Europe’s new interventionism: Punctuated equilibrium and EU energy policy change

Since the 1990s, European Union (EU) energy policy has sought to liberalize gas and electricity markets. Until 2022, the Single European Market ensured reliable supply, competitive pricing, and environmental sustainability. However, the Ukraine crisis gave rise to a substantial policy shift toward a strongly interventionist approach. New measures included price caps, nationalization, and a single buyer vehicle for gas. This chapter argues that the deep policy changes caused by Russia's war are very likely to outlast the short-term need for crisis management. It draws on Baumgartner and Jones's (1991) seminal work on punctuated equilibriums to assess how the 2022 events revealed the inadequacies of the energy policy subsystem and prompted shifts in both policy image and policy venue. This was driven by three developments: the securitization of the green transition to a low-carbon economy; the inability of the market model to deal adequately with an external shock beyond ensuring supply; and a change in decision-making from energy sector-oriented agencies to the highest levels of government and EU institutions. The central argument is that the war in Ukraine rendered the existing energy policy subsystem unstable and that this gave rise to a dominant new interventionist policy image and moved energy from low to high politics. This new interventionism is likely to guide EU energy policymaking for some time.