Call for chapters and workshop: Energy transition in Central and Eastern Europe

Energy transition in Central and Eastern Europe: In search of an energy future

Call for Chapters + Workshop

Editors:           Matúš Mišík, Comenius University in Bratislava

                        Veronika Oravcová, Comenius University in Bratislava

Deadline:        20 June 2019

 The European Union promotes sustainable and secure energy supplies, aiming for an almost complete decarbonization of its energy sector by 2050. However, the path towards a carbon-free economy is full of challenges that must be solved by individual EU member states. Since the Lisbon Treaty left competences connected to the energy mix composition in their hands, individual member states have been searching for ways to decrease emissions in the energy sector. A wide range of possible solutions has been proposed to date. For instance, some states have chosen to support renewable energy sources over coal, which will gradually be phased out; others have turned to nuclear energy, often seen as climate-friendly since it does not create greenhouse gas emissions during the production of electricity. Several member states have considered the possibility of minimizing the negative aspects of burning fossil fuels, including carbon capture and storage technologies. However, negative externalities are attached to all existing solutions, be it the impact on the electricity grid (renewables), problems with emissions from the life cycle perspective (nuclear energy), or the use of underdeveloped and questionable technology (Carbon Capture and Storage).

 Central and Eastern European (CEE) members states of the European Union are active participants in these processes, and share the Communityʼs overall goals in the areas of climate and energy policies. The economies of these states have undergone considerable changes during the three decades following the fall of the Communist regimes; to some extent, these changes continue to shape their choices in the energy sector. The study of this still under-examined region can promote our understanding of the energy transition to a carbon-free economy not only in the European context, but also on a global scale. Lessons learned from the aforementioned 30-year period in the CEE region – most notably the challenges connected to the transition to a market economy during the 1990s and the countriesʼ efforts to become EU members, including energy governance during the early 2000s, and the struggle to effectively implement common climate and energy policies in a community with a significant divergence in economic performance – all have a wider applicability.

 We invite abstracts for an edited volume that explores issues connected to the energy transition in Central and Eastern Europe. Springer publishing house has already expressed interest in the project and requested a full publishing proposal. We are currently seeking chapter proposals from scholars across disciplines, examining political, economic, environmental or social aspects of the ongoing transformation of the energy sector in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as its implications for the wider discussion on energy transition. We also welcome papers that focus on energy efficiency by examining challenges within various (transport, industry, building, etc.) sectors of the CEE, deal with the incorporation of smart technologies, or analyse the policy frameworks that support or inhibit energy transition.

 The deadline for abstracts is 20 June 2019. Abstracts of up to 250 words (together with up to 5 keywords and a short biography of the author(s)) should be sent to both editors: matus.misik@uniba.sk and veronika.oravcova@uniba.sk. Authors will be notified of the selection outcome no later than 30 June 2019. We are aiming for the first half of 2020 as the submission date of the manuscript to the publisher.

 In order to increase the internal coherence of the volume, we are also organizing a workshop for authors where we can discuss the drafts of their papers and the overarching topics of the edited volume. The workshop will take place on 7–8 November 2019 at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. Organizers can cover accommodation costs for up to two (or three for overseas delegates) nights and provide meals during the workshop. Participants will be responsible for their own travel arrangements (organizers will be happy to provide logistical support).

Available in pdf form.



International cooperation (ENERGIES)

Within the project, regular meetings take place including all members of the research team or members of sub-teams working on concrete publications. Until now, more than ten meetings took place.

"Kick-off" seminar                                                  

"Kick-off" seminar was organized on December 6-7, 2017. The aim of the meeting was to discuss the research design of the project itself as well as its individual parts. The members of the research team presented individual work packages, invited guests presented their own research and provided valuable feedback on the arguments and ideas given by the members of the research team. The invited guests included:

• Karel Janda, Professor, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic;

• Tomas Maltby, Assistant Professor, King's Colleague London, United Kingdom;

• Andrej Nosko, Associated Fellow, CEU in Budapest, Hungary;

• Kristina Rimkunaite, Vilnius University, Lithuania.

The kick-off seminar provided the team members with a good opportunity to discuss their ideas and allowed them to gain experience in development of research design. The seminar provided platform to discuss energy policy ideas and a space to establish close contacts with the participants, fostering future research cooperation, project planning and publishing on energy policy.

Workshop “Energy Humanities: What We Know and Where We Are Going”

On May 10, 2018 a workshop “Energy Humanities: What We Know and Where We Are Going” took place at the Comenius University in Bratislava. The workshop aimed to bring together scholars from a variety of disciplines to discuss the history, present state, and future discussion of a vibrant and relevant field of scholarship: energy humanities. The meeting had vast international participation, with academics from the USA, Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Croatia, Israel and Slovakia. The presentations and discussions were aimed at exploring an emerging interdisciplinary field of energy humanities, seeking to link human research approaches to energy transformation.

·      In January - February 2018 Matúš Mišík carried out empirical research in Croatia which is currently preparing for the construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, serving as a major means of diversification throughout the region of Central and Eastern Europe, thus increasing energy security in the region.

·      In November - December 2018, interviews were carried out in Brussels, the Czech Republic and Hungary, aiming to examine the issue of nuclear power in the Vyšehrad Region. The interviewees were individuals from the Permanent Representations to the EU and Ministries of the corresponding countries.

·      Juraj Marušiak conducted two short-term research visits in Belgrade in August and October  - November 2018, where he examined relations between Serbia and Russia in the field of energy policy as part of the Serbian effort to move closer to membership in the European Union.

Workshop From economic to energy transition: three decades of transitions in Central and Eastern Europe

An international workshop “From economic to energy transition: three decades of transitions in Central and Eastern Europe” was organized by Matúš Mišík and Veronika Oravcová at Comenius university on 7-8 November 2019.

Workshops and seminars (ENERGIES)

Members of ENERGIES team regularly take part at international conferences and seminars. 

• Matúš Mišík attended „Energy Connectivity in Central Europe: issues, challenges, opportunities“ workshop in Paris on 25 November 2019.

• Matúš Mišík attended workshop discussing contributions to the forthcoming „The Routledge Handbook of European Integrations“ in Lyon on 26 November 2019.

• Matúš Mišík took part in the conference “Political Ecologies of the far right” on 15-17 November 2019 at Lund University, Sweden;

• Matúš Mišík participated at the 4th Energy Panel, Eastern Partnership conference, 17-18 October 2019 in Vilnius, Lithuania;

• Matúš Mišík and Veronika Oravcová attended workshop “Energy and environmental policies – their interdependence in European integration and in creating sustainability” in Roskilde, Denmark, 3-4 October 2019;

• Matúš Mišík and Veronika Oravcová participated in the UACES Conference, Lisbon, Portugal, 31 August-4 September 2019;

• Veronika Oravcová participated in the workshop “CEE Climate Policy Frontier” in Warsaw Institute for Economic and European Studies on 2019, July 1, 2019;

• Matúš Mišík participated in the conference “Challenges of the Energy Law and Policy Framework in the Baltic Sea Region” at University of Greifswald, 4-5 July 2019;

• Matúš Mišík participated in the 8th Workshop of Eastern Partnership Energy Regulatory Bodies in Minsk, 21-22 May 2019;

• Matúš Mišík participated in the NATO Table-Top Exercise CORE2019, NATO Centre of Excellence for Energy Security in Vilnius, 14-16 May 2019;

• Matúš Mišík participated in the conference “Energy Sector in Transition” at Energy Research Institute in  Vilnius, 25 April 2019;

• Matúš Mišík attended workshop on EU’s Climate and Energy Policy at Technische Universität in Darmstadt, 10-13 March 2019;

• Matúš Mišík participated in the 1st workshop of the regional sub-sectoral networking group on LNG Markets, Warsaw, 20 February 2019;

• Matúš Mišík attended V4 Energy Think Tank Warsaw Workshop in Warsaw, 24 January 2019 

• Juraj Marušiak took part in the conference “Good Neighborhood Treaties of Poland after 1990”, which took place in Warsaw, February 22, 2018. He presented a paper "Polish-Slovak relations after 1989 - perception of the Slovak side. Good Neighborhood and the Challenges of Migration".

  ·      Matúš Mišík presented his research at Masaryk University in Brno on March 22, 2018. He delivered a lecture "Powering Up the Technodrome: Energy sustainability in the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle".

  ·      Matúš Mišík took part in the 25th International Conference of Europeanists in Chicago, USA, March 27 – April 1, where he presented a paper "The Impact of the Past: Central and Eastern European Legacies and their Influence on Energy Transition".

  ·      Matus Mišík took part in the 2018 Symposium on Energy Transformations in Berlin, Germany, February 19 -21, where he participated in the debate on energy transition in the European Union.

  ·      Matúš Mišík took part in the conference V4 and energy security in Baku, Azerbaijan, May 2-4, where he presented a paper "Energy Policy Cooperation within the V4 Countries".

  ·      Juraj Marušiak took part in a panel discussion at the European Economic Congress, Katowice, Poland, May 4, 2018, presenting a paper "Putin 4.0. Russia and its policy towards the region in the year of the presidential elections".

  ·      Matus Mišík was a lecturer at the Small States Summer School in Reykjavik, June 18 - 30, 2018, speaking on the EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe.

  ·      Matúš Mišík took part in “Small States and the New Security Environment” conference held on June 26 2018 at the University of Iceland, Reykjavík. He made a presentation on “The External Energy Policy of the EU - Small Member States Perspective”, producing the correspondent policy paper.

  ·      Matúš Mišík lectured at the Antall József Summer School, July 2-13, 2018 in Budapest. The topic was the European Union's energy policy in relation to the energy transition in the region of Central and Eastern Europe.

  ·      Veronika Oravcová attended the General ECPR conference in August 2018 in Hamburg, Germany, where she presented a paper „Energy in Central and Eastern Europe: Examining 14 Years of Research”.

  ·      Matúš Mišík visited Energy Community Summer School in August 2018 in Ohrid, FYR Macedonia, where he was a mentor of „Political Wednesday”.

  ·      Zsolt Gál attended the UACES 48th Annual Conference in September 2018 at the University of Bath, UK, where he presented a paper „The lock-in syndrome of Central and Eastern Europe. The risks of nuclear energy expansion”.

  ·      Juraj Marušiak took part in the Slovak Security Forum, Bratislava, Slovakia, October 1, 2018, where he participated in the panel called “Twenty-five years of foreign and security policy of the Slovak Republic - where are we and where are we heading?"

  ·      Juraj Marušiak attended the “Budapest dialogue: International scientific conference of the project Russia and Central Europe”, October 3-5, where he presented a paper “Visegrad Group and the Energy Relations with the Russian Federation”.

  ·      Juraj Marušiak took part in the Slovak-Russian Discussion Forum III, Bratislava, Slovakia,  October 16, 2018, participating in a panel "Slovak-Russian Relations: bilateral, regional (V4) and the EU contexts".

  ·      Juraj Marušiak took part in a panel discussion on Geopolitical Reorganization in Europe, held in Budapest October 31, 2018, organized by The Danube Institute.

• Matúš Mišík had an invited talk at „V4 energy security workshop” in Baku in May 2018.

• Matúš Mišík presented a paper „The impact of the past: Central and Eastern European legacies and energy transition“ at 25th International Conference of Europeanists in Chicago in March 2018.

• Matúš Mišík was invited to „Transformations of Energy Systems – Historical Perspectives on the Anthropocene” that took place at Max Planck Society in Berlin in February 2018.

• Matúš Mišík in November 2017 participated in a conference in Milan, Italy - Transitions in Energy History: State of the Art and New Perspectives – where he presented the contribution "Central and Eastern European legacies and their influence on energy transition”.

• Matúš Mišík attended a workshop in Brussels in October 2017, participating in the discussion on Nord Stream 2 and its potential impact on the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

• Veronika Prachárová and Matúš Mišík attended the General ECPR conference in September 2017 in Oslo, Norway, where they presented a paper „A perfect compliance? Nuclear power in Central and Eastern European countries and the EU membership“.

Outputs (ENERGIES)

Academic publications

• Kratochvíl, P. and Mišík, M. (2020) Bad external actors and good nuclear energy: Media discourse on energy supplies in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Energy Policy 136, 111058.

• Mišík, M. (2019) External Energy Security in the European Union. Small Member States’ Perspective. Routledge: London.

• Maltby, T. and Mišík, M. (forthcoming) The Political Economy of Climate and Energy Policy in Central and Eastern Europe. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

• Mišík, M. and Kujundžić, N. (forthcoming) (eds.) Energy Humanities and Energy Transition Current State and Future Directions. Springer: London.

• Nosko, A. and Mišík, M. (2019) Pricing Security or Pricing Perceptions: Differences in Energy Security Perspectives of Oil and Gas. In: Belyi, A. (Ed.) A Global Institution of the Oil Price. Springer: London.

• Turner, E., Glencross, A., Bilcik, V. a Green, S. (2018) Negotiating as One Europe or several? The variable geometry of the EU’s approach to Brexit. Contemporary Social Science (in print)

• Mišík, M. and Nosko, A. (2017) Eastring gas pipeline in the context of Central and Eastern European gas supply challenge. Nature Energy. Vol. 2, No. 11, pp. 844-848.

• Marušiak, J. (2017) СЛОВАКИЯ И РОССИЯ: МЕЖДУ НАЦИОНАЛЬНЫМИ ИНТЕРЕСАМИ И ИДЕНТИЧНОСТЬЮ. No.7, pp. 66–77[K1]

• Kujundžić, N. and Mišík, M. (2018) Powering up the Technodrome: Energy sustainability in the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The Journal of Popular Culture. Vol. 51, No.3.

• Mišík, M. and Szulecki, K. (2018) On the complexity of energy policy inquiry. Response to Krzykowski and Krzykowska. Energy Policy, vol. 118, pp. 106-108.

 Media appearances

• Matúš Mišík, vyjadrenie pre Rádiožurnál, 26. novembra 2019 ohľadom situácie v energetickej bezpečnosti v strednej Európe (Statement to Rádiožurnál, 26 November 2019, on the situation in energy security in Central Europe)

• Commentary on Nord Stream 2 and changed German rhetoric. RTVS, 10/04/2018

• Commentary on Nord Stream 2 for Slovenský rozhlas, 10/04/2018

• Commentary on Nord Stream 2 for RTVS, 16/09/2017

• Commentary on EU energy policy for Aljazeera Balkans, 05/09/2017

Commentaries

• Matúš Mišík  - “Ako sa publikuje veda a prečo je to treba zmeni”, Denník N

• Matúš Mišík - “Meniaca sa vzájomná závislosť v energetických vzťahoch: EÚ, LNG a USA”, Zahraničná politika

• Zsolt Gál  - "Atombiztos, hogy bukta lesz", Parameter.sk

Expertise

• Invited expert for energy security issues during IEA in-depth review team visit, Bratislava, 12 October 2017

About the project (ENERGIES)

Project ENERGIES (Energy Priorities) examines the positions of EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe toward the Energy Union - the European Commission's project aiming to unite the currently fragmented EU energy policy. Member countries have a key position when it comes to the further development of the energy policy at the EU level as they decide on the support for individual proposals presented within the Energy Union. The main research question asks what are the determinants of the member states’ support of the Energy Union project.

Three main objectives of ENERGIES project are:

A)   to analyse the development of integration in energy policy area at the EU level in connection to Energy Union proposal. The project deals with all dimensions of Energy Union (besides research and innovation);

B)   to examine the positions of the Central and Eastern European countries towards Energy Union in general and partial proposals in particular. The project focuses on Central and Eastern European region; how the countries of this region are shaped by the Energy Union project and how they help to shape the project themselves;

C)   to study the sources of CEE countries’ preferences (support or opposition) towards the Energy Union.

In order to fulfil these objectives, primary empirical research is being conducted within the project - semi-structured expert interviews with the representatives of member states at the domestic level as well as at the level of permanent representations in Brussels and with the representatives of EU institutions (the European Commission, the Council of the EU and the European Parliament).

The project members aim to publish results of their examination in high-impact peer-reviewed academic journals, but focus also on policy-relevant outputs. The knowledge in energy policy area gained during the investigation will be used in the mid-term period as the EU faces several energy-related challenges connected to changes in energy supply to the EU (termination of transit through Ukraine and the Brotherhood pipeline, building of the Nord Stream 2 and/or the Turkish stream pipeline) as well as in long-term period, especially in connection to further development of renewable sources of energy.

The project consists of seven working packages that are directly connected to its main research theme while spreading to other areas crucial for the region of Central and Eastern Europe. Working packages analyze specific areas that are examined by the research team during the duration of the project. Working packages reflect on four dimensions of the Energy Union: security of supply, internal energy market, energy efficiency and emission reduction. Those seven working packages and the responsible investigators are:

• Current state of affairs and theoretical background - Matúš Mišík, PhD.;
• Supply security - Juraj Marušiak, PhD.;
• Internal energy market - Vladimír Bilčík, PhD;
• Energy efficiency - Zsolt Gál, PhD.; 
• Emission reduction - Kateryna Yakovenko, PhD.; 
• Reccomendations for policy makers - Veronika Prachárová; 
• Dissemination - Veronika Oravcová, PhD..

Timetable of the ENERGIES project consists of three basic periods that are logically and chronologically interconnected:

I.               During the first period of the project (October 2017 to June 2018) a theoretical and methodological background of the project is further developed. During this period, the project also focuses on summarising existing knowledge in area (the state of the art)

II.             During the second, main research period (July 2018 to June 2020), empirical research will be conducted and the collected data will undergo preliminary analysis within individual empirical working packages.

III.           The third, final project period (July 2020 to June 2021) will focus on finalization of analysis within individual working packages along development of policy outputs (recommendations for policy-makers).