The book adopts an innovative analytical approach to agenda setting by not only presenting successful cases in which energy issues were addressed by means of public policy, but by also analyzing failed attempts to make issues part of the European policy agenda. Another outstanding feature of the book is its use of the latest empirical data on a broad range of energy issues. When are energy issues likely to find their way to the agenda of European policymakers? This is the key research question guiding this collection of empirical studies, which will shed light on both successful and unsuccessful attempts to include energy issues in the European agenda. The multi-level political system of the European Union represents a particularly fruitful setting for addressing this question due to the multiple institutional access points it provides for different groups of actors. The book has three key benefits. First, it provides a theory-informed analysis of agenda setting processes in general and in the European Union in particular. Second, it presents an overview of the most important and emerging dimensions on European energy policy, and third, it helps to develop a research agenda for future research in the field.

This book explores the role which policy networks and particularly advocacy coalitions play in EU energy policy, and the factors that account for their policy success. It captures the often neglected interaction between public and private actors in EU energy security policy and between opposing advocacy coalitions. The volume’s case studies examine coalitions working on two issues central to EU energy policy debates over the last decade: fracking for shale gas and developing the Southern Gas Corridor, a pipeline system linking Europe with the gas region of the Caspian Sea. Although the coalitions studied are focused on impacting EU energy policy, they stretch beyond the EU borders. The book draws on original, rich, and intriguing data, around 90 interviews with energy stakeholders and over six months of fieldwork and participant observation, analysed through an innovative combination of frame analysis and social network analysis.

'This book analyses a highly important topic. It is based on a comprehensive and empirically rich assessment of European energy policy, including both internal and external determinants. Its encompassing approach and the thoughtful combination of different analytical perspectives makes the book an important and fresh contribution to the field.' Christoph Knill, University of Konstanz, Germany 'Energy was one of the founding pillars of European integration, while environmental concerns have become an identity sign of today's European Union energy policy. However, notwithstanding the obvious links between both issues, little attention has been devoted to the complex relationship between the EU's environmental performance and the Europeanization of its energy policy. This book, carefully edited by Morata and Solorio, has come to fill this gap becoming a "must" to understand the interactions between these two fundamental drivers of EU policies.' José María Marín-Quemada, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, and Member of the Governing Council of the Spanish Central Bank, Spain This path-breaking book explores the new European energy policy, highlighting the significance of environmental policy concerns, instruments, and objectives vis-à-vis competing security and market dimensions in order to achieve an all-embracing EU energy policy perspective for the future. While the past years have witnessed unprecedented development of EU energy policy, the understanding of this process has lagged behind. Alongside the scarce literature on this emergent policy, there is also a gap regarding the attention paid to its different components. The study stems from the perception of a mismatch between the valuable debate that certain dimensions of energy policy namely, energy security and the market and competition framework have triggered and the neglect of its environmental and climate change dimensions. European Energy Policy will prove to be insightful for academics and postgraduate students interested in European integration, political science, international relations, public policy and environmental science. Energy stakeholders and governmental policymakers will also find plenty of invaluable information in this enriching resource.

This is a fully revised edition of a well-established text for students. It offers an invaluable and up-to- date interpretation of the European policy process. Helen Wallace and William Wallace have assembled a team of internationally-renowned authors to present fourteen case studies --ranging from analyses of the CAP and environmental policy, to the politics of Economic and Monetary Union and the new World Trade Organisation. Helen Wallace also provides, in the two opening chapters, an introduction and overview of European politics, policy, and institutions. In concluding thevolume, William Wallace reflects on the future for the EU as it faces calls for ever closer political integration. Policy-Making in the European Union provides the student with a timely and provocative insight into European integration in a period of critical change.

Based on an innovative theoretical framework combining theories of EU policy making, negotiation and implementation, this comprehensive book examines EU climate and energy policies from the early 1990s until the adoption of new policies for 2030. The authors investigate how the linking of climate and energy concerns in policy packages has facilitated agreement among EU leaders with very different policy ambitions. Employing in-depth studies from a diverse range of energy-economic countries, the book also explores the impact of the implementation of policies on the climate and energy policy framework and the Energy Union initiative. Social scientists and researchers in EU climate and energy policies will find the new empirical data and theoretical approach useful to their work. Students of the social sciences and politics will also benefit from the accessible overview of EU climate and energy policy development. This book will also be of interest to private and public decision-makers looking for explanations for the causes and consequences of EU climate and energy policy development.

This Handbook provides the most comprehensive account of energy governance in Europe, examining both energy governance at the European level and the development of energy policy in 30 European countries. Authored by leading scholars, the first part of the book offers a broad overview of the topics of energy research, including theories of energy transitions, strategies and norms of energy policy, governance instruments in the field, and challenges of energy governance. In the second part, it examines the internal and external dimensions of energy governance in the European Union. The third part presents in-depth country studies, which investigate national trajectories of energy policy, including an analysis of the policy instruments and coordination mechanisms for energy transitions. It closes with a comparative analysis of national energy governance. This book is a definitive resource for scholars in energy and climate research as well as decision makers in national governments and EU institutions.

This book examines the coordination of renewable energy policies in the European Union using an innovative theoretical approach to explain national policy making. David Jacobs asks, why are national support instruments for electricity from renewable energy sources converging, even though the harmonisation of these frameworks at the European level has failed? Which causal mechanisms lead to cross-national policy similarities? And what are the implications for policy coordination in the EU? The author traces the evolution of feed-in tariffs - the most successful and most widely used support mechanism for renewable electricity - in Germany, Spain and France. He reveals increasing cross-national policy similarities in feed-in tariff design - despite the failure of harmonizing instruments at the European level. He explains these increasing policy similarities by applying policy convergence theory. Policy convergence can occur voluntarily, based on transnational communication, regulatory competition and technological innovations and these findings have important implications for European policy steering. The key to this book is the interrelation of an innovative theoretical concept (coordination of policies in the international arena via voluntary cooperation) with a very topical empirical research focus - the promotion of renewable energies in the EU. It will be essential reading for scholars and students of environmental policy, comparative politics and European studies.

This second and fully revised edition brings together some of the most influential work on the theory and practice of contemporary EU environmental policy. Comprising five comprehensive parts, it includes in-depth case studies of contemporary policy issues such as climate change, genetically modified organisms and trans-Atlantic relations, as well as an assessment of how well the EU is responding to new challenges such as enlargement, environmental policy integration and sustainability. The book's aim is to look forward and ask whether the EU is prepared or even able to respond to the 'new' governance challenges posed by the perceived need to use 'new' policy instruments and processes to 'mainstream' environmental thinking in all EU policy sectors.

This book provides a comprehensive account of EU's renewable energy policy development as it traces the agenda-shaping, policy formulation and decision-making phases of the EU's secondary legislation on renewable energy – that is the three successive directives of 2001 (RES-E), 2009 (RED), and 2018 (RED II). It also explores the EU's energy policymaking dynamics and assess integration outcomes of these three policymaking instances in the renewable energy field from a comparative perspective. Enriched with elite interviews with the Brussels policy community, and drawing on European integration and public policy literature, the proposed book will resonate with and offer relevant insights to students, scholars, stakeholders, and policymakers interested in EU energy policy, in particular, and European integration, in general.

This book is a sociological account of the historical trajectory of feed-in tariffs (FITs) as an instrument for the promotion of renewable energy in Europe. Chapters analyse the emergence and transformations of feed-in tariffs as part of the policy arsenal developed to encourage the creation of markets for RES-E in Europe. The authors explore evolving conceptions of renewable energy policy at the intersection between environmental objectives, technological change and the ambition to liberalise the internal electricity market. They draw conclusions on the relationships between markets and policy-making as it is instituted in the European Union, and on the interplay between the implementation of a European vision on energy and national politics. Distinctive in both its approach and its methods the books aim is not to discuss the design of feed-in tariffs and their evolution, nor is it to assess their efficiency or fairness. Instead, the authors seek to understand what makes feed-in tariffs what they are, and how this has changed over time.