From Conflict to Synergy? Climate Policy Coherence in EU External Energy Policy Towards Natural Gas Suppliers

• Published date: 01 March 2026
• Author: Marco Giuli
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/cep4.70032
• Section: Research Article

Contemporary European Politics

RESEARCH ARTICLE

From Conflict to Synergy? Climate Policy Coherence in

EU External Energy Policy Towards Natural Gas

Suppliers

Marco Giuli

1,2,3

1

Centre for Environment, Economy and Energy, Brussels School of Governance, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Brussels, Belgium |

2

Agora Industrie,

Berlin, Germany |

3

Istituto Affari Internazionali, Rome, Italy

Correspondence: Marco Giuli (marco.giuli@vub.be)

Received: 30 October 2024 | Revised: 28 January 2026 | Accepted: 3 February 2026

Funding: Research Foundation‐Flanders (FWO), Grant/Award Number: G046519N

Keywords: climate policy | energy policy | EU external energy policy | natural gas | policy coherence

ABSTRACT

As climate change has become central to EU policymaking over the last decades, questions have emerged about the extent to

which climate objectives have reshaped the EU's external energy policy (EEP). This article investigates the evolution of EU's

EEP towards major gas suppliers and identifies the institutional, material, and ideational conditions underpinning its coherence

with climate goals. The analysis reveals increasing alignment with climate objectives, initially driven by commercial and

geopolitical interests, and later reinforced by stronger climate‐related institutional and discursive enablers, albeit unevenly

across the cases—reflecting the relevance of supplier‐specific characteristics. Overall, the study suggests that the geography of

Europe's future energy relations will increasingly reflect the intersection of environmental imperatives and strategic consid-

erations, and that EEP coherence with climate objectives is attainable when the EU pursues stringent climate action.

1 | Introduction

The EU has significantly developed its external energy policy

(EEP), particularly since the Lisbon Treaty established a firm

legal basis for energy policy (Birchfield and Duffield 2011).

Ensuring the security of natural gas supplies has long been its

core focus, reflecting escalating tensions in the EU's neigh-

bourhood (Tichý 2021). In response, the EU has reformed its

energy infrastructure policy, strengthened its capacity to with-

stand external supply disruptions, and broadened its engage-

ment to energy suppliers through regional frameworks

and bilateral dialogues with producer countries (Herranz‐

Surralles 2015).

Concurrently, EU climate ambitions have acquired growing

importance in shaping energy policy (Oberthür and

Dupont 2021). The 2021 commitment to climate neutrality by

2050 implies a strong reduction in fossil fuel imports over the

coming decades (European Commission 2018a, 2024). In this

context, the capital intensity and long payback periods of gas

infrastructure projects with third countries heighten the risk of

carbon lock‐in—where institutions, infrastructures, and beha-

viours associated with fossil fuels reinforce continued carbon‐

intensive development pathways (Seto et al. 2016)—and asset

stranding.

Yet, literature on EU EEP has paid limited attention to dec-

arbonisation. The literature has instead focused on energy

security, contrasting the EU's market‐based approach with

suppliers' more geopolitical and mercantilist strategies

(Goldthau and Sitter 2015). Meanwhile, studies of EU climate

policy have evolved largely in isolation from EEP scholarship

(Oberthür and Groen 2018), with EEP's functional interrela-

tions with climate policy described at best ‘indirect’ (Dupont

and Oberthür 2012). This separation mirrors broader challenges

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided

the original work is properly cited.

© 2026 The Author(s). Contemporary European Politics published by University Association for Contemporary European Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

1 of 12 Contemporary European Politics, 2026; 4:e70032

https://doi.org/10.1002/cep4.70032