European energy policy: an environmental approach

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European energy policy: an environmental approach Pierre Bocquillon

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University of Cambridge Version of record first published: 03 Apr 2013.

To cite this article: Pierre Bocquillon (2013): European energy policy: an environmental approach, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 26:1, 253-255 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2013.770282

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Book reviews 253 joining the House of Lords in 1958 that Barbara was able to make her real mark. As head of two major commissions over the next decade, Barbara was able to influence progressive change in the British criminal justice system—the inadequacies of which she knew only too well through her decades of service as a magistrate—towards her vision of a more rational, utilitarian and less moralizing approach, as expressed in her most famous book, Social science and social pathology (1959). The two ‘Wootton Reports’ respectively recommended more lenient sentencing for cannabis possession and the introduction of community service orders as an alternative to prison. From her vantage point in the upper chamber, Barbara also helped to steer through the abolition of capital punishment. What strikes the modern reader most about Barbara Wootton is her apparently unshakeable belief in the power of reason, scientific research and public policy to contribute to her goal of a more equal, just and happier society—methods and values that have come under considerable attack in the last few decades. A case in point is the 2001 Labour government’s rebranding of Barbara’s beloved ‘community service orders’ as ‘community punishment orders’, exemplifying the punitive attitude towards criminal justice she had tried to steer the country away from. Perhaps in doing so she was naı¨ve, or even elitist, in denying popular impulses to punish the wicked. Yet, like another great mind of her generation, John Maynard Keynes (with whom she shared a nanny), Barbara Wootton was an elitist in the best sense of that word—determined to use her lofty position and great talents for the betterment of society as a whole. Tom Barker q 2013 University of Cambridge http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2013.770272 Notes on contributor Tom Barker (MA, University of Sheffield) is a doctoral candidate in politics and international studies at the University of Cambridge and a member of Trinity Hall. His research interests are in the political economy of work, the politics of wellbeing and the politics of Anglo-America.

Francesc Morata and Israel Solorio Sandoval (eds), European energy policy: an environmental approach, Cheltenham, United Kingdom, Edward Elgar, 2012, ISBN10 0857939203, ISBN13 9780857939203 (hbk), 256 pp The involvement of the European Union (EU) in energy policy—which has long been one of the weakest areas of integration—has dramatically increased from the mid-1990s onwards. Yet, despite rapid policy developments, academic literature on EU energy politics and policies has remained fragmented and often atheoretical (for example, Buchan 2009). Francesc Morata and Israel Solorio Sandoval’s edited volume attempts to fill this gap. The book focuses more specifically (but not exclusively) on the environmental dimension of the emerging

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254 Book reviews European energy policy, which, they argue, has received less attention than the internal energy market and energy security issues. The introduction provides a brief overview of the historical development of ‘green’ energy policies in the EU and introduces the overarching theoretical framework of the book. It is followed by two main sections, each containing five contributions, focusing on the internal and external aspects of EU energy policies, respectively. Despite being labelled a ‘three step model of green Europeanization’ (11), the editors’ effort to theorize EU energy policy appears more like an attempt at covering the contributors’ various approaches than a genuine common framework for analysis. Their ‘model’, which draws mainly on three concepts— environmental policy integration (EPI), Europeanization and external governance—resembles a mere juxtaposition of three distinct approaches and fails to provide a coherent and integrated theoretical structure. The first two contributions assess the role of the EPI principle—‘the systematic integration of environmental issues into . . . sectoral policy-making’ (26)—in the formulation of European energy policies. Both cast doubts on the effective implementation of this new public policy mantra. Camilla Adelle, Russel Duncan and Marc Pallemaerts (chapter 2) show the limitations of European cross-sectoral EPI initiatives and argue that the greening of EU energy policies has been mainly driven by sector-specific logic, notably the growing integration of energy and climate issues, rather than by the EPI rationale. Jørgen K Knudsen (chapter 3) evaluates the implementation of the EPI principle in the case of renewable energy promotion, both at the EU level and in Nordic states. He argues that European ‘EPI thinking’ has not yet been matched by ‘effective operational tools’ to implement it (58), and that it is national rather than European factors that have driven EPI in Nordic states’ renewable energy policies. As the editors point out, the concept of ‘Europeanization’ has rarely been applied to energy. Several contributions aim to address this shortcoming. However, this multifaceted concept is not clearly defined, which makes it look like a one-size-fits-all notion. For example, using it almost as a synonym for sectoral integration, Israel Solorio Sandoval and Esther Zapater (chapter 6) show, based on a survey of European legislative acts on energy, that European energy policy has developed primarily through two contiguous areas, the environment and the internal market. In contrast, Severin Fischer uses Europeanization as the empowerment of the EU as the appropriate policy-making level in his analysis of the development of the European carbon capture and storage (CCS) policy (chapter 5). He emphasizes the role of a coalition of national and institutional actors in raising the profile of this new technology and pushing through promotional legislation at the European level. Further still, Per-Olof Busch and Helge Jo¨rgens (chapter 4) look at the Europeanization—understood as ‘the mutual adjustment of domestic policies triggered by political, economic or ecological interdependence’ (67)—of renewable energy policies in the EU. In a compelling chapter, they analyse the diffusion across Europe of two instruments to promote renewable energies—feed-in-tariffs and green certificate systems—and show that, while the diffusion of the former was stimulated by the success of the German experience, the diffusion of the latter was mediated by the European Commission. One of the book’s main strengths lies in its application of the literature on EU ‘external governance’—the export of the European norms of governance—to cases taken from the EU’s energy relations with its neighbourhood. Chapters 8– 10

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Book reviews 255 illuminate a key vector of EU’s external influence which has received less attention than the geopolitics of energy security. Although Morata and Sandoval brand this process the ‘green exporting mode’ (12), the contributions are not limited to the study of sustainable energy policy promotion. Michal Natorski and Anna Herranz-Surralle´s argue that the rise of energy security concerns in the EU’s relations with its Eastern neighbours has not ‘overtaken other dimensions’, but rather ‘boosted the EU promotion of the liberalization of energy markets and environmental sustainability’ (150). Andrea Ciambra analyses the Energy Community Treaty, an institution aiming to export the energy acquis to the EU’s southeast neighbours, as a market-oriented socialization process driven by the Commission. Luigi Carafa examines policy transfers from the EU to Turkey and contends that energy reforms in this country have been primarily motivated by internal logic rather than pre-accession conditionality; yet, he also finds that the choices of policy instruments have been influenced by the European model. The diversity of the book constitutes both its main strength and its main weakness. On the one hand, it lacks conceptual precision and a clear theoretical focus, which undermines its overall coherence. But it also sheds light on a wide range of aspects that have been largely neglected, from CCS negotiations to the Energy Community Treaty. Given the central role that climate change mitigation plays in EU environmental policies at large and energy policy in particular, it is surprising that few contributions address this issue; but this aspect has been amply covered elsewhere (for example, Oberthu¨r and Pallemaerts 2010; Jordan et al 2010). Overall, the book’s empirical richness makes it a welcome addition to the growing literature on EU energy policies. References Buchan, David (2009) Energy and climate change: Europe at the crossroads (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Jordan, Andrew, Dave Huitema, Harro Van Asselt, Tim Rayner and Frans Berkhout, Frans (eds) (2010) Climate change policy in the European Union: confronting the dilemmas of mitigation and adaptation? (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press) Oberthu¨r, Sebastian and Marc Pallemaerts (eds) (2010) The new climate policies of the European Union: internal legislation and climate diplomacy (Brussels: VUB Press)

Pierre Bocquillon q 2013 University of Cambridge http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2013.770282

Notes on contributor Pierre Bocquillon (MA, Universite´ Paris 1 Panthe´on-Sorbonne and Sciences Po) is a doctoral candidate in politics and international studies at the University of Cambridge working on EU policy-making in energy and climate change. His research interests focus on EU institutions, the politics of energy and climate change, Euro-Mediterranean relations, discourse analysis and institutionalist theories.