EU Institutions and Climate and Energy Policy: How Myopic are They?

This paper investigates the level of short-termism of recent climate and energy policy in the EU and its legislative actors. Building on literature on democratic myopia and EU climate policy, it offers an assessment and explanation of short-termism or myopia in the EU institutions. To study to what extent the EU institutions have a long-term orientation in their climate policy, this paper first develops a measurement tool of short-termism taking into account what is required, the progress made towards what is necessary and the certainty of delivery of the set targets. Secondly, we use the tool to assess the levels of short-termism of the 2020 and 2030 Climate and Energy Frameworks. The assessment includes the three main legislative actors – the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council of Ministers (for the 2020 Framework: the European Council). This allows for a comparison between institutions and will help us determine which of the institutions is the most long-term focused. Specifically, the EU Emission Trading System (ETS) Directive and the Effort-sharing Decision for the 2020 Package, and the revised ETS Directive and the Effort-sharing Regulation for the 2030 Framework will be assessed. These are chosen because they determine the EU’s emission reduction objective and are therefore well-suited to test out the assessment framework. Because of their similarities they allow for comparison over time as well. Thirdly, to explain the different levels of short-termism between the institutions, we examine institutional differences between the actors (e.g. decision-making procedures, time cycles, continuity and institutional openness) and we take some control variables into account (e.g. public opinion, national coalitions). The assessment framework will be applied to EU policy documents (e.g. Commission proposals, European Parliament amendments and Council reports). The indicators are determined using scientific reports (e.g. IPCC) complemented by academic literature and publications by think thanks and NGO’s. The level of myopia of the targets will be assessed by comparing the institutions’ targets with the required targets, the certainty of delivery requires a more qualitative approach. Therefore, a qualitative textual analysis will be undertaken. The explanatory analysis is based on secondary literature, publicly available data, and semi-structured interviews with EU policymakers and experts from civil society and industry. Although the 2030 Framework advances the EU’s emission reduction target, the 2020 and 2030 Frameworks both fall short of what is required and to similar extents. None of the institutions can be considered as completely long-term or short-term focused. However, there is variation between them. We expect that the European Council and the Council will be the most myopic, followed by the Commission and the Parliament based on a correlation with certain institutional factors. For instance, the presence of a higher number of veto players because of unanimity or qualified majority voting might correlate with more myopic policies in the (European) Council.