Background
EU’s energy policy and regulation have an impact on Norway’s energy policy and the functioning of the power market. However, as a third party (associated through the European Economic Area provisions) Norway is primarily on the receiving end of the policy changes, and this causes important legitimacy issues, most visibly illustrated by the recent ACER debate in Norwegian media. Two new EU policy initiatives are likely to have a long-standing impact on Norway: the “Clean Energy For All Europeans” (aka Clean Energy Package - CEP) introduced in 2016 and the recent Fit for 55 (FF55) from 2021, which is aligned with the European Green Deal (EGD).
The Fit for 55 package brings together new regulation which is designed to make Europe comply with its Paris Agreement obligations and the goal of reducing emissions by 55% by 2030. The package covers energy (renewable energy and energy efficiency), climate (EU ETS and non-ETS, plus CBAM), land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) as well as social dimensions (just transition).
Like the earlier Clean Energy Package, FF55 has important implications for Norwegian policymaking. However, the all-encompassing nature of the EGD poses an additional challenge for Norway. It requires sectoral integration, which means that governance practices in vertically organized ministries need to be supplemented or replaced by more horizontal, intersectoral coordination.
About the project
The actual impacts of CEP and FF55 are only becoming visible in EEA countries, some are anticipated (and cause adjustment even if they are not yet in place), others will emerge in 2022 and 2023, which is why the project is set to run until the second half of 2023. We will map the already visible impacts of the recent EU legislation on Norway’s energy governance in terms of:
- Legislation and regulation that changed or emerged in direct response to EU initiatives
- Changes in the energy market which occurred due to the CEP and FF55
- Future adjustments in terms of new regulation, changes in the political economy of the sector, and new infrastructure linked the longer-term European energy policy vision, also in light of the war in Ukraine
- The implications of the EU energy and climate governance for the way energy decision making is conducted within Norwegian public administration and institutions (mostly governmental but also regional and agencies).
- How can Norway’s public administration cope with the broad scope of the FF55?
We will gather Norwegian policymakers’ and stakeholders’ perspectives on the CEP, FF55 and their implementation, to see how different stakeholder groups assess the EU regulatory framework and its impacts, what are the division lines, what are the most contentious issues, benefits and challenges.
The project is led by Kacper Szulecki from the Center for Development and the Environment at the University of Oslo and Jon Birger Skjærseth from the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, with the Solar Energy Cluster as a partner.
Outcomes
- A policy brief or op-ed discussing the visible and potential future implications of the EU climate and energy policies on Norwegian energy and climate policy and the relevant sectors. The analysis will also take into account the ongoing political controversies in Norway around record high electricity prices and refer to central concepts of Include + energy justice and energy democracy, in relation to the EU.
- An academic paper focusing on how consistency in EU CEP/FF55 legislation filtered through the EEA affects sector integration in Norway