 Welcome, everyone. We're back. Let's talk about politics and governance. Today we focus on how the European Commission has evolved from a collaborative body to a global force. Navigating many challenges lately, such as COVID-19, climate change, the war in Ukraine. And I have invited Marco Sidi to explore the European Union's energy strategies. And its embrace of strategic partnerships with like-minded countries. So we're going to focus on the EU's energy strategies. Marco, welcome to our episode. Thank you very much for having me. Hi. Marco, tell us about the importance of studying the European Union's energy strategies after all these recent crises. Well, energy is a central factor in your policy today. It has been a top priority of the Commission headed by Ursula von der Leyen. Energy transition is fundamental to tackle climate change. So one of the key questions is how geopolitical competition, which is rising today, affects this constellation. We hear a lot of talk about the risking strategic autonomy. And we perceive even in this talk a contradiction with the long-standing rhetoric on trade and multilateralism. So how does that affect a field energy transition where cooperation would be fundamental to ensure that it happens on a global level? And how does this play a role in the EU's global strategies? You mentioned geopolitical competition. You're right in your article that the existing literature on the EU's energy policy has largely focused on its economic and environmental dimensions while paying less attention to its geopolitical aspects. So is this correct? Yeah, this is correct. And it's also natural because geopolitical competition has been rising in recent years. So before we still live in this period of post-Cold War relative call. And now this has changed and it is really radically influencing also the way EU policymakers reason. Again, if we just think about strategic autonomy as opposed to trade openness, which was the mantra of EU policymakers until recently. Let's then focus on your article. So what are the main highlights, the main conclusions of your study? Well, the main findings are that we see, especially in the last few years and particularly from 2022, so following Russia's attack on Ukraine, we see a shift, a rhetorical shift from broad multilateralism and open strategic autonomy to more narrowly defined strategic partnerships with like-minded countries. You know, this is a rhetorical level. So partnerships with the US, Canada, Japan. So policy practice, we can say, is still quite diverse. We do see a quest for partnership also with Qatar, for example, for the import of liquefied natural gas, which is not necessarily a like-minded country on many issues and has also been quite controversial. If you remember the Qatar gate in the European Parliament last year. So this is the main point. The article then goes into the details of how this rhetorical change has taken place in various documents. And I look at documents between 2019 published between 2019 and 2023. European Green Deal communication is one of the earliest documents. And I get to the Green Deal industrial plan, which is one of the most recent pieces of policy strategy and is now being substantiated by regulations and so the legal, you know, the critical raw materials act, zero industry act. So one finds quite a lot of information about these strategies in the article and specifically how they relate to the foreign policy geopolitics conundrum. It's a potential implication of this. So you mentioned these strategies and documents that you mentioned, a potential implication you reference in your article is to figure out how the European Union will balance both geopolitical aspects and the climate aspects of its energy policy. So let us know more about this balance and, you know, potential other practical implications. Yes, so the European Union is trying to square the circle by focusing on green partnerships, especially with neighboring countries. For example, in North Africa, simply because it's it's easier, you know, to access energy, green energy produced in these regions. At the same time, there are several issues that you cannot get rid of its fossil fuel demand so quickly. So if you try to replace such a large supplier as Russia, you need to find oil and gas elsewhere. Yeah, so this is the geopolitics side. So we see some investments, not simply on improving renewable energy production or energy efficiency, but also on, for example, new LNG terminals terminals to import LNG from far away from the US Qatar. We can think of the case of Germany, which did not have a single LNG terminal in that in early 2022 Russia was its main gas provider, and suddenly it had to change this and try to find gas somewhere else. By the way, this has been quite successful. However, it has come at a cost. The cost being less energy available and at a higher price and a cost that we see reflected on energy prices on the performance also of the German economy, the German industry, and potentially also having social implications and political implications potentially in also in the European elections this year. And with all these consequences and implications you mentioned, if anyone would ask you recommendations for what to study next, what would you suggest? Well, we need to try to understand the impact that the current policies will have on the unrolling, you know, policies for the energy transition. Once again, if the EU pursues strategic autonomy, for example, in the deployment of renewables in the critical minerals that you need to produce semiconductors, wind turbines and so on. Is this going to have an impact in how much time you need to actually implement the energy transition? Or will it have an impact on the cost on prices, which again is also likely to delay the whole thing. So it is important to understand the trade-off and try to find a way to combine the need for more autonomy with the need to actually prioritize climate action. Perfect. This has been, Marco, a very straight-to-the-point episode, exactly what we like to do, but a last challenge for you. If you had to sum up this episode in one or two sentences, what would it be? Well, overall, we can say that European energy and climate policy rose to prominence in 2019, so exactly at the beginning of the current electoral cycle at the European level with the European Parliament elections. And following this, following activist protests also and movements like Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for the Future, there was a practical effect also on EU policy and we saw the Green Deal and a lot of strategies and policies to accelerate the energy transition. Now, five years on, this momentum is waning. We see that actually we are experiencing a backlash and part of the reason for this is geopolitics, there's other priorities. So if you want, I can do this again because it wasn't one or two sentences, it was actually longer than the entire episode. No worries, no worries, at least the content's there and that's the most important message just passed. Marco, thank you very much. Sure. Thanks for having me. For those who are watching us on YouTube, let's talk about politics and governance websites, provide you with the study that Marco and I just chatted about and also all the channels in which you can listen to these episodes. 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