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Energy is of vital importance to the economy of the European Union (EU), safeguarding stability and prosperity for its Member States and citizens. Cooperation in energy policy was enshrined as a cornerstone in the EU's founding treaties, through the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the Euratom Treaty. However, energy policy was initially characterised by limited and shallow integration, with the first measures to integrate the policy area implemented 40 years after the foundation of the ECSC. Within this context, the Commission has taken an ambitious stance and proposed an umbrella institution to embrace the various dimensions of energy policy: the European Energy Union. This thesis aims to assess the factors and mechanisms that lead to integration, including both the internal and external dimension of European energy policy. In order to achieve this, it utilises Historical Institutionalism as a theoretical tool, which stands between rational choice and sociological approaches to the study of institutions. Based on the notions of path dependence, institutional lock-in and institutional inertia, the project analyses how the institutional matrix both constrains and enables different actors’ political strategies. This is accomplished through a comprehensive analysis of primary and secondary legislation, historical documentation, communications, supplemented by primary data gathered from interviewing decision-makers and experts in Brussels. Process-tracing is applied to test four hypotheses regarding integration of the energy sector from the inception of the ECSC to the Energy Union. It assesses under what premises initial legislative proposals were made, identifies critical junctures that enabled institutional change, and determines which key players were pivotal in formulating policy proposals, ultimately culminating in the policy package for the Energy Union. Ultimately, this PhD thesis seeks to answer the question under what conditions does integration occur in the policy area of energy over time?

Energy policy in the European Union (EU) is a patchwork of diverging interests and preferences. While the European Commission pushes for a common energy policy, Member States are responsible for their own separate energy policies. These divergences in interests and preferences might create a conflict situation between the Commission and Member States. This thesis explores the Commission’s behaviour vis-à-vis the Member States, investigating the conditions under which the Commission is likely to try to deviate from Member States’ preferences in the external dimension of the EU internal energy market. Adopting a Principal-Agent Model (PAM), this thesis conceptualizes the Member States as principals and the Commission as their agent. A qualitative case study approach and process-tracing method are applied to appreciate the variety of preferences of the actors involved, and provide a means to study the various shades of post-delegation agent’s behaviour. This thesis looks at four in-depth case studies: 1) Decision 994/2012 on establishing an information exchange mechanism with regard to intergovernmental agreements between Member States and third countries in the field of energy; 2) Directive 2009/73/EC on common rules for the internal market in gas; 3) Energy Community Treaty; and 4) Energy Charter Treaty. These were selected based on their relevance to the research question. Findings suggest that two factors are likely to affect the Commission’s deviation from Member States’ preferences: a) the preference alignment among the principals and b) the preference alignment between the principals and the agent. This thesis suggests that when the preferences between the agent and the principals are heterogeneous, the agent is more likely to deviate from the preferences of the principals. This thesis also suggests that the preference alignment among the principals only has a secondary effect on the agent’s deviation. Finally, this research contributes to the further development of the PAM offering a possible categorisation of post-delegation agent’s behaviour going beyond the dichotomy of deviation and non-deviation.