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Interactions between EU Climate and Energy Policy and European Integration in Turbulent Times: A Framework for Analysis

European Politics
European Union
Climate Change
Energy Policy
Ingmar von Homeyer
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Ingmar von Homeyer
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Sebastian Oberthuer
Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Abstract

The EU is experiencing an ‘existential crisis’ (Rosamond 2017: 33) or, at least, ‘the severest test in its short history’ (Laffan 2016: 917). In contrast to this general diagnosis, EU climate and energy policy has survived the successive EU crises of the last decade not only relatively unscathed but, in important respects, strengthened. Much has been written about the causes and effects of the EU crisis in the most directly affected policy areas, in particular monetary union, migration and Brexit. Yet, the role of other major EU policies, including EU climate and energy policy, has received hardly any attention. What are the factors which explain the resilience of EU climate and energy policy and governance in the face of the EU crisis? And what are the present and future implications of these factors for EU climate and energy governance and the EU more generally? To help begin answering these questions, this paper does two things: First, we develop a conceptual framework for analyzing the interplay between EU climate and energy governance and policy and the wider integration process in the EU crisis context. Second, based on this framework, we present several hypotheses outlining potential substantive implications of this interplay for both EU climate and energy policy and the wider EU. The argument proceeds in four steps: First, we explain why climate and energy is a politically and strategically important EU policy. We contrast recent advances in this field with the impact of the EU crisis on the most directly affected policies, in particular EU monetary and migration policy. Second, we discuss ‘classical’ and newer integration theories in relation to the crisis, paying particular attention to implications for the role of policies which were not central to the crisis. We argue that mainstream integration theory, while in many ways useful, does not adequately account for the crisis-related impacts of five underlying trends. Third, based on literature on the EU crisis, the crisis of the post-war international order and of liberal democracy, we discuss the five trends, which are partly inter-related, and their implications for the EU crisis in more detail. While the trends are mostly exogenous to European integration, we suggest that the way in which they interact with the EU may be critical for the future trajectory of European integration. The trends refer to the following: major geo-political shifts, loss of governance capacity, decline of liberal democracy, growing divisions among and within EU Member States, and the rise of competing rationalities and ‘post-factual politics’. We suggest that it is often via affecting - or being affected by - at least one of these trends that EU climate and energy policy interacts with the broader integration process in important ways. In the final section we draw on these trends to develop several hypotheses concerning the interplay between EU climate and energy governance and the wider EU in the crisis context.