Informed by Hocking’s multistakelholder diplomacy model in terms of context, forms, participants, roles, communication patterns, functions, location, representation patterns and rules, this paper examines a supranational actor, the European Union (EU), as a producer of a particular type of diplomacy – energy diplomacy. While the combination of concepts “energy” and “diplomacy” has always been present in the conduct of international relations, a generally accepted definition of ED does not exist. Challenging Goldthau’s definition (2010) this paper argues that energy diplomacy is not limited to the security norms. Scrutinizing European External Energy Policy, this paper assumes that EU energy diplomacy can address three central norms such as sustainability, competition and security of supply. Empirically, the paper details the case of energy diplomacy employed by the EU towards the BRICS countries, and China in particular.
