The CEE Energy Transition: Recurring Fifty-Year-Old Dynamics?

Abstract

EU members of Central and Eastern Europe are embarking on their second energy transition. The first was imposed by the Soviet Union and pushed these countries to reconsider the role of oil in their energy mix and substitute it with alternatives it could offer: electricity imports, natural gas, and nuclear technology. The shift was politically mediated and bureaucratically administered initially, only after which market forces played a minor, secondary role. Many of these countries have now opted to join the EU. They have become signatories of common EU climate action, but grudgingly and with reservations. There are hardly any doubts that their national climate policies would be much less ambitious and look quite differently without EU policy in place. Thus, we see a dominant external driver pushing change in the CEE, yet again. Similarly to the Soviet era, market-based measures have been overshadowed by targets and policies set by the EU. CEE countries have avoided taking excessive action, as the legacy of existing energy systems loom large. This chapter compares the two historical energy transitions imposed on CEE countries by assessing how their energy policies were shaped by external hegemons.