Energy and the European Economic Union: Hints from Renewables

The paper addresses the extreme weakness of the European Union in the energy sector, which is at the core of the current economic crisis. After highlighting the multi-level framework in which decisions are made, the paper focuses on the experience gained over the past twenty years in the renewable energy sector. Specifically, the author highlights that the European Union acted as an innovator and first mover, to be surpassed by China due to the EU’s inability to handle the scaling up of the technology. The paper proposes placing industrial policy for energy at the heart of the relaunch of the still uncompleted Economic Union project.