Chapter 22: The EU’s external energy governance in the age of the energy transition

Overview & Synopsis

The EU aspires to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. For a large importer of fossil fuels, such an evolution promises to bring about change in geopolitical terms. This chapter outlines implications of the energy transition in Europe on the EU’s external governance, looking at declining and emerging energy interdependencies and gathering preliminary evidence on the extent to which the EU’s external energy governance is adapting to and shaping such a new environment. The EU generally finds itself in a more advantageous geopolitical position in a context dominated by non-fossil energy. Yet, some areas require attention - notably an increasing interdependence with China at a time of resurgent great power rivalry, and a renewed centrality of industrial policy, where the EU has limited instruments at its disposal. We argue that so far, the EU is adopting a hybrid approach to the external dimension of the energy transition, trying to keep together an outward-looking approach with some mercantilist practices aiming at protecting its domestic clean energy industry, without much geopolitical framing of external action.