EU-Member States’ Relations: Empirical Conclusions and Theoretical Implications

Abstract

In this chapter we shall attempt to assess the relative importance of the various EU actors in the energy policy-making process. This may be an attempt to ‘square the circle’, as it were; that is, the outcome of such an exercise depends very much on whether it is possible to quantify influence in the same way when we evaluate the role of the various actors. We have assumed throughout that member governments’ energy interests are largely fixed prior to the start of the decision-making process at the EU level, and that they use the EU as an arena for furthering these interests, both at the EU level and domestically, in line with Putnam’s model, described earlier. In Chapter 2 we discussed the nature of these government interests.