Defusing contested authority: EU energy efficiency policymaking. Issue 1 (2nd January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dupont, Claire
• Is Part Of: Journal of European integration. Volume 42:Issue 1(2020)
• Page Start: 95
• Page End: 110
• Publication Date: 2020-01-02
• Subjects: Subsidiarity -- Contestation -- Framing -- Energy Union -- Energy Efficiency; European federation -- Periodicals; Political science -- Periodicals; Europe -- Economic integration -- Periodicals; 341.24205
• DOI: 10.1080/07036337.2019.1708346
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0703-6337

Abstract

ABSTRACT: EU energy efficiency policymaking has faced repeated contestation. Such contestation has been both sovereignty-based, when member states contest the EU's authority to make policy on energy efficiency (subsidiarity claims), and substance-based, when concerns are raised about the choice or ambition of a policy measure. Yet, energy efficiency has become one of the five dimensions of the Energy Union. It is thus an example of EU policymaking advancing even under contestation. I investigate three main strategies to manage these contestations: (1) framing and reframing energy efficiency to enhance and consolidate authority at EU-level and to mitigate contestations over this authority; (2) developing the legal framework; and (3) applying flexibility in policy measures and employing mixed soft and hard governance tools. These strategies are employed, and interact, over both a 'long game' and a 'short game'.