CONVERGENCE TO THE EUROPEAN ENERGY POLICY IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES: CASE STUDIES AND COMPARISON
CONVERGENCE TO THE EUROPEAN ENERGY POLICY IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES: CASE STUDIES AND COMPARISON

Summary/Abstract: Purpose – our paper aims at analysing how different European countries cope with the European Energy Policy, which proposes a set of measures (free energy market, smart meters, energy certificates) to improve energy utilization and management in Europe. Design/methodology/approach – The paper first reports the general vision, regulations and goals set up by Europe to implement the European Energy Policy. Later on, it performs an analysis of how some European countries are coping with the goals, legal, economical and regulatory measures. Finally, the paper draws a comparison between the countries to present a view on how Europe is responding to the emerging energy emergency of the modern world. Findings – our analysis on the cases of different use (countries) has shown that European countries are converging to a common energy policy, even though some countries appear to be later than others. In particular, Southern European countries were slowed down by the global financial and economical crisis. Still, it appears that contingency plans were put into action, and Europe as a whole is proceeding steadily towards the common vision. Research limitations/implications – European countries are applying yet more cuts to financing green technologies, and it is not possible to predict clearly how each country will evolve its support to the European energy policy. Moreover, we have only analysed a small number of countries. At the same time, we have selected countries belonging to different areas of Europe, and we consider that the countries selected as placeholders for the groups cover the whole normative spectrum that can be found in Europe. Practical implications – Different countries applied different measures to attain the targets set by the European Union. The implementation of the European energy policy has to cope with the resulting plethora of regulations, and a company proposing enhancement regarding energy management still has to possess robust knowledge of the single country, before being able to export experience and know-how between European countries. Originality/Value – Even though a few surveys on energy measures in Europe are already part of the state-of-the-art, organic analysis diagonal to the different topics of the European Energy Policy is missing. Moreover, this paper highlights how European countries are converging on a common view, and provides some details on the differences between the countries, thus facilitating parties interesting into cross-country export of experience and technology for energy management.

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