Abstract

The European Council is the voice of the member states’ governments in the EU policymaking process, and it is the institutional setting where member states can enforce their national interest. Research within the framework of liberal intergovernmentalism has often pressed on the importance of the nation-state. At the same time, scholarly work has developed a more nuanced framework around deliberative intergovernmentalism that captures the complex and sometimes ambiguous and overlapping roles the EU institutions play in the policymaking process. This presentation refers to the analysis of Council working group meeting notes and revisions of a legislative proposal in the recent ‘Fit for 55’ climate package, providing a unique look behind the curtains of the roles of the Council and member state governments within a deliberative intergovernmental framework. The recent recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive is used as the empirical case because of the centrality of the questions of integration, subsidiarity and national flexibility. Our method combines quantitative and qualitative text analysis of deliberations and legislative revisions. We find that the fragile consensus is reached by enabling national flexibility in policy decisions, indicating that the Council can be conceptualized as a brake on further European integration in the policy domain.  

Speaker

Johan Nordensvärd is an associate professor of political science at Linköping University and associate professor in management and technology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. His research focuses on the intersection of environmental politics, international development, and social policy, especially with regard to low-carbon development, innovation policy, and energy policy. He is particularly interested in developing a broader understanding of environmental justice, identity, and ecological citizenship.