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Table of Contents: I. Introduction – II. Why (still) support renewable energy sources and why should the EU care – II.1. The persisting need for financially supporting RES – II.2. The purposiveness of an enlarged impact of the EU legal order on renewable energy support policies – III. The EU competence in the area of renewable energy support – III.1. The environmental legal basis of art. 192 TFEU – III.2. The legal basis of art. 114 TFEU regarding the approximation of laws – III.3. The solidarity legal basis of art. 122 TFEU – IV. The limits of the EU competence in the area of renewable energy support – IV.1. The limited scope of the EU competence – IV.2. The limits in the exercise of the EU competence – V. Conclusion.
Abstract: In spite of the increasing interest of the supranational legal order in the field of energy policy, and the insertion of the specific energy legal basis of art. 194 in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the extent of the Union power to eventually intervene and impact on national renewable energy support policy choices is blurry. Delineating the limits of this competence is very important at a time of unprecedented and increasingly complicated challenges, such as the combination of the aggravation of the climate emergency and the energy security crisis. This situation necessitates the completion of the European integration of energy policies and triggers thorough reforms. Accordingly, this Article puts forward the question, does the EU have the competence to elaborate on the field of supportive financing of renewable energy projects? The Article shows the persisting need to support renewable energy projects and investigates the expected benefits from an intensification of the EU intervention in national renewable energy support regimes towards more homogeneity. Further, it dissects art. 194 TFEU with the aim to identify the appropriate legal basis for measures of renewable energy support policy, and investigates the scope of the relevant EU competence, as well as the legal and political limits that affect its exercise.
Keywords: support schemes for renewable energy sources – integration of energy policies – art. 194 TFEU – national energy sovereignty – EU energy competence – internal energy market.
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European Papers, Vol. 9, 2024, No 3, pp. 1268-1295
ISSN 2499-8249 - doi: 10.15166/2499-8249/809
* Visiting professor at Hasselt University and Postdoctoral Fellow (Fundamental Research) of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO), theodoros.iliopoulos@uhasselt@be.
