EU climate and energy governance and the exogenous shock of war in Ukraine: Implications for agendas, arenas, and political contestation

The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine has created an unprecedented challenge for climate and energy governance in the European Union. At face value, the EU has responded with an ambitious attempt to link the political targets of energy independence and decarbonization, particularly through the launch of its REPowerEU agenda. But in how far can this be understood as a shift of policy-making processes following an exogenous shock? Relating to research debates about the impacts of (poly-)crisis for the EU’s institutional balance and decision-making, the proposed paper investigates how current responses affect the governance of the European Green Deal (EGD) agenda. Harnessing aspects of the policy stability and advocacy coalition literature, the analytical focus is on how shifts of political agendas affect the institutional framework and political dynamic of this process. Focusing on REPowerEU and particularly its implications for Member State recovery plans and the ‘Fit for 55’ package, the main part evaluates discernible vectors of change of three related components: namely, the discursive re-framing of the climate and energy agenda in terms of the scope and priority of decarbonization pledges, changes to the institutional framework and decision-making of EGD governance, and observable shifts in competing positions within the European Council and EP. Most findings speak in favor of expecting continued policy stability for EU climate and energy governance; however, this insight has ambivalent implications as supranational resources remain limited and Member States experience increasing pressure for pursuing diverging paths in their responses to the ongoing security and energy crisis.