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Growing awareness of anthropogenic climate change, deep cuts in CO2 emissions, and the exhaustion of easy-to-extract fossil fuels have led to a growing interest in developing renewable energy sources as a part of the (desired) transition to a low-carbon society. The target of the European Union for 2020 is to cover 20% of final energy consumption by renewable energy sources, and for 2030 it should reach at least 32%. While there are ambitious goals to boost the energy transition, it is becoming increasingly evident that the processes run differently in different countries, some of which still prefer path-dependent options and resist major changes. This comparative study applies a historical institutionalist approach to examine the institutional factors influencing the development of renewable energies in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy and Spain, countries with different geographies, political and socio-cultural traditions, belonging respectively to Central and Southern Europe, whose comparison has so far been largely neglected in the literature. The general objective of this paper is to investigate and exemplify how diverse energy traditions, institutional frameworks, policies, and practices shape the processes and outcomes of the renewable energy transition.

La rilevante crescita della produzione di energia eolica negli ultimi vent’anni in Europa è stata accompagnata da una rapida diffusione di pale eoliche nei Paesi Europei. Uno studio precedente, svolto su questa tematica, ha permesso di identificare tre regioni europee ad elevata densità di pale eoliche. Esse sono localizzate nel nord della Galizia in Spagna, tra il Sannio e la Daunia in Italia e nel Dithmarschen, un distretto di uno Stato Federato del nord della Germania, lo Schleswig-Holstein in Germania. Lo scopo principale di questo contributo è identificare analogie e differenze tra questi tre casi studio. Per questo motivo sono state dapprima analizzate alcune variabili socio-economiche. Successivamente sono state analizzate le principali politiche energetiche adottate recentemente da ciascun Paese. Emergono alcuni tratti comuni propri di territori rurali periferici, che sono stati ulteriormente marginalizzati negli ultimi decenni e che, anche se con politiche nazionali profondamente diverse, vedono nell’avvento dell’eolico una possibilità per affrancarsi da questa situazione.

This contribution is intended briefly to relate the territorial analyzes on the dimensions of the rurality of the Belìce in the years following the earthquake that struck the area in 1968 with the current development prospects linked to the rural milieu of the area. Focusing on the studies and analyzes of Costantino Caldo and on contemporary literature, we have traced the essential characteristics of the primary sector of Belìce between the Sixties and Seventies and compared it with the current peculiarities, essential for setting the local development strategy of the first LAG which aggregates the entire area.