The main result of the diploma thesis is the conclusion that the roles of institutions in the decision-making process really changed. As the decision-making process shifted to regulation, the roles of institutions changed.
Introduction
Research questions and their motivation
What roles do the main EU institutions play in the decision-making process of the security of gas supply legislation? This last set of hypotheses then aims to explain the possible changes in the roles of the institutions during the legislation process.
Why study the institutions of the European Union?
Understanding the effect of the circumstances in turn gives us information about the possible changes in the roles that have taken place during the process. The term "Member States" in turn refers exclusively to the interests of national governments.
Why study decision-making of security of gas supply?
The structure of the thesis will be as follows: the second chapter will be dedicated to the presentation of decision-making and energy policy of the European Union. The fourth chapter will focus on the study method and the fifth chapter will provide the analysis.
Decision-making and energy policy in the European Union
The decision-making system of the European Union
- The institutions of the European Union and decision-making
- Treaty based decision-making procedures
Nugent further explains why the roles of the Commission and the Council are not straightforward in the consultation procedure. She argues that the Commission's participation in the internal proceedings of the Council and the Parliament gives it an informational advantage.
The energy policy of the European Union
- An overview of the energy policy of the European Union
- The role of the institutions in energy policy in the European Union
The first, Janne Haaland Matlary's Energy Policy in the European Union (1997), explains the development of European energy policy up to the year 1997. In this section, I will focus on the role of institutions in the design of energy policy. insight into the books mentioned.
Theoretical framework
Theories of the decision-making in the European Union
Hooghe and Marks (2001) have addressed this problem and offer a model of multilevel governance to better explain the functioning of the EU. Birchfield applies multi-level governance in her assessment of the role of the EU institutions in shaping energy policy.
New Institutionalism
Historical institutionalism has been used in several studies in the context of the functioning of the EU. Pollack's (2003) perception of the principal-agent analysis (see 3.3.) is an example of rational choice institutionalism applied to the contexts of the EU.
Mark A. Pollack’s principal-agent analysis
- Principals and delegation and discretion
- Agency and accountability
- Formal agenda setting and procedural rules
In the case of the reliability of gas supply, a good example would be the measure of refusing to comply with the agency's decisions. This would give a negotiating advantage to the Commission and the Parliament to continue to support their pro-integration and maximum competences when drafting the regulation.
Method
- Case study research
- Advantages and limitations of case study research method
- Observation and analysis
- Introduction to material
The final advantage of the case study method compared to statistical methods in the field of democratic peace studies is the possibility to create subtypes. First, the aims of the study and the target audience should be kept in mind. A case study is also the result of this process, so the term can refer to both the product of analysis and the process of analysis.
Rich data is not sufficient if it is not linked to the theory of the case. As introduced in the previous chapter, the analysis process of my thesis is guided by the theoretical framework of the study. The primary material of this research consists mainly of the official documents written in the process of formulating the mandate and regulation.
In total, 6 final legislative acts, published in the Official Journal of the European Union, are also included.
Analysis of the decision-making process of the security of gas supply legislation
Background of the legislation
- Emphasis on the market
- Towards a European strategy for the security of energy supply
Parliament (1996) issued a report on the Commission's communication, approving the conclusions presented by the Commission in the communication, and proposing a deeper analysis of the role of the EU, Member States and gas buyers and - security of supply vendors. The finding of the 1995 Communication on the usefulness of coordination at EC level for improving security of supply was important. In addition, the Directive allows Member States to impose public service obligations to ensure security of supply, regularity, quality and price of gas supply.
Taking this into account, it is equally understandable why the EU institutions were willing to examine the issue of security of supply while officially promoting the opening of the single market. The main message from the Commission is that more effort is needed to manage gas supply, because of gas. In 2000, the Commission published another Green Paper on the issue of security of energy supply (Commission of the EC, 2000).
This also applies to the field of energy, except in connection with the opening of the energy market (Europolitics.
Directive
- Proposal for a directive
- Opinions of the Parliament and discussions at the Council
- Formal adoption and final legislative act
- Domination by the principal
What level of security [Member States] want to achieve with this [the use of precautionary measures] should also be left to the discretion of the Member States. In addition, Parliament rejected the Commission's power to issue recommendations to member states, arguing that national measures should be determined by national governments. In the end, the decision-making process on the Security of Supply Directive resulted in disputes between the Commission on the one hand and the Council and Parliament on the other.
Also, Parliament finally agreed to change the legal basis. Parliament did not share the Commission's views and thus the procedural requirements of the directive were tightened. However, based on the assessment of the conditions for delegation, the level of discretion that the Council was willing to give to the Commission ended up being very low.
The third of my hypotheses is true for the Commission, but not for the Parliament.
A need for a regulation
- Gas disruption of 2006
- Gas disruption of 2009
All in all, it can be concluded that the Council was clearly the dominant actor in the decision-making process for the Security of Gas Supply Directive. In the Green Paper, the Commission concludes that in light of the new energy realities facing Europe (EC Commission. Shortly after the publication of the Green Paper, Eurogas responded by expressing its views on the ongoing discussion on security of supply (Eurogas, 2006 ) ).
In order to ensure the achievement of the EU's energy targets, the Commission proposed the supplementary second strategic EU energy audit "EU Action Plan for Energy Security and Solidarity" (EC Commission, 2008b.) the following year, 2008. The main message of the communication is that the mechanism at Community level is not sufficient (Commission of the EC, 2008a, 11):. On 8 January, Commission President José Manuel Barroso met with Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller.
This was the result of efforts by the Czech Presidency and the Commission to facilitate an agreement between the two sides.
Regulation
- Proposal for a regulation
- Opinion of the Parliament and discussions at the Council
- Formal adoption and final legislative act
- Bargaining between the principals and the agents
The last and fifth policy option of the Commission is to create a regulation on security of gas supply. Regarding the procedural agenda setting, the Commission argues that the role of the EU in the decision-making process of a security of supply legislation should be strengthened. After the Commission published its proposal, the decision-making process of the regulation continued according to the co-decision procedure, which is presented in detail in chapter 2.1.2.
Several of them wanted to strengthen the role of Member States in managing security of supply (Europolitics 17.2.2010). As mentioned, Member States with less comprehensive security of supply strategies were in favor of the Commission's proposal. However, as mentioned earlier, Parliament wanted to change the Commission's right of scrutiny.
Regarding my fourth hypothesis, I argue that the final text of the Regulation does not include strict procedural requirements for the Commission.
The impact of conditions
However, in the final legislative act, the Commission only has the right to recommend that emergency stocks be released to the Member States (PB L Art. Therefore, it is easy to conclude that the Member States were able to control the Commission comprehensively used and consequently, the Commission's powers could be weakened in the final text of the directive (Europolitics. This means that unlike in the case of the regulation of the security of gas supply, the member states are not in a disadvantageous negotiating position with regard to the Commission was during the decision-making process of the directive which imposes an obligation on member states to maintain minimum stocks of crude oil and/or petroleum products.
This brings us to the final set of my hypotheses, which is to compare the influence of the Commission and Parliament in the consultation process with their influence in the co-decision process. In contrast, the final text of the regulation provides the opposite: a high degree of Commission discretion and only very weak control mechanisms. This suggests that the main difference between the decision-making processes of the Petroleum Directive and the Gas Supply Regulation must be the different decision-making processes used.
However, the difference in the Commission's level of discretion between legislation aimed at security of gas supply and security of oil supply cannot be understood simply on the basis of different decision-making processes.
Conclusion
Commission of the EC (1995b), Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council. Commission of the EC (2002), Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council. Proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and the Council on measures to ensure the security of natural gas supply.
Commission of the EC (2007), Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council. Commission of the EC (2008a), Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on Directive 2004/67/EC of 26 April 2004 on measures to ensure the security of natural gas supply. Commission of the EC (2008b), Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council.
Commission of the EC (2009f), Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council.
