How ‘harder soft governance’ might help deliver the EU’s new 55 per cent emissions reduction target

In December, EU leaders agreed to set a new target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to at least 55 per cent of 1990 levels by 2030. Drawing on new research, Michèle Knodt and Jonas Schoenefeld detail the role ‘harder soft governance’ might play in making this target achievable

Softening the surface but hardening the core? Governing renewable energy in the EU

Soft law and governance captured the attention of scholars in the 2000s, andnew policy challenges and the novel introduction of‘harder’elements now drivea (re)turn to these discussions. This article explores the extent to which dynamicsleading towards‘harder soft governance’(HSG) appear in the EU’s renewableenergy governance by comparing the 2020 and 2030 Renewable EnergyDirectives. Document analysis and interviews reveal a surface-level softeningbecause the new 2030 directive contains no binding national targets for theMember States. An entrepreneurial Commission has been seeking to introduce‘harder elements’at the core by focusing on implementation, allowing for poten-tially deeper influence on the national energy mixes though the Energy Union.Two main factors drive these changes: the evolving international context of cli-mate change governance, as well as re-configurations of the actors in the EU.Future research should explore the effectiveness of emerging HSG in detai

"Gelegentlich die Notbremse ziehen ...": die deutschen Länder als politische Teilhaber und Ideengeber im europäischen Mehrebenensystem

'Die Europäische Union als neue und immer wichtiger werdende Ebene des politischen Handelns stellt für die Mitgliedstaaten der EU in jeder Hinsicht eine Herausforderung dar; für die föderal strukturierten Staaten wie Deutschland gilt dies in besonderer Weise. Der vorliegende Beitrag soll zeigen, dass sich die Komplexität des europäischen Mehrebenensystems - in der Terminologie der Spieltheorie - als 'nested games' beschreiben lässt. Der Schwerpunkt liegt dabei auf einer Analyse der Rolle der Länder als Ideengeber im Rahmen der europäischen Reformprozesse - von der Regierungskonferenz 2000 bis zum europäischen Verfassungskonvent. Die gewonnenen Erkenntnisse entstammen eigenen empirischen Umfragen. Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich dabei mit der Frage, wie die deutschen Länder seit Mitte der 1990er Jahre auf die objektiven oder subjektiven Einschränkungen ihres politischen Handlungsspielraumes durch die zunehmende 'Europäisierung' reagiert haben. Die deutschen Länder verfolgen, so die zentrale These unseres Beitrages, eine 'Strategie der Optionenmaximierung': Prinzipiell alle Ebenen und Kanäle im europäischen Mehrebenensystem werden genutzt, um die eigenen Interessen multilateral oder auch unilateral einzubringen und politischen Widerstand zu signalisieren. Der Schwerpunkt der Länderaktivitäten liegt dabei eindeutig auf den über den Bundesrat vermittelten innerstaatlichen Institutionen der Repräsentation. Ein vollständiges Bild der empirischen Breite der Länder-Aktivitäten ergibt sich aber erst, wenn man auch die europäischen und transnationalen Kanäle der regionalen Interessenvertretung in den Blick nimmt.' (Autorenreferat)'The European Union is getting more and more important for national governance. It especially challenges federal states as we can see in the case of the Federal Republic of Germany. This article will show that the complexity of the European multi-level system can be described as 'nested games'. We focus on the role of the German 'Länder' as generators of ideas within the European reform process - covering the period from the International Governmental Conference in 2000 to the European Convention. The analysis is based on our own empirical surveys. The article answers the question how the German 'Länder' have been dealing with the objective and subjective limitations to their scope of action as a consequence of increased Europeanisation. We assume that the German 'Länder' are following the strategy of maximizing their options: In principle all channels of the European multi-level system are used to represent their own interests - both at a multilateral or unilateral level as well as to signal political resistance. The full picture of the empirical 'Länder'-activities can only be shown, when focusing on the European and transnational channels of regional interest representation.' (author's abstract

Harder soft governance in European climate and energy policy: exploring a new trend in public policy

While various forms of soft governance have been long in the making, there is a growing introduction of new policy elements in order to ‘harden’ soft governance arrangements. These new forms of ‘harder’ soft governance (HSG) vary in the degree of hardness in different settings. This special issue aims to derive lessons for climate and energy policy on HSG by looking across other policy fields and institutions where such ‘hardening’ has emerged, including in climate policy monitoring, the EU Energy Union, the UNFCCC, the OECD, the Open Method of Coordination, the European Semester, and policy surveillance in transnational city networks. Bringing the contributions together, this introduction reviews soft governance approaches, including their hardening. It then develops a framework for diagnosing HSG, including indicators such as obligations, justification, precision, ‘blaming and shaming’ opportunities, the role of third party actors, bundling, enforcement by policy field coupling, and sanctions. The introduction then identifies driving factors of HSG, including the role of the EU Member States, a strong need for coordination, policy entrepreneurs and institutional opportunities. The lessons from this special issue provide a useful yardstick for the future development of climate and energy governance, and the use of HSG in other policy fields

Federal coordination of complex policy issues in the energy transition: hydrogen governance in Germany

With its National Hydrogen Strategy, the German federal government defined an initial framework for the integration of hydrogen into the energy system. At the subnational level, most states have also adopted own hydrogen strategies and are pursuing regional hydrogen policies within the national framework. This article examines how the interdependent but partly differing regional strategies are coordinated in the German multilevel system. We find different coordination processes among state governments but also between subnational and national level and discuss their pattern in the context of the coordination literature ranging from unilateral decision-making to integrated strategy building

What's next for the European coal heartland? Exploring the future of coal as presented in German, Polish and Czech press

This article addresses the future of coal in the European coal heartland, i.e. in the area of Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, which together account for nearly 57% of coal consumption and 87% of coal-mining jobs in the EU. It approaches the problem within the interpretative tradition of social research and explores the coverage of the future of coal in major newspapers and political magazines in the three countries. The results show that despite similar material conditions, the issue is presented in a fundamentally different manner as the media tend follow the dominant energy policy paradigm in their countries: in Germany, they facilitate the phase-out policies; in Poland, they act as an inhibiting factor; while in the Czech Republic, their coverage echoes the political uncertainty around lignite mining in the northwest part of the country. The results also suggest that the media act mainly as a platform for the countries’ decision makers and energy policy stakeholders to voice their perspectives. The prevalent media coverage thus simultaneously enable and constrain policy options by promoting dominant discourses and preventing alternative views from surfacing