Archive - Conference Papers

As some of the world’s main energy consumers and importers, energy is of great importance for both the EU and Northeast Asian (NEA) countries. The advent of a new energy reality based on the linkage with climate and environmental issues and the integration of these new concerns in the countries’ respective approaches to energy, created an even greater incentive for cooperation. On that basis this paper aims at looking into the EU’s energy cooperation with China, Japan and Korea – three ‘strategic partners’ - and in particular whether the opportunity has been turned into a strengthened energy cooperation. At hand of Ian Manners’ Normative Power Europe approach, this paper argues that the EU’s normative commitment to sustainable development and its linkage with its energy policy has informed the nature of its cooperation with NEA countries by focusing on green energy issues and that it has also underpinned the nature of initiatives geared at low-carbon economy and sustainability at large. This commitment also provides an explanation for the discrepancy between a relatively stagnating energy cooperation with Japan and Korea as opposed to a booming relation with China, ultimately supporting the approach according to which the EU is to be conceived as a norm promoter.