Reframing renewables: Analysing the effect of energy security frames on policy-making for EU energy policy

There is, by now, a burgeoning literature on the link between crises and EU policy-making (Ferrara & Kriesi, 2021). Recently, the analytical focus has shifted from how the EU responded to (individual) crises, to how these successive crises have shaped the way in which decisions and policies are made in the EU. This paper analyses how the reframing of EU energy policy as a security issue after the Russian invasion of Ukraine affected the policy-making process for energy policy. It does so through a case study of the EU’s renewable energy policy. With the revision of Renewable Energy Directive (RED) as part of the Fit-for-55 package and the subsequent upgrade in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, EU policy-making on renewables the framing of renewable energy acquired a securitising character. We use embedded process tracing to analyse how EU and national actors managed the policy-making process on renewable energy. We reconstruct the decision-making from June 2021 to June 2023, based on intensive cooperation with insiders from EU institutions and national ministries. The paper assesses how the policy-making process changed, once renewable energy became part of a crisis response. We contribute to the literature on security and EU energy policy by unpacking how the securitising frame of renewables impacted the policy-making process, such as increased urgency, politicisation, and the increased involvement of high-level actors and horizontal units.