Version 1
: Received: 13 September 2024 / Approved: 13 September 2024 / Online: 13 September 2024 (09:48:50 CEST)
How to cite:
von Malmborg, F. The Eye of Every Storm: Policy Entrepreneurs to Strengthen the Role of Energy Efficiency in EU Climate Policy. Preprints2024, 2024091073. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202409.1073.v1
von Malmborg, F. The Eye of Every Storm: Policy Entrepreneurs to Strengthen the Role of Energy Efficiency in EU Climate Policy. Preprints 2024, 2024091073. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202409.1073.v1
von Malmborg, F. The Eye of Every Storm: Policy Entrepreneurs to Strengthen the Role of Energy Efficiency in EU Climate Policy. Preprints2024, 2024091073. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202409.1073.v1
APA Style
von Malmborg, F. (2024). The Eye of Every Storm: Policy Entrepreneurs to Strengthen the Role of Energy Efficiency in EU Climate Policy. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202409.1073.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
von Malmborg, F. 2024 "The Eye of Every Storm: Policy Entrepreneurs to Strengthen the Role of Energy Efficiency in EU Climate Policy" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202409.1073.v1
Abstract
Contextualising the narrative on energy efficiency as the first fuel in the clean energy transition, the energy efficiency first principle (EE1) was introduced in EU energy and climate policy with Energy Union communication in 2015 and made nonbinding with the EU Governance Regulation in 2018. In 2023, the EU legislators made EE1 legally binding to apply in policy, planning and investment decisions exceeding 100 million euros each and 175 million euros in the transport sector across all sectors that affect the energy system. By applying the multiple streams framework, this article analyses the role of policy entrepreneurs in the policy process and politics of making EE1 binding through qualitative text analysis of policy documents, position papers and reports from EU negotiations. The analysis shows how nonprofit and nongovernmental organisations such as the Regulatory Assistance Project, the European Climate Foundation and the Energy Efficiency Financial Institutions Group, as well as the European Commission and the rotating Council Presidency, were critical policy entrepreneurs for coupling the problem, policy and politics streams. The coupling was performed once a policy window was opened by the Paris Agreement on climate change, the entering office of the Ursula von der Leyen European Commission in late 2019, immediately presenting the European Grean Deal as the EU’s climate action plan and green growth strategy, and the energy crisis in Europe following Russia’s second war on Ukraine, leading the Commission to present the REPowerEU Plan and the EU Save Energy Strategy. This paper provides better knowledge of the policy processes and politics related to EE1, contextualising and concretising the concept of energy efficiency as the first fuel into binding law.
Keywords
Demand-side flexibility; energy efficiency; European Union; multiple streams framework; policy entrepreneurs; policy process
Subject
Social Sciences, Political Science
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
