EU energy policy seeks to achieve three main goals: to secure its energy supplies , make the energy system more sustainable and promote EU economic competitiveness through an energy policy that will not impact negatively on the EUâs ability to compete with other global centres of economic power (Commission of the European Communities, 2006; European, 1995; European Commission, 2000, 2006, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c; European Commission Directorate-General for Energy, 2010). Combining all three goals has proven difficult, and the EU has had to adapt to changing geopolitical , market and environmental conditions by modifying its approaches (Bressand, 2012, 2013; Goldthau & Witte, 2010; Grätz, 2012; Jong, Linde, & Smeenk, 2010; Micco, 2014). The EU faces huge challenges with respect to security of supply: it must import more than 50 per cent of its energy; since 2013, all EU member states have become dependent on energy imports. Here is essential to be able to deal effectively with different types of external energy suppliersâNorway (a member of the European Economic Area (EEA)), Russia (an external imperial power deeply involved in the EU gas and oil market) and states that sell fossil fuels at the borders of the EU (Algeria, Libya, LNG suppliers).
In this volume, we ask:
- How the EU can project its powerâregulatory or marketâbeyond and within its borders?
- How do external suppliers and member states respond to these EU attempts?
We focus on two key external actors, Norway and Russia, viewed in the broader context of the EUâs external energy relations as well as on several member states representative of the whole EUâone European great economic and political power, Germany; one mid-size EU power with a specific approach to energy policy, Poland; and three small EU members facing specific energy-related challenges.
Norwayâs strategies vis-Ă -vis the EU and its successes and failures in energy policy are particularly pertinent to the current challenges facing European integration, for three reasons.
- First, Norway is the EUâs most important partner in the regional energy relationship between the EU and Russia.
- Second, analysis of Norwayâs relationship with the EU can bring out important dynamics of relevance to the EUâs relations with other non-member states, including Russia and other external suppliers of energy to the Union.
- Finally, the broader dynamics in the EUâNorway relationship can offer lessons that have become increasingly salient with the UK poised to leave the EU, not least because the UK will have to establish a regime for managing its energy relations with the EU.
In addition, all external suppliers of fossil energy will have to cope with the challenge of decarbonization, which is the long-term goal of the EU. Some of them, like Norway, are well positioned to transit smoothly to a new, greener energy reality; others, Russia among them, may suffer heavy losses with the decarbonization of the European energy market. How these external actors respond to the challenges and seek to influence the EUâs energy choices is therefore of high interest in this broader context.
The EUâs capacity to project power beyond its borders depends also on the internal cohesion of the EU and on its ability to influence the energy policies of member states . Member states may have energy preferences not necessarily compatible with those of the EU and may build bilateral energy relations directly with some external suppliers of energy in ways not always in line with EU priorities. The national energy policies of member states and their strategies for adapting to EU energy goals deserve closer academic scrutiny, as they may provide important clues to the EUâs chances of constructing a common energy policy that can combine the wider EU goals with national priorities.
This volume originates in the research project âEurope in Transition â Small States in an Age of Global Shiftsâ (EUNOR), funded by the Research Council of Norway and conducted between 2014 and 2017. As the EU has become important policy agenda setter and economic actor (Hirschman, 1970; Sandholtz, 2004; Sweet & Sandholtz, 1997), the EUNOR project examined how states balance between autonomy and integration in their dealings with the EU. The empirical focus was on Norway as an example of a small state, and on legal, economic , security and energy relations between Norway and the EU, examining how Norway has coped with the autonomyâintegration tension in its relations with the EU in these four crucial areas (Egeberg & Trondal, 1999; Eriksen, 2015).
With the relationship between the EU and the outside world growing more complicated, the questions that the project originally set out to address have become increasingly significant. The crisis in Ukraine appears to have caused substantial damage to EUâRussia relations, thereby impacting on EU security as well as energy policy. Hopes that Russia could transform itself into a liberal democracy have failed to materialize, and the future of RussiaâEU relations does not look bright. The decision of British voters to leave the EU, taken on 23 June 2016, has triggered a dynamic that may in the longer term lead to the demise of the European integration project itself.
Further, the still-ongoing migration crisis poses practical as well as political problems. The EU and its member states need to find ways of dealing with the massive influx of forced and economic migrants. Moreover, the crisis has led to growing tensions within the EU, fuelling xenophobic, populist and anti-establishment sentiment in Europe.
And finally, the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the USA has added a new challenge to the EU external relations: how to deal with an American president whose actions may undermine the axiological foundations of the transatlantic partnership?
One of the work packages of the EUNOR project focused on Norwayâs energy relations with the EU. Although a small state in demographic and geographic terms, Norway is a medium-sizedâeven greatâpower in terms of energy, supplying one-third of the gas and more than 10 per cent of the oil imported by the EU, making it the second-largest external supplier of energy to the EU market (Godzimirski, 2014b).
The special energy relationship between Norway and the EU has therefore been central in a project aimed at mapping various aspects of relations between Norway and the EU (Archer, 2005). In fact, Norwayâs energy relationship with the EU is more balanced than the case is in many other areas (Austvik & Claes, 2011; Ministry of Foreign Affairs Norway, 2012). For infrastructural, market and geographical reasons, Norway depends on access to the EU energy marketâand that gives the EU a certain leverage in its relations with Norway. On the other hand, Norway is viewed as a highly reliable and almost indispensable energy supplier âwhich in turn provides it with a certain structural energy power (to learn more about structural power see Strange, 1988) to promote its own interests in relations with the EU (DIFI Norway, 2016). That being said, the energy game played in Europe involves more actors than only Norway and the EU itself (Godzimirski, 2014a). The study of the nature of Norwayâs energy relations with the EU calls for a comparative approac...