Between electrostate and petrostate: The geoeconomics of EU deep decarbonization

Energy transition in the EU is taking place in a geopolitical environment shaped by the conflict between the “petrostate” United States that weaponizes trade, standards, and security dependencies, and the “electrostate” China, whose control over clean-tech supply chains locks Europe into critical material and technological dependencies. These external constraints amplify domestic distributional conflicts over sovereignty sharing in energy and industrial policy coordination, as can be seen in the current backlash against the European Green Deal. By analysing how different national growth models and fossil and green coalitions interact within the EU and react to external pressures, the paper advances an international political economy account of why the European energy transition oscillates between ambition and stagnation. It argues that the EU’s ability to escape carbon lock-in at home and geopolitical subordination abroad hinges on resolving core binary choices: national versus pooled sovereignty, national state-aid activism versus a common fiscal capacity, and export-orientation versus an internally driven growth model compatible with deep decarbonisation.