IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/poango/v7y2019i1p28-44.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Big Data View of the European Energy Union: Shifting from ‘a Floating Signifier’ to an Active Driver of Decarbonisation?

Author

Listed:
  • Karoliina Isoaho

    (Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki, Finland)

  • Fanni Moilanen

    (Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki, Finland)

  • Arho Toikka

    (Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki, Finland)

Abstract

The Energy Union, a major energy sector reform project launched by the European Commission in 2015, has substantial clean energy and climate aims. However, scholarly caution has been raised about their feasibility, especially with regards to accommodating climate objectives with other closely related yet often competing policy goals. We therefore investigated the policy priorities of the Energy Union by performing a topic modelling analysis of over 5,000 policy documents. A big data analysis confirms that decarbonisation and energy efficiency dimensions are major building blocks in the Energy Union’s agenda. Furthermore, there are signals of policy convergence in terms of climate security and climate affordability policies. However, our analysis also suggests that the Commission is not actively prescribing trajectories for renewable policy development or paying close attention to declining incumbent energy generation technologies. Overall, we find that the Energy Union is not a ‘floating signifier’ but rather has a clear and incrementally evolving decarbonisation agenda. Whether it further develops into an active driver of decarbonisation will largely be determined by the implementation phase of the project.

Suggested Citation

  • Karoliina Isoaho & Fanni Moilanen & Arho Toikka, 2019. "A Big Data View of the European Energy Union: Shifting from ‘a Floating Signifier’ to an Active Driver of Decarbonisation?," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(1), pages 28-44.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:1:p:28-44
    DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i1.1731
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/1731
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/pag.v7i1.1731?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maltby, Tomas, 2013. "European Union energy policy integration: A case of European Commission policy entrepreneurship and increasing supranationalism," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 435-444.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kacper Szulecki & Dag Herald Claes, 2019. "Towards Decarbonization: Understanding EU Energy Governance," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(1), pages 1-5.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kacper Szulecki & Dag Herald Claes, 2019. "Towards Decarbonization: Understanding EU Energy Governance," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(1), pages 1-5.
    2. Szabo, John & Fabok, Marton, 2020. "Infrastructures and state-building: Comparing the energy politics of the European Commission with the governments of Hungary and Poland," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    3. Strunz, Sebastian & Lehmann, Paul & Gawel, Erik, 2021. "Analyzing the ambitions of renewable energy policy in the EU and its Member States," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    4. Angélique Palle & Yann Richard, 2022. "Multilevel Governance or Scalar Clashes: Finding the Right Scale for EU Energy Policy," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 113(1), pages 1-18, February.
    5. Roman Vavrek & Jana Chovancová, 2020. "Energy Performance of the European Union Countries in Terms of Reaching the European Energy Union Objectives," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-16, October.
    6. Zapletalová, Veronika & Komínková, Magda, 2020. "Who is fighting against the EU's energy and climate policy in the European Parliament? The contribution of the Visegrad Group," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    7. Isabel Camisão & Maria Helena Guimarães, 2017. "The Commission, the Single Market and the Crisis: The Limits of Purposeful Opportunism," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 223-239, March.
    8. Björklund, Martin & von Malmborg, Fredrik & La Fleur, Lina & Nordensvärd, Johan, 2024. "Going beyond the Council as brake of EU energy policy: Analysing the internal process of the Council in the recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    9. Mišík, Matúš, 2022. "The EU needs to improve its external energy security," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    10. Gaigalis, Vygandas & Skema, Romualdas, 2014. "Sustainable economy development and transition of fuel and energy in Lithuania after integration into the European Union," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 719-733.
    11. Marian Zaharia & Aurelia Pătrașcu & Manuela Rodica Gogonea & Ana Tănăsescu & Constanța Popescu, 2017. "A Cluster Design on the Influence of Energy Taxation in Shaping the New EU-28 Economic Paradigm," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-21, February.
    12. Gaigalis, Vygandas & Skema, Romualdas, 2015. "Analysis of the fuel and energy transition in Lithuanian industry and its sustainable development in 2005–2013 in compliance with the EU policy and strategy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 265-279.
    13. Delgado, Francisco J. & Freire-González, Jaume & Presno, Maria J., 2022. "Environmental taxation in the European Union: Are there common trends?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 73, pages 670-682.
    14. Gippner, Olivia & Torney, Diarmuid, 2017. "Shifting policy priorities in EU-China energy relations: Implications for Chinese energy investments in Europe," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 649-658.
    15. Krzykowski, Michał & Krzykowska, Karolina, 2017. "Will the European Commission's policy hinder gas supplies to Central and Eastern European countries? OPAL case decision," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 534-541.
    16. Raszewski, Slawomir, 2022. "When one door closes, another opens: How the failure of the Turkey - Austria natural gas pipeline project has led to recovery, resilience and scalability of successor projects," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    17. Karoliina Isoaho & Fanni Moilanen & Arho Toikka, 2019. "A Big Data View of the European Energy Union: Shifting from ‘a Floating Signifier’ to an Active Driver of Decarbonisation?," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(1), pages 28-44.
    18. Richard Schmitz & Franziska Flachsbarth & Leonie Sara Plaga & Martin Braun & Philipp Hartel, 2025. "Energy Security and Resilience: Reviewing Concepts and Advancing Planning Perspectives for Transforming Integrated Energy Systems," Papers 2504.18396, arXiv.org.
    19. Zbyněk Dubský & Markéta Votoupalová & Alžběta Vítková, 2025. "Framing the European Green Deal: political and media energy discourses in Czechia and Sweden," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 12(1), pages 1-13, December.
    20. Thomas, Antonio & Scandurra, Giuseppe & Carfora, Alfonso, 2024. "Conceptualizing an interpretative framework for energy transition among Italian innovative small and medium enterprises," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v7:y:2019:i:1:p:28-44. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.