Energy policy in the European Union: the power and limits of discourse

Since the 1990s, the European Commission has pushed for the liberalization of European electricity and gas markets, gradually linked energy and climate policies, and asked for a common voice in energy relations with third parties. This paper documents how the Commission constructed a “competitive, sustainable and secure (CSS)” frame in order to justify its intervention in a policy domain which member states used to consider as a purely domestic one. To analyze the effectiveness of this discursive strategy, I propose a simple model that includes the Commission’s framing (ideas), the Member State’s energy situation (interests), and the existence of an EU regulatory space (institutions). How these three elements combine, strengthen or undermine each other helps explain how far the Commission was able to push its agenda. Comparing Germany, France and Poland, I show that the Commission’s strategy was successful to the extent that it changed the discourse of member states. But due to important institutional and economic limits, policy implementation is uneven. Despite the Ukraine crisis, weak implementation remains striking with regards to energy external relations