EU Climate and Energy Policy

"At the start of the first Von der Leyen Commission in 2019, energy and climate policy moved to the centre of the EU agenda, bringing dynamism to an otherwise crisis-riddled EU. The European Green Deal promised to mainstream climate action into all areas of EU activity and the EU adopted a long-term strategy aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050, amidst strong public mobilization for climate issues. In stark contrast, the second Von der Leyen Commission inaugurated in 2024 is struggling to keep climate as a priority, squeezed between external and internal pressures. Externally, the full-scale war on Ukraine since 2022, enduring tensions with China and unpredictability of the US under the second Trump administration have displaced the political focus from climate to energy security. Moreover, the notion of energy security has widened, from securing gas supplies, to securing supply chains of clean energy technologies, including through propping up EU green industrial policy and establishing new clean trade and investment partnerships. Internally, the erosion of liberal democracy and the rise of right-wing populism have diminished governments’ appetite for strong climate ambition or for further empowering the EU to develop economic statecraft in the area of clean tech. The goal of this section is to examine how these internal and external pressures impact on EU climate and energy policy. We invite panel and paper proposals engaging with one or several of the following dimensions or related issues: - Developments in the “old” geopolitics of energy: the energy supply shock created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to an unprecedented EU-level action, i.a. sanctions on Russia’s energy sector, including on LNG supplies, a joint gas purchasing, a price cap, and a raft of MoUs with international partners to secure gas supplies. However, intra-EU compliance and coordination remain a challenge, and global dynamics make it difficult to identify reliable partners. To what extent, where and why do we observe advances in terms of EU joint-up approaches and solidarity or a move towards greater leeway for Member States’ unliteral solutions? -Developments in the “new” geopolitics of energy: the need to accelerate the energy transition has brought to the fore the EU’s dependency on China, which is by far the leading country in terms of investment in renewable energy (both in China and abroad), in all clean-tech manufacturing sectors, and in the production and processing of critical energy minerals. The green-tech competition affecting the deep tissue of state-market relations in the EU, with a shift to green industrial policy. What are the drivers and obstacles for the EU to develop its ambitioned clean-tech strategic autonomy? Externally, in how far the Global Gateway and clean energy partnerships are delivering towards the goal of de-risking clean-tech and critical minerals? - The consequences of energy geopoliticization for EU climate policy: The intra-EU divergence on setting the new 2035 energy and climate goals illustrates the extent to which the EU is struggling to keep its usual international leadership ambition, even at a moment when the US is withdrawing again from global climate negotiations. This calls for a critical appraisal on what is being lost in the shift from the European Green Deal to the Clean Industrial Deal. How geopolitical shifts and geoeconomic objectives are impacting on EU climate policy and diplomacy? To what extent is the EU still advancing on its promises to support energy democracy and just transition inside and outside the EU?"