Extraordinary Measures: REPowerEU and the Securitization of EU Energy Policy in 2022

While securitization theory has become a mainstream lens in International Relations (IR), its causal mechanisms and real-world impact remain contested. Is securitization primarily about labelling an issue as a security concern, or about the exceptional policies that follow? We examine the unprecedented securitization of European Union (EU) energy policy following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Previous energy crises (2006, 2009, 2014) were widely described as “securitized,” yet failed to produce extraordinary measures. By contrast, in 2022, desecuritizing moves proved futile, audience resistance lacked legitimacy, and policy transformation became unavoidable. Within just 85 days, the EU reframed its dependence on Russian hydrocarbons as an existential threat, translating this discursive shift into legally binding extraordinary measures under the REPowerEU plan. Drawing on a day-by-day process tracing approach, this study reconstructs how EU leaders enacted radical energy policy changes—unprecedented sanctions on Russian energy imports, centralized procurement, and commitments to phase out hydrocarbons—demonstrating that securitization is not merely a matter of speech acts but a socially embedded process. The analysis situates itself at the intersection of the Copenhagen School’s emphasis on performative speech acts and Securitizaton’s ‘sociological turn’ that foregrounds audience acceptance. We introduce a four-stage causal mechanism—triggering event, discursive transformation, audience acceptance, and policy outcome—as well as an analysis of a triangulated corpus of EU documents, media sources, and secondary literature. Methodologically, our work combines causal leverage with interpretivist sensitivity, illustrating when and how security discourse translates into concrete policy change within a multi-level polity like the EU. Empirically, this case offers the first in-depth account of how war catalysed radical energy policy reform in Europe. Theoretically, it advances debates on securitization by demonstrating the primacy of social mechanisms over rhetoric in contexts of “banal” security.