EU foreign energy policy : from intergovernmentalism to supranationalism

Abstract

European regulation addressing the external dimension of energy policy till today remained far and few between. In practise it is the individual countries being leading actors on the foreign energy relations stage. To cope with the increasing threats to the EU foreign energy policy, the European Commission issued its long anticipated Communication on security of energy supply and international cooperation proposing concrete instruments on how energy foreign relations should be addressed in the future. This article argues that the EU is actually equipped with the necessary tools to step in and finally lead the Member States to a unified modus operandi in foreign energy policy may it either be based on implied powers or due to the cooperation duty of the Member States. The recently proposed Transparency Decision is used for illustrating the latter.