»Energy Policy: Integration by Stealth and Crisis-driven Change« in: EU Regulatory Responses to Crises: Adaptation or Transformation?
Eckert S, Pedersen OW (2025)
Publication Language: English
Publication Type: Book chapter / Article in edited volumes
Publication year: 2025
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Edited Volumes: EU Regulatory Responses to Crises: Adaptation or Transformation?
City/Town: Oxford
Pages Range: 115-132
URI: https://academic.oup.com/book/59307
DOI: 10.1093/9780198913825.003.0006
Abstract
The history of European energy policy integration dates back to the founding days of European integration, in the 1950s, yet only with the Lisbon Treaty was a supranational competence in this policy field formally recognized in primary law. During the five preceding decades, energy policy developed without a policy-specific Treaty basis, often using prerogatives in other fields. Absent a political agreement to shift powers towards the supranational level, energy policy was in many ways a case of integration by stealth. While the Treaty of Lisbon finally established an EU energy policy, new challenges occurred quickly thereafter when several crises forced policymakers to take action. This chapter presents the characteristics of rule-making and the institutional set-up in the field of energy policy throughout the process of integration, focusing on the new policy framework introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon and the crisis-driven responses adopted since. It poses the question whether recent integration in an era of polycrisis is better understood as a process of path dependency or as a process of innovative and path-breaking change. We find that, in the absence of further shifts of competence towards the European level, energy policy post-Lisbon remains heavily dependent on Member State consent, cross-border cooperation between national bodies, and substantial input by private actors. Besides these elements of path dependency, there are, however, also new and truly transformative developments, such as a substantial rebalancing of policy goals in emergency situations and the use of geoeconomic instruments that deviate from a market-making logic.
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APA:
Eckert, S., & Pedersen, O.W. (2025). »Energy Policy: Integration by Stealth and Crisis-driven Change« in: EU Regulatory Responses to Crises: Adaptation or Transformation? In Diane Fromage, Adrienne Héritier, Paul Weismann (Eds.), EU Regulatory Responses to Crises: Adaptation or Transformation?. (pp. 115-132). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
MLA:
Eckert, Sandra, and Ole Windahl Pedersen. "»Energy Policy: Integration by Stealth and Crisis-driven Change« in: EU Regulatory Responses to Crises: Adaptation or Transformation?" EU Regulatory Responses to Crises: Adaptation or Transformation?. Ed. Diane Fromage, Adrienne Héritier, Paul Weismann, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025. 115-132.
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