was meant to
contribute to this ‘“Lisbon madness” of pursuing high rates of economic growth and (…)
competitiveness goals’ However, Bastiaan van Apeldoorn and Sandy Brian Hager (2010: 215)
conclude, that the Lisbon policy framework undeniably reflects the EU’s self-interest. They state
that Lisbon arose from neo-liberal, neo-mercantilist and social democratic political projects, the
31
last two of them are self-centred: the social elements seek ‘to protect and consolidate the
“European social model” in a supranational regulatory framework’ and the neo-mercantilist
elements are ‘determined to create a big home market –if necessary, protected by European
tariff walls’. Therefore, clean energy development should be also seen as a strategy with selfcentred, power-related elements.
Low-carbon transition is expected to enhance the competitiveness of the EU’s entrepreneurial
sector. Development of a low-carbon economy, currently applied predominantly in the energy
sector, implies a development of a new economic sector or considerable reconstruction of
existing economic sectors to an extent related to low-carbon energy. Being the first who does so
implies creating a comparative advantage over others as far as specific know-how and
experience is concerned. The ECORYS informs that ‘the European companies are performing
well on the global market. In three out of seven sectors (…) the EU has revealed a comparative
advantage’ (ECORYS 2012: 8, 9). In order to retain or even enhance such a position, a highlyinnovative approach must be applied. Among the many observations, an EU official stated the
following:
[i]nnovation is key to Europe’s industrial competitiveness. While mature technologies – in
renewable energy as in any other sector – are also produced in other world regions,
innovation in the renewable energy sector are often coming from Europe and benefits its
industry first. (Interview 1)
Therefore, the EU’s innovation drive is encouraged by, for example, the SET-Plan, the emphasis
on the importance of research and development and on the promotion of the increase in the
amount of highly educated people in Europe (Ferrer, Egenhofer, Alessi 2011). Consequently,
through provision of consistent support to R&D and innovation in sectors related to climate
change, the EU supports its domestic companies through preservation of the first mover
advantage for them (Vanden Brande 2009: 163). This internal progressiveness is not only
beneficial to the competitiveness of individual companies but also to the EU’s position as leader
on climate change. Whether the EU retains its credibility as a climate change leader, will depend
on how it asserts itself against the ambition of the other players, its dedication to the
development of new technology and know-how, and technological and policy assertiveness of
the EU and other leadership aspirants, such as the USA, China, India, Japan, Brazil or any other
ambitious pole of the international system (Criekemans 2011: 90-91).
Additionally, effective utilisation of comparative advantage is expected to boost economic
growth, thereby creating new employment opportunities (Verrastro etc. 2010: 22). As a result of
the Lisbon Strategy, these jobs should be the result of clean energy policies and development of
the research and innovation sectors and their material implementation. Pacini Costa (2009: 115)
confirms this by her assertion that the ‘uptake of PV [photovoltaic cells installations] promotes
new technological chains and the creation of skilled employment, all desired externalities on the
policy-maker perspective’. Focused only on energy efficiency and renewables in the EU,
’[a]ccording to estimates, implementation of energy efficiency measures could lead to 2 million
jobs being created or retained by 2020 and the development of renewable energy sources could
lead to 3 million additional jobs by 2020’ (Commission 2012b). According to estimates, over
370,000 new jobs have already been created in Germany through renewable energy industries
(Schreurs 2012: 7,8). Additionally, according to Bente Johnsen Rygg (2012: 167-175), the
economic and social virtues of clean energy development can be so strong, that they can quite
32
effortlessly relegate negative effects of low-carbon energy installations on the environmental
landscape. Still, the deployment of clean energy installations demonstrates the EU’s dedication
to the green transition
Overall, combating climate change has come to be a new socio-economic sector, in which the EU
has, to a large extent, gained a comparative advantage, using it to boost its economic growth,
increase employment and as a space to demonstrate its dedication to the green transition. As
Vanden Brande (2009: 162) states, ‘Europe endeavours a low-carbon economy to give an
incentive to new investments, job creation and competitiveness’. Such a strategy not only
directly contributes to power enhancements vis-à-vis less competitive countries or countries
adopting climate policies later, but it also contributes to the EU’s internal social cohesion,
economic growth internal and external legitimacy, all of which can be considered to be selfcentred and power-enhancing qualities of the EU.
Some scholars support this assertion by pointing out some measures and stances of the EU
indicating a self-centredness beneficial to the EU’s competitiveness and employment. Louise van
Schaik (2012: 4) claims that climate policies do not exclude protectionist measures aiming at the
preservation of the EU’s competitiveness. Youngs (2009b: 4-5; 2013: 6-11) insists that the
provision of financial support for the deployment of renewables in developing countries by the
EU has been disappointing (with respect to hopes evoked by the EU by its preceding rhetoric),
by which the clean energy technologies and knowledge are not effectively disseminated in such
countries. He emphasises that the EU’s internal and external funding of climate change
mitigation through renewables has been immense, which makes the EU appear as dedicated
rather to its own development than climate change mitigation globally. In addition, free access to
clean energy knowledge has appeared to be less free than stated by the Commission. So, Youngs
(2013: 8) concludes that the EU seems to behave rather as a self-interested mercantilist bloc
than a universalist normative power.
Next to knowledge, the EU seems to also safeguard some of its own production chains related to
clean energy development. Firstly, the EU appears to protect its biofuels production (Erixon
2012). Afionis and Stringer (2012: 117-120) assert that the main objective of the 2009 Directive
on biofuels ‘is to limit imports of biofuels in order to boost their production domestically’.
Basically, the EU gives preferential treatment to its own production of bioethanol and feedstock
by means of high import tariffs justified by their insufficient environmental and social standards.
However, this strategy thwarts further development and enhancements of biofuel chains in
developing countries, which is yet usually less costly, more efficient and sustainable. On the
opposite side, protecting the EU’s biofuels keeps the sector alive in the EU, thus maintains
employment, potential for growth and research and innovation in this economic area. Secondly,
a similar stance can be traced in the domain of solar panels. As a result of Chinese dumping
policies on photovoltaic panels, in May 2013 the Commission introduced a punitive import tariff
at an average of 47.7% on solar panels and components manufactured in China. In December
2013 these tariffs became definite and will apply for two years as of 6 December 2013. Notably,
the main motivation for this reaction has been to save European solar panels industries from an
imminent price war and possible collapse, even though making solar panels less expensive could
be only beneficial to combating climate change (RAPID 2013; EU Business). Overall, Youngs
(2010: 128) and Van Schaik (2012: 4) contextualise these two cases as a recent tendency of
major EU Member States, such as France and Germany, calling for a closed door policy for lowcarbon products from emerging powers which are not explicitly involved in the climate norm
33
settled by Kyoto. Whether it is knowledge or production chain protectionism, it contributes to
the maintenance of the EU’s competitiveness, employment, potential economic growth and
international leadership, which are important sources of domestic legitimacy and consolidation,
but also external leverage.
Thus, the current EU’s clean energy policies are built on and justified by norms of sustainable
development and climate change mitigation, but also on their positive effects on energy security,
competitiveness, growth and employment, legitimacy and the EU’s position in the international
system through climate leadership. So it is not only the sustainability and climate norms, which
legitimises clean energy policies but also, crucially, the EU’s profit from it. Therefore, even
though clean energy development is often presented as a normative policy objective addressing
the causes of climate change, it is nuanced by the fact that a large ratio of its official
rationalisation is self-centred and not only normative. In the following two sections, this
conclusion will be complemented by examining two components not officially addressed by the
Commission: the legitimacy of the EU project and coherence in energy matters.
Coherence
energy
issues
Legitimacy
of the EU
3.4. Internal legitimacy
The first of the areas positively affected by clean energy development, though not overtly
proclaimed in the Commission’s description of the low-carbon energy transition is legitimacy of
the European Union project (Oberthür and Roche Kelly 2008: 43). The current post-Maastricht
legitimacy situation of the EU can be seen as a crisis due to a long-term trend of increasingly
critical and negative public opinion towards to the project of the European integration
(Segers 32). The on-going protracted crisis of neoliberalism and Eurozone has intensified this
public disillusionment. As a consequence, resolute ‘Europe of Results’, further democratisation
and policy adjustments towards the average citizen’s worries and interests have been identified
to be the healing procedure to be initiated as soon as possible (Vanden Brande 2008: 9, 10;
Orbie 2009a: 9). In this regard, as Vanden Brande remarks, the EU and especially the
Commission adopted sustainability and climate change discourse as a rational response to the
legitimacy crisis:
In its quest for legitimacy the EU is looking for topics that people can relate to in the hope
that this will make people feel connected to the EU. (…) Energy and climate change are policy
areas where Eurobarometer results show that people want the EU to do more and where
34
people see the EU more fit for the job than the national level. (…) [T]he EU uses climate
change and the way it communicates on climate change as a way to position itself not only
towards the rest of the world but also towards its own citizens in an attempt to stimulate
European identity formation. (Vanden Brande 2008: 6)
Competitiveness gains, economic growth and positive dynamics in employment, energy security
and the prestige through combating climate change locally and internationally are concepts
which make the EU’s activities somehow perceivable by a majority of the EU’s citizens.
Regarding the EU’s leadership in the climate change mitigation, Van Schaik (2012: 5) states that
in the context of recent legitimacy crisis, ‘the EU moreover started to refer to climate change as
one of the issues where the EU was able to implement effective policies and to play its part
internationally’. Accordingly, climate change has been believed to reassert the relevance, social
and popular engagement and overall advantageousness of the EU project.
Climate change can also contribute to the legitimacy improvements through its positive effects
on the Europeans’ identity. Thomas Diez states that a normative leadership is a factor in creating
a normative difference through the process of othering. To be a leader on the climate norm
means to intersubjectively consider others as different in the softest case, and therefore inferior,
thus violating universalist/Kantian principles, constituting an existential threat. This constructs
the leader’s own identity, which is as Vanden Brande states ‘a helpful tool to legitimise a regime
such as the EU’. ‘Green’ Europeans are concerned about a global climate problem and it is ‘their’
Union which addresses it effectively, through global leadership role, while most other countries
remain more reserved on that issue and might neglect its significance. Van Schaik (2012: 5) also
says that ‘the EU’s climate policy (…) became strongly affiliated with the EU’s self-image and
identity’. Overall, identity helps achieve an agreement between the Europeans and the EU
institutions, thus pending legitimacy to the EU. Because legitimacy is a prerequisite or a central
fundament of the EU fabric (although it might be taken as a matter for granted), any
enhancement of it contributes to the power of the EU over both the internal European
environment and vis-à-vis the other players in the international system. A consolidated,
internally congruent and stable player in the international system is more likely to prevail than a
unit suffering from legitimacy gap.
3.5. Coherence
The last concept concerned is the coherence in energy policy preferences and procedures among
Member States and the EU institutions. As Andrei V. Belyi states, the energy sector constitutes
one of the most paradoxical sectors of the European integration projects, as ‘neither the energy
security nor the energy market regulation has ever become the subject of supranational policy
[while energy] had been the main cause of the European integration’ in the form of ECSC and
EURATOM (Belyi 2009: 203, 204). This limited integration degree implies limited coherence and
vice versa. The integration degree, i.e. higher EU competence (exclusive, shared, complementary)
contributes to unity in external representation whether through creating higher preference
homogeneity and EU socialisation or directly, while higher preference homogeneity and EU
socialisation legitimises higher EU competence (Van Schaik 2013: 195). So, coherence and
integration can have a mutually reinforcing relationship. However, Louise van Schaik
(2013: 193-197) points out that the positive effect of this relation in reaching external advantage
35
cannot be taken for granted. Unity in the EU’s external representation does not need to lead to
more effectiveness in international negotiations when the EU becomes ‘too’
coherent/EU-centred. In such a case, this coherence can have adversary effects on the
negotiation milieu. However, in the context of alarming incoherence on energy security and
liberalisation within the EU (Khrushcheva 2011), a more coherent external action in the form of
more preference homogeneity and/or a higher degree of EU competence is most likely to
improve the bargaining power vis-à-vis other actors of the international system, especially
energy producing countries. Eventually, the more coherence in these areas the EU acquires, the
more effectively it can pursue its dissemination of norms, convenient rules and practices (see
chapter 2).
According to Nicolas Jabko (2006: 100-102, 119), the construction of internal coherence in
energy matters has been purposed by attempts to gradually Europeanise the energy sector
through a common agenda of market liberalisation and the vision of the Internal Energy Market.
However, as Andrei V. Belyi (2009: 214) states, the liberalisation process has been very
protracted and not very efficient as most power over the energy sector remains disintegrated at
the Member States level. Moreover, the liberalisation rationale referring to the benefits of
building the Internal Energy Market seems to have lost its intensity particularly due the recent
crisis of neoliberalism reinforced by the long-term opposition of some large Member States to
the liberalisation of the energy sector (Youngs 2009a: 36-37).
In this context, ‘green’ thinking could partially fill the gap left by the weakened market idea and
be a next factor in forging more coherence among the Member States and the EU institutions.
The norms of sustainable development and climate change mitigation could boost mutual
understanding through harmonisation of preferences, as universal norms oblige actors to
comply. If the governments and citizens are to (re-)confirm the validity of their postmodern
enlightenment and responsibility derived from it, they have to act in harmony with such norms.
Thus, having penetrated the public and political discourses, the green norms have facilitated the
integration of the EU’s vision on low-carbon transition to supranational and national policies
and other energy related topics (Natorski and Surrallés 2008: 71, 73; Groen, Niemann, Oberthür
2013). Consequently, if Member States disagree on their approaches to energy security, market
liberalisation or other disputed topics, they do agree on the salience of combating climate
change in the framework of sustainable development, which is reflected in clean energy
development and other climate-related policies. So, consensus on sustainability and climate
norms can be expected to generate some convergence of individual interests and preferences.
Next to the normative essence, the adherence to green ideas can be expected to reinforce
coherence also through its anticipated positive effects on energy self-sufficiency. As Youngs
(2009a: 32) put it, ‘officials were also minded to argue that the EU’s leadership in climate change
negotiations would serve as an additional basis for convergence on the more strictly strategic
external aspects of energy policy [energy security]’. Energy security is a highly politicised and
securitised policy, thus national concept due to the EU’s limited ability to control its external
energy supplies (Natorski and Surrallés 2008: 73-75). The positive effect of clean energy
development on the EU’s energy self-sufficiency might contribute to some de-securitisation of
energy security, or at least to limit further extension of the energy supply securitisation, which
could partially de-legitimise national authorities from pursuing purely national strategies in the
matter of energy security, such as the German-Russian project NordStream. Ideally, this partial
de-politicisation of energy supply could offer some space to de-nationalisation and subsequent
36
Europeanisation, through which Member States’ preferences would become predominantly
harmonised and, eventually, coherent. Nevertheless, as Natorski and Surrallés (2008)
emphasise, the logic of securitisation and de-securitisation has proved to be difficult to predict.
Hence, this scenario remains highly hypothetical.
Further, although the market idea has recently lost its power, the climate-based consent can also
amplify the Member States’ commitment to market liberalisation, boosting the EU’s internal
coherence on energy matters. As a Commission interviewee states
The move towards a low-carbon energy system has of course repercussion on the internal
energy market. (…) With an increasing share of renewable energy installations the effects on
price formation and the design of markets become increasingly important. (Interview 1)
In other words, the implementation of low-carbon development with current technologies
incapable of stable supply (e.g. wind turbines and photovoltaic panels) necessitates the need to
easily and flexibly trade energy between various regions to ensure stable energy supply.
Liberalised market is believed to offer such a necessary flexibility. Indeed, since low-carbon
energy transition necessitates market liberalisation, this relationship can be seen in the context
of path dependencies. So, current developments in clean energy developments can be expected
to make political elites favour market liberalisation. Consequently, if more Member States adopt
a positive stance on market liberalisation, the EU will appear to be more coherent in the matter
of market liberalisation. In addition, an overt adherence to the market liberalism approach in
energy makes bilateral energy supply agreements less likely to occur. Oberthür and Roche Kelly
(2008: 43, 44) state that this should make the EU’s external appearance as ‘the most fervent
supporter of multilateralism [market liberalism] and international law as the backbone of global
governance’ stronger and more credible, which is a very important power capability in reaching
the EU’s milieu goals of multilateralism and market liberalism, especially in EU-Russian relations
as considered in chapter 2.
A similar conclusion is offered by some Neo-functionalists. Referring to Wayne Sandholz and
Alec Stone Sweet’s recent defence of Neo-functionalism (Sandholtz and Stone Sweet 2012: 18),
the increase in cross-border cooperation within a certain sector can facilitate subsequent
integration of this sector: ‘[t]hose sectors in which cross-border transactions [trade, investment,
travel, work but also communication] are more numerous and important should move faster and
farther towards supranational governance’. The climate change discourse seems to fit well in
this framework. The securitisation logic behind the climate change discourse should provide the
integration process with importance, while numerosity should be ensured by further
liberalisation of the energy market in combination with clean energy development as a
decentralised or even democratised (ILSR 2011) way of power generation. Cross-border
transactions are then expected to increase, especially as far as trade, investment and
communication are concerned. So, in accordance with the mechanism of positive functional
spill-overs, climate change could have some positive effects on further integration of the energy
sector and enhancing sectorial coherence throughout individual Member States and eventually
moving some competences to the Commission.
An institutionalist perspective also predicts positive effects of clean energy on the
Europeanisation of the whole energy sector. Oberthür and Roche Kelly (2008: 42) argue that the
EU climate and energy measures so far should ‘provide a firm basis for the further evolution and
strengthening of EU climate and energy policies’, implying ‘a major shift in emphasis and
37
competence from the member states to the European level’. This is one of the most effective
manners to reach internal coherence on energy and energy-related issues (Van Schaik 2013: 9).
Two legitimations of the European clean energy are energy self-sufficiency and climate change,
and while the EU has only limited competence in the former, it is very powerful (at least
normatively) in the latter. As a result, the EU’s competence over clean energy is much larger
than over the ‘grey’, carbon-intensive energy sector. Gradual greening of grey energy implies an
expansion of supranational governance over a sector in the hands of the EU. Such
Europeanisation guarantees higher coherence in energy matters and this internal coherence can
be then translated to much more bargaining power in international negotiations (chapter 2),
more external prestige and credibility and thereby a better basis for an effective pursuit of
external governance.
In conclusion, this chapter has been written from a Neorealist perspective on the clean energy
discourse adopted by the EU in order to uncover the positive effects of the low-carbon strategy
on the EU’s power position vis-à-vis the other players of the international system. By doing so, it
challenges the assumption that the low-carbon energy transition is predominantly normative,
i.e. aimed to address anthropogenic global warming and environmental deterioration. In
contrast, the transition towards low-carbon society has positive effects on the EU’s both internal
environment and external leverage. Therefore, the provision of active political support to lowcarbon energy complements its Kantian normative function with self-regarding interest and selfcentredness. Based on the analysis, the Union’s adherence to the low-carbon transition makes
the EU a more credible leader in international ‘green’ policies, more energy self-sufficient, more
coherent in energy matters (as far as both liberalisation and energy supply policies are
concerned), more economically competitive, more profoundly legitimised and accepted by its
own citizens, and it also makes the EU stronger in the emerging multipolar world order.
Dedication to clean energy enhances the EU’s ability to effectively function as a normative
power, i.e. reach its milieu goals, contribute to its ability to disseminate convenient norms, such
as multilateralism, market liberalism, state equality, sustainability and human rights, which is a
way to realise its self-regarding interests. Hence, the EU’s dedication to clean energy cannot be
seen as power-neutral.
38
Conclusion
This thesis examines the EU’s dedication to low-carbon energy transition. From the late 1980s
the EU has adopted environmentally sound discourses and applied them to various social and
economic policies, including energy. As a result, the European institutions and Member States
have been promoting new ways of energy generation and consumption in order to significantly
decrease their GHG emissions. This research focuses on the motivation of the EU’s fervent
embrace of such low-carbon policies. The critical perspective of this thesis challenges the
concept of clean energy policy-making as being primarily normative. Political enlightenment,
Kantian universalist altruism and long-term responsibility for the protection of the public good
are not believed to precondition the materialisation of low-carbon discourse. Rather, the clean
energy policy is analysed within the context of international struggle, and as a political tool for
the accumulation of power in the global corridors of power. Accordingly, the main inquiry of this
research was how clean energy transition can serve the EU as a means to enhance its position
vis-à-vis the other players of the international system.
The argument of this thesis was developed along three main chapters. The first chapter outlines
the Neorealist theory in international relation, this being the main theoretical approach of this
research. It expounds on its historical and ideational origins; and their relevance to this
research. The second chapter considers the EU’s external governance as a normative power. It
defines the origins and main characteristics of Ian Manner’s theory of Normative Power Europe
(2002) and assesses the effectiveness of the NPE in the context of contemporary international
relations. It concentrates on the EU’s conduct of foreign affairs towards energy-exporting
countries and reveals the primary reasons for the ineffectiveness of the Union’s external
leverage. The third chapter regarded the clean energy development and disclosed its power
convenience as a complement to its Kantian normative quality. It critically analyses the EU’s
international leadership in climate change mitigation, and its official legitimacy with respect to
the clean energy transition. It further discusses the effects of clean energy vis-à-vis the popular
legitimacy of European integration, energy security, and internal political coherence in energy
matters. The most significant conclusions are as follows:
Firstly, the universality of the EU’s norms and its relationship to the international power
struggle are recognised as being intertwined. The cases of some energy-exporting countries
(Central-Asian and Caucasian countries, Russia, Algeria and Venezuela) imply that the
recognition of what is established to be a universal value and norm cannot be taken for granted.
In the Neorealist view, such recognition most often occurs when it proves advantageous to the
recipient or when the promoter exercises leverage on the recipient. While the EU’s values are
primarily conceived to serve its self-regarding interest, and especially for the gain of leverage,
the outright indifference or even opposition of energy-exporters (e.g. Russia, Algeria,
Turkmenistan and Venezuela) especially in the realm of multilateralism, market liberalism and
human rights, frustrates the EU’s international position. Thus, by rejecting the EU’s concepts and
norms, these nations negate the Union’s quest for power acquisition through the realisation of
its milieu goals. Therefore, if the EU wants its normative governance to be effectual, power
advantage over the other members of the international system is paramount. The awareness of
Kant’s universalism in itself proves to be insufficient.
39
Secondly, the EU’s efforts at normative governance have only been partially successful. The
effectiveness vis-à-vis energy-exporting countries has two main causes: dependency on external
fossil fuels supply and internal multi-level incoherence on energy matters. The EU’s dependency
on fossil fuels imports has long had an increasing tendency. This interdependency has been
moving towards asymmetrical proportions, causing a decrease in the EU’s bargaining power
vis-à-vis the energy-exporting countries, thereby threatening its credibility as a powerful bloc.
Similarly, internal incoherence on energy matters between individual Member States and the
Commission weakens the EU’s external leverage. Russia (Gazprom) and Algeria (Sonatrach) in
particular spurn the EU’s attempts to liberalise local energy sectors. They argue that the EU itself
does not pursue a liberal approach both internally and towards countries exporting fossil fuels
to Europe. Consequently, the EU must accept rules of games (milieu) set by external players.
Thirdly, the EU’s clean energy transition is a power-loaded strategy. Energy transition is a
crucial source of international credibility for the EU’s leadership in climate change mitigation, an
effective tool to reach milieu goals. This leadership also generates a comparative advantage for
domestic entrepreneurs, which is beneficial in the economic (growth, competitiveness), political
(leverage, legitimation) and social (employment, cohesion) sense. In combination with the
popular green background of clean energy, the socio-economic benefits (employment) provide
the EU with internal legitimacy, necessary for long-term stability at the EU-level, a prerequisite
for strong positioning in the international system. Importantly, clean energy contributes to a
gradual decrease in the consumption of fossil fuels, thus diminishing the Union’s external
dependency, having positive implications for the EU in the political, as well as economic sense.
This can be expected to offset the imbalance to the EU’s benefit, providing it with better
bargaining power in international negotiations, and in particular, with energy-exporting entities.
Clean energy also contributes to the building of internal multi-level coherence in energy matters.
Improvements in internal coherence are especially important in the EU-Russian and EU-Algerian
spheres. It improves the Commission’s competence in energy as the Commission is the main
policy-maker and coordinator in low-carbon transition. The deployment of clean energy
installations necessitates adherence to energy sector liberalisation. Discursively, green values
incorporated in energy oblige European governments to embrace a new energy thought, which
also contributes to preference convergence.
Fourthly, clean energy is a particularly important power means in the context of an emergent
multipolar international order. Though the EU is currently one of the global leaders, Neorealist
theory questions the sustainability of this position by predicting competition among power
poles as a natural tendency towards the establishment of hierarchical relations in the
international system. Being (more) energy self-sufficient, less dependent on external supply,
having a highly competitive and sustainable industrial basis, being internally consolidated and
appearing as a more coherent bloc are clearly very valuable power capabilities in the
competition for imminent power struggles. Therefore, clean energy development can be also
understood as an opportune investment in future struggles for a front position in the
international system.
The thesis reveals that the EU’s clean energy transition has a number of functions convenient to
the EU, whether in the form of domestic stability preservation or as external leverage
improvements. Clean energy should therefore be perceived not only as an environmentally
friendly strategy, but also as a means to power. The EU’s dedication to clean energy is not only
motivated by its normative ‘green mission’, but also by its internal legitimacy and its desire for
40
external power dominance. With these conclusions, the hypothesis set forth in this thesis is
substantially proven.
These conclusions contribute to scientific debates on Normative Power Europe, the EU’s place in
the international system and clean energy transition. Clean energy transition can be seen as a
Kantian norm, convenient to the NPE in accordance to Manner’s theory. Further, validates the
interconnectedness between power, international leadership and domestic action suggested by
Louise van Schaik, as well as Sebastian Oberthür (etc.) and Edith Vanden Brande. However, it
positions the power element as an extraordinarily dominant driving force, while universal
norms are subject to power considerations.
Nevertheless, it must be pointed out that this thesis may have been subjected to certain
limitations with respect to latent motivations contributing to the Union’s green agenda. For
instance, the research is prevalently backed by a rational-choice theory assuming power
maximisation to be the foremost driving force. However, it cannot be excluded that some
non-rational forces have been also playing an important role in the adoption of green discourses
in Europe. It is possible that constructivist and institutionalist input into the Union’s energy
policy might figure in future scientific debated with its inevitable revelations. Further, this thesis
finds that the recognition of certain norms’ universality depends on their advantageousness and
external power factors. While this research focused primarily on the EU, an analysis of the
motivation behind the current global ‘green bandwagoning’ would appropriate. Similarly, a
Neorealist explanation of the US, Japan, China and other’s embracement of green policies could
also be an interesting input for future analyses.
The conclusions having revealed, this thesis is very optimistic about the further progression of
the low-carbon transition in Europe for its multiple convenience. Its suspension would be
politically too costly – both internally and with respect to the EU’s external leverage.
41
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