The Governance of EU Energy and Climate Policy in the New Intergovernmentalism Era: Lessons from the Clean Energy for all Europeans Package

The Clean Energy for all Europeans (CEP) package introduced a new governance framework for EU energy and climate policy, marking a shift from top-down technocratic planning and accountability between the European Commission and Member States, to a new relationship based on cooperation and negotiation through integrated National Energy and Climate Plans. The negotiations and outcomes of the package have shown the reluctance of EU countries to increase the level of supranational authority over electricity market design and security of supply. The ambitiousness of the 2030 targets for renewable energy and energy efficiency have also revealed the role of the European Parliament as a climate champion within the EU. The in-depth analysis of the eight directives and regulations and the package as a whole was based on extensive primary research collected in the form of elite semi-structured interviews, making a significant empirical contribution to the academic literature on EU energy and climate policy. The theoretical contribution of this thesis consists of testing the ability of new intergovernmentalism to explain the recent efforts to unify the different strands of EU energy policy under the Energy Union. The findings indicate that while new intergovernmentalism offers some valuable theoretical insights, it ultimately fails to provide a comprehensive and accurate account of the changes brought by the CEP. This thesis suggests that theoretical revision using some alternative concepts, such as that of purposeful opportunism when describing the behaviour of the European Commission, could provide more compelling explanations, but it ultimately argues against the utility of attempts to relaunch theory crafting on European integration, recommending instead a focus on narrower, yet more accurate interpretations. The thesis concludes by highlighting the relevance of its findings for more recent developments such as the European Green Deal, the Fit for 55 package, the Recovery and Resilience Facility, and REPowerEU.