The governance of the Energy Union : an ‘Intricate System’ unable to achieve the European Union common goals

The intricate design of the Energy Union governance is aimed at connecting the EU level and Member States in a flexible way. From this perspective, a priority tool of the Governance Regulation is a system of bilateral relations between the European Commission and each country to negotiate, monitor and report the ten year National Energy and Climate Plan. This paper suggests that the lack of Commission’s enforcement powers and of a stringent follow-up process ‘disarms’ any attempt to meet the Energy Union objectives. Achieving such goals would have required a cooperation mechanism built on a horizontal dialogue between all Member States and the Commission. An alternative to an efficient cooperative form of all Member States is foreseen in the regional cooperation. Since regional cooperation is affirmed as a fundamental source of the EU energy market integration, the paper argues that the governance architecture should have foreseen a European vision to organise the joint work of regional groups instead of leaving the Member States free to decide if and how to cooperate. The analysis points out that the success of the Energy Union is, to a large extent, in the Member States’ hands and relies on their will to comply with the Commission’s soft regulation.