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Agenda Dynamics on Energy Policy in the European Council

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Energy Policy Making in the EU

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Energy ((LNEN,volume 28))

Abstract

Policy issues can arrive on the agendas of political institutions following two routes: a low and a high politics one. In the first case, involvement of experts and working groups is envisaged. In the latter, the power of top institutions is emphasized with their tasks of drawing overall strategies, acting as final arbiters or decision-makers and delegating policy proposals downwards. A high politics institution in the multilevel system of the EU is the European Council, whose role in shaping the Union agenda has increased over the years. Analysing the Conclusions issued after meetings of this body, we find that energy is a topic with relatively little overall attention and sensitive to drastic shifts over time. Energy-related issues appearance on the agenda was sometimes the result of focusing events but also represented strategic discussions in the form of policy planning and review. Classifying the statements in the Conclusions of the European Council in categories, we find that the text can be almost equally divided between evaluations or positions, setting of targets and concrete actions. In short, while attracting on average rather limited attention, energy has the power to become salient in times of critical events or strong need of strategic guideline provision. And its appearance on the agenda often results in new initiatives and delegation of action to lower levels of policy making.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    After Croatia entered on 1 July 2013, there are 21 more member states than at the time when Peters wrote his essay.

  2. 2.

    The dataset is publicly available at www.policyagendas.eu/data.

  3. 3.

    Not shown in the figure.

  4. 4.

    The data on governmental agendas are based on executive speeches coded within the Comparative Agendas Project (www.comparativeagendas.info).

  5. 5.

    Such statements may or may not be followed by substantive policy proposals.

  6. 6.

    An action can also be cancelled or withdrawn, but this happens just occasionally.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leibniz University of Hannover, Institute of Political Sciences, Schneiderberg 50, 30167, Hannover, Germany

    Petya Alexandrova

  2. Institute of Public Administration, Campus the Hague, Leiden University, Schouwburgstraat 2, 2511 VA, The Hague, The Netherlands

    Arco Timmermans

Authors
  1. Petya Alexandrova
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  2. Arco Timmermans
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Correspondence to Petya Alexandrova .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Political Science, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

    Jale Tosun

  2. Institute for Research Information and Quality Assurance (iFQ), Berlin, Germany

    Sophie Biesenbender

  3. Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

    Kai Schulze

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Alexandrova, P., Timmermans, A. (2015). Agenda Dynamics on Energy Policy in the European Council. In: Tosun, J., Biesenbender, S., Schulze, K. (eds) Energy Policy Making in the EU. Lecture Notes in Energy, vol 28. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6645-0_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6645-0_3

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  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-6644-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-6645-0

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