An institutionalist perspective to the role of the European Commission in energy politics of the European Union

Energy politics of the European Union includes two different essential issues as completion of the internal energy market and harmonization of the member states' external energy policy. The efforts on the completion of internal energy market commenced in 1996, and in this regard various energy packages have been published. However, the process for the completion of internal energy market still continues. In the context of "Europeanization of the external energy policy", it is not possible to mention about any consensus between the Union institutions and member states. In this regard, the European Commission which is known as the sui generis institution of the European Union persistently makes an endeavour in order to deepen integration in energy politics through completing the internal energy market and becoming one voice in the external energy policy. The notion of energy security that is often emphasized by the European Commission with regard to the internal and external energy policies has gained further importance in the European Union when the citizens directly suffered from the cut off in energy supply as a result of the crisis between Russia and Ukraine in 2006 and 2009. Within this framework, the Union's high energy dependence on Russia is often underlined by the Commission as one of the most significant factors which threat the energy security in order to ensure that energy policy is handled at the Union level. In this study, the role of the European Commission in conducting the common internal and external energy policies is examined within the context of new institutionalism theory, and historical developments and the impact of the Commission on these developments are particularly discussed. In the study, the argument setting the European Commission as the main driving force in the harmonization of the Union energy policies is investigated by means of using both the documents directly prepared by the European Commission and secondary sources.