Energy Policies
How can the Green Deal be implemented at all levels and synchronized with global governance? How are power strategies evolving, and under what conditions can they converge?
Related Subjects

Macron and Rutte grow closer to each other through geopolitical shifts and a personal click
French President Emmanuel Macron will visit Prime Minister Mark Rutte in The Hague on Monday evening. He mainly hopes for Rutte's support for a European rebuttal to Biden's protectionist green industrial policy.
The European Green Deal Three Years On: Acceleration, Erosion, Fragmentation?
The European Green Deal (EGD) is the single most defining policy initiative of the von der Leyen Commission. Since its publication in December 2019, it has become the European Union’s (EU) new raison d’être: protecting the planet and Europeans from environmental degradation, through a holistic approach to the energy transition, while promoting sustainable growth and a just transition with no social group or territory left behind.
Winter is coming: How to shield the most vulnerable and preserve the consensus on the war
Some of Europe’s poorest countries and communities would be hardest hit by disruptions of Russian energy supplies. With a difficult winter ahead, Europe’s ability to redistribute costs equitably and to shield the most vulnerable will determine whether it can preserve social cohesion and the consensus on the war in Ukraine.
“Don’t Bank on the Bombs” New European Standards Affecting the Defense Industry
While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has underlined the need to upgrade the European armed forces, the urgency of the fight against climate change—as illustrated by reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—requires the political mobilization of the European Union (EU) to carry out the transition to climate neutrality.
Redefining the Netherlands' Energy Future : Societal Implications of the Nearing End of Dutch Natural Gas
For decades, the large Groningen gas field has been a central pillar of the Dutch welfare state. The availability of gas was so self-evident that many generations still identify with the slogan “Nederland gasland” (“The Netherlands, a gas country”). The nearing end of Dutch gas now requires a mentality shift.
The German Industrial Power in Danger: The Double Shock of Energy Transition and Geopolitical Risk
The German manufacturing industry at the heart of the German economic activity has been confronted in the past years with conjunctural shocks, which question its existence on the German territory: the energy transition which hinders it in the short term to resort to fossile energy from Germany and nuclear energy; a questioning of fossile energy imports from Russia which keeps production sites of fossile energy and nuclear energy in Germany; the currently small capacity of renewable energy to satisfy the important energy needs of the manufacturing industry and the putting into place of alternatives to the importation of energy resources.
Five Years after China’s Plastic Import Ban: Have Europeans Taken Responsibility?
After the 2017 Chinese waste import ban, the international and European Union (EU) legislative framework on waste exports has been revised.
Ukraine: Between Two Peaces?
We have reentered the world of war. In its first special report, Politique étrangère offers a range of in-depth analyses of the military and political dynamics at work in a Europe that has just woken up from its dream of enduring peace. The direct confrontation between Ukraine and Russia has pitted two military and defense systems against each other, whose asymmetrical logics, strengths, and weaknesses we are discovering as the conflict unfolds.
The Impact of the War in Ukraine on the Energy Sector
The outbreak of war in Ukraine dealt a shock to energy markets.
The EU’s Renewables Expansion Challenge Towards 2030: Mobilizing for a Mission Almost Impossible
Only eight years are left to expand by almost three times the current total installed wind and solar energy capacity in the European Union (EU) in adding around 600 gigawatts (GW), and so reach the highly-ambitious 2030 targets. This requires a mobilization whose scale is immense – amidst times of unprecedented crises and uncertainties.
Exploring the strengths and weaknesses of European innovation capacity within the Strategic Energy Technologies (SET) Plan
The purpose of this policy report is to explore the strengths and weaknesses of European innovation capacity within the Strategic Energy Technologies (SET) Plan Integrated Roadmap.
Ifri’s conference on the New Frontiers of Energy Identified Strategic Orientations for the European Energy Union
The Ifri Center for Energy held its annual conference in Brussels on March 4th, 2015. The event gathered more than 150 participants, together with prominent policy makers, industry leaders and distinguished academics to discuss how the European energy policy can deliver effective results in light of geopolitical upheavals, technological developments and governance issues.
To download the presentations, click here
Energy Union: What's Inside the Defence Walls?
Conflicts in Ukraine and Middle East are giving resonance to the proposal for an Energy Union, originated by Poland, and, initiated by the European Commission. Indeed, access to affordable energy stands as a major concern for all EU citizens and becomes, as such, a strong political argument for the Juncker Commission to back-up an Energy Union.
The European Energy Policy: Building New Perspectives
“After 17 years of supranationality, we are still seeking how to define a common energy policy and what it might be. [...] Could we have done more in one generation? Or were goals only established to achieve a political balance which it was explicitly agreed to ignore, once the machinery began to operate? Historians will have a hard task to distinguish between excessive ambitions and national hypocrisies”.
Commission Communication of the EU Energy External Policy: Was There an Alternative?
EU is the world’s largest net energy importer and consumer, so why do its Members continue to negotiate individually with the rest of the world rather than as one big market with a big voice?
European Energy Policy: Energy Savings Glass 2/3 Empty
Summing up Europe’s climate policies suggests we still haven’t grasped the full potential for energy savings. We act as if we were living in a system with infinite resources easily exploited by human innovation and ingenuity. We focus on the efficiencies we can gain from components of our system, but not on the system as a whole and we do not consider how the other billions of people on earth can achieve our level of comfort with a resource or carbon-constrained future and with aspirations that necessarily imply sharply growing energy consumption.
Energy Efficiency: Smart but not Sexy
Marie C. DONNELLY, DG Energy, reported that the EU is “unlikely to achieve a 20% reduction on the current set of policies” [1] by 2020. According to her, based on a modelling exercise, the estimate of energy savings “would be somewhere between 9 and 11% on current policies” in spite of the contribution of the economic crisis to decreasing the EU primary energy consumption.
Saving Wind from its Subsidies
European subsidies for wind energy are too high and unspecific. They risk frustrating their own objective.
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