The Priorities of EU Energy Policy

Abstract

The article deals with the evolution, development conditions and characteristics of implementation of the EEU/EU key energy policy goals in the 1960‒2010s. The authors apply historical analysis to consider the goals of the EEU in the energy sector in the 1960‒1980s and proceed to the EU energy policy goals in the 1990‒2010s. They explore the challenges that had brought these goals to the top of the EU energy policy list and the traditional hierarchy of the EU energy policy goals. Seen through the prism of historic development, security was the first and most acute goal, integrated energy market – the second, and ecology – the third. The authors raise a question if one should expect changes in the priorities of the energy policy goals under the conditions of the ongoing ecological and climate turn in the long-term development strategies of the EU. Until 2019 security had dominated the list of the EU major energy policy goals. However, after 2020 ecology may replace security as an «umbrella goal». It has already become one of the key drivers of energy sector reform and makes the EU members give up their sovereignty in favour of the EU institutions.