The EU Energy Poverty and Vulnerability Agenda: An Emergent Domain of Transnational Action

This chapter explores the organisational and political complexities surrounding the adoption of energy poverty agendas and policies at the EU decision-making level. Theoretically, it is based on the literature on policy mobilities. Empirically, it engages in a triangulation of data from the secondary literature and interviews in various EU institutions. The analysis shows that agenda-shaping in the EU poverty domain has been mainly driven from above and has been highly contingent on attempts to ???define??? and ???identify??? the problem. There is little evidence to suggest that particular events or dynamics have provided a central impetus for European action in this domain. Only in recent years have energy poverty concerns started to enter mainstream EU policy agendas, principally as a result of the Commission???s efforts surrounding the implementation of the Third Energy Package.