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UPDATING THE EU’S ENERGY AND CLIMATE POLICY. THE NEW 2030 FRAMEWORK AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
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greenhouse gases. In contrast, the Central and
Eastern Europeans underscored their belief that
the emissions mitigations agenda will in the fu-
ture be more closely linked to the successes of
international climate negotiations. If these turn
out to be unsatisfactory, the level of EU ambi-
tions would be lowered.
Therefore the conclusions of the European
Council will not end the debate on the energy
policy framework for 2030. Instead, calls for re-
newed engagement on the dossier that is ex-
pected in coming months, and particularly after
the Paris Conference. This situation implies a
high degree of uncertainty about the actual
commitments that the EU is willing to make.
The major differences in Member States’
perspectives with respect to structure and con-
tent of EU energy and climate policy after 2020
on the one hand, and government concerns
about a broad interpretation of the negotiation
results by EU level institutions on the other
hand, are the reasons why the compromise was
secured under the condition of the need for in-
tergovernmental agreement to change certain
provisions. The most telling evidence for the in-
crease of unanimity conditions can be found in
a formulation saying that all the elements of the
policy framework will be reviewed by the
European Council. Explicitly, the heads of state
and government reserved the right to address
the development of the emissions trading
scheme, decisions about national commitments
to reduce emissions in the sectors not covered
by the ETS, and commitments for the develop-
ment of interconnectors and energy efficiency
to themselves. This way Poland (which wanted
to reserve this caveat mainly for climate policy),
France (interconnectors) and Great Britain (en-
ergy efficiency) could be assured that the cen-
tral parameters of the agreed framework would
not be adjusted without their consent.
The European Council’s conclusions on the
2030 framework for energy and climate policy
represent a new quality of an ongoing
intergov-
ernmentalisation
process in the EU. Although in
the treaties such a transfer of competence is not
foreseen and the European Council cannot for-
mally act as a legislative body, the result is still
that these decisions are politically binding. In
the coming years, it will be crucial to see how
the “ordinary legislative procedure” under
Article 294 TFEU (with the Commission as an
initiative organ and equal participation of the
European Parliament and the Council) competes
with the political influence of the European
Council in this area. However, it seems difficult
to imagine in this context that in the future a
majority decision is taken by the relevant Council
formations without a prior decision of the heads
of state and government. Already in recent
years, many climate policy decisions had to be
delayed because of the lack of consensus
among Member States until an informal agree-
ment was reached at the level of the heads of
state and government.
While there’s a trend towards intergovern-
mental decision-making on climate policy,
there’s also a stronger emphasis on the national
planning of energy policies. Thus, not only those
governments that are generally skeptical of new
EU targets in the area of renewable energy and
energy efficiency policies wanted a confirma-
tion in the conclusion text that they are allowed
to determine their own energy mix on the basis
of Article 194 TFEU, but also the environmen-
tally more progressive states were granted a
provision that their more ambitious national
measures in the field of renewable energy and
energy efficiency will not violate EU law. Given
the growing difficulties in the foreseeable future
for the EU to take common decisions, all of this
is likely to result in a re-nationalization of energy