Spotlight on Marie Vandendriessche
Marie Vandendriessche is a senior researcher at ESADEgeo — Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics. Her research focuses on observing and studying the geopolitics of energy, along with climate change policy and diplomacy.
Why the energy sector? What is your main field of expertise?
Why the energy sector? Very simply: because it connects the dots. Without energy, one cannot understand human history, international relations, geopolitics or climate change (among many other topics). Given my interest in all of these subjects, I am most happy be studying one of the critical vectors that links them all.
My main research focuses are EU energy and climate change policy — particularly the governance aspects of both — and, more broadly, the geopolitics of energy.
Can you tell us about your journey into energy?
I ended up researching energy via climate change. Growing up in California in the early ’90s, global warming was already a much-discussed topic, and it stuck with me: I went on to research the international climate change regime, writing an MA thesis on the EU’s influence at the UNFCCC negotiations. And because climate change is inextricably linked to energy, my research gradually branched into that area. Moreover, as a researcher at a center dedicated to the study of global economy and geopolitics, energy is of course a keystone.
My work has allowed me to focus on highly geopolitical topics on the one hand (such as pipeline geopolitics in Southeastern Europe), and on the other hand, I have been researching aspects of the EU’s energy policy. Recently, I have been focusing on the proposed regulation on the Governance of the Energy Union, which raises fascinating questions on issues such as soft governance and touches on some of the important aspects of the energy transition.
The proposed regulation essentially tries to establish a framework to draw together many dispersed elements of the EU’s energy and climate policy. This is a new development for the EU, and it is certainly a space to watch: the final shape of the provisions will be vital in determining the coherence, efficiency and effectiveness of the Union’s energy policy going forward.
What do you believe are some of the most interesting research topics in your field at this time?
The energy transition means that the energy sector, energy policy, and research on energy are all changing quickly. In the study of geopolitics, for example, it no longer suffices to consider just natural gas and crude — there is a need to get to the bottom of the complex geopolitics of renewables as well.
Researching the EU’s energy policy is very exciting at this point: the energy transition is raising tricky issues such as the changing relations between generation and consumption, the successful integration of renewable electricity generation, and optimal ways to align energy and climate objectives. Meanwhile, and returning to geopolitics, the EU’s energy security considerations could start to shift as well.
Energy Union Governance, meanwhile, tries to square the circle between EU-level energy policy goals in this new context and member states’ individual contributions to these goals. As the proposed regulation goes into trilogue negotiations, it will be interesting to see the final outcome. One of the most important points may be the long-term angle and issues of timing, especially how the Energy Union Governance provisions match up with the provisions of the Paris Agreement. The enhanced transparency in the proposed regulation may help researchers study this last topic
Last Month, Marie was the featured author of the FSR Energy&Climate Topic of the Month Editorial series in which she gave her insights on The Governance of the Energy Union.
In the first article, ‘The Road to the Energy Union’, her research zoomed in on the EU’s Energy Union, particularly the Governance regulation proposed by the Commission in November 2016. Marie puts the new regulation in context by focusing on the birth of the Energy Union, showing what critically distinguishes it from previous EU energy policy.
In the second article ‘Mind the gap: the proposed governance of the Energy Union’ Marie focused on the Commission proposal to ensure policy coherence, complementarity and ambition in this new structure: through a regulation on Governance.
The final article, ‘Will the Bridge Span the Gap? The Political Debate on Governance’, provided readers with a view of the political struggle taking place at the European Parliament and the Council (TTE) levels. The outcome of this debate, she states, will ultimately determine the effectiveness of the Governance regulation.
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