Misfits between German and EU’ energy transition policies: The Achilles’ heel of the German Energiewende?

Since the Fukushima incident, the German federal governments have proclaimed that the goal of their energy policy is transforming national energy systems towards renewable (excluding nuclear) energies. By analysing the complex political and legal interlinkages, we identify fits and misfits evolving between national and European energy transition policy initiatives and discuss whether this has affected the German Energiewende. We show that, first, that Germany pursues national energy goals and policies, forming an energy regime of the Energiewende consisting of expansion of renewables and the grids as well as a coal phase-out possibly until 2030. Second, this is consistent with the European framework, however, there is still a massive dependence on natural gas. The change through the energy crisis until 2019 means that Germany has to postpone reaching the goals of the Energiewende. However, third, because of the specific style of national energy policies, these are not constructed to be linkable with the energy systems of surrounding countries and the overall European energy architecture. Therefore, Germany as the pioneer of Energiewende policies runs the risk to become a solitaire within the European energy regime. We argue for designing new cross-border and cross-sectoral policies leaving the path of highly specialized national solutions.