1 Introduction
The issue of climate change and the irreversible alteration of our environment has gained considerable attention in 2019, prompted not only by increased interest in this topic brought on by visible (and previously perceptible) changes in climate (severe weather conditions, wildfires, droughts, floods, etc.), but also by a series of climate emergency declarations issued by national governments, municipalities, or cities. Moreover, the social movement ‘Fridays for Future’, started and popularized by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg (2019), has received strong support during that year, becoming a global phenomenon. The movement reached its peak in September of 2019, with the Global Climate Strike, which brought together seven million participants across the continents. The rising average global temperature has become a well-known and widely accepted fact and in association with wildfires—occurring in many areas, including Siberia, Amazonia, and the US, in extraordinarily high numbers—the urgency to prevent future negative changes to our environment resulting in even more dramatic events has become more visible issue than ever before. The concept of sustainability has entered public debate becoming one of the key characteristics of the economy and society of the future. The need to limit the anthropogenic impact on the planet includes, among others, the development of a society that will not be dependent on the burning of fossil fuels for its energy, a process considered to be one of the main culprits for climate change.
Promoting sustainable energy supplies, the European Union (EU) aims for almost complete decarbonization of its energy sector by 2050 (European Commission 2012). However, the path towards a carbon-free economy is full of challenges that must be solved by individual EU member states, as they still hold the main tools for achieving this goal in their own hands. As the main pollutant and producer of greenhouse gases (GHG)—especially carbon dioxide (CO2)—the energy sector holds a prominent position in the transformation of the economy into a carbon-neutral one. Since the Lisbon Treaty (adopted in 2009) left the competences connected to the energy mix composition in the hands of individual member states, they are effectively responsible for decreasing GHG emissions in their own energy sectors in order to support the development of a post-fossil fuel economy within the EU as a whole.1
Energy transition is a recurring process of changing the types of energy sources used to meet societal energy needs, and its current iteration is certainly not the first (Smil 2017). On the contrary, human societies have been using different forms of energy since the dawn of humankind: the twentieth century alone has seen several energy transitions, most of them connected to fossil fuels (for example, the transition from coal to oil or to natural gas). Although the current energy transition is usually identified through its departure from fossil fuels, it may be argued that the use of nuclear energy in electricity generation— albeit far from a complex transition—can also be considered a transition from fossil fuels that face challenges connected to climate or environment, but also geopolitics2 (e.g. Richman and Ayyılmaz 2019).
To meet the ultimate goal of transitioning to a carbon-neutral economy (and society in the broader sense) the EU developed two sets of binding goals with the years 2020 and 2030 as their respective target dates. These are supposed to facilitate a gradual energy transition and enable the member states to prepare for the changes connected to such a transition. A wide range of possible solutions for energy transition within the Union has been proposed. For instance, some member states have chosen to support renewable energy sources (RES) over coal, which will be moderately phased out as the main pollutant (burning coal produces the highest amounts of GHG among fossil fuels); others have turned to nuclear energy, often seen as a climate-friendly option since it does not produce emissions during the production of electricity. In June 2019, the Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš even wondered why—given its proclaimed carbon neutrality—nuclear energy is not considered to be a renewable energy source (Government of the SR 2019). Moreover, he claimed that it is also necessary for states other than EU members to decrease their GHG emissions. Although there is no consensus at the EU level about the utilization of nuclear energy, with some countries (such as Austria, Germany, or Italy) being strongly against, thanks to the above mentioned provisions regarding member statesʼ competences in the energy mix prescribed by the Lisbon Treaty (Article 194), there are no legal obstacles at the EU level that would prevent the inclusion of this energy source into national energy mixes. On the other hand, several member states have considered the possibility of minimizing the negative aspects of burning fossil fuels, including carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. However, negative externalities are attached to all existing solutions, be it the impact on the electricity grid (RES), problems with emissions from the life cycle perspective (nuclear energy), or the use of underdeveloped and questionable innovative technologies (CCS).
Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries are active participants in these processes, as they are member states of the EU responsible not only for the co-development of the Community’s overall goals in the areas of climate, and energy policies and strategies, but also for their achievement. The economies of the states from the CEE region have undergone considerable transition during the period following the fall of the Communist regimes at the end of 1980s; taking place over the course of last three decades, these changes continue to shape the countriesʼ choices in the energy sector. Most importantly, the economic differences stemming from the historical legacy of command economy and the transition process have been repeatedly used as an argument for the need to unevenly distribute the ‘climate load’ among the EU member states, based on their economic performance and subsequent ability to finance energy transition. From the perspective of many CEE countries, this would enable the EU as a whole to contribute to global efforts against climate change and at the same time keep the economies of the EU members competitive on the international market. According to this argument, the high costs of energy transition for the domestic industry (in the form of higher energy prices, the need to invest into new technologies, etc.) would have to be included in the final price of products, which could harm the already very fragile domestic industry that is still experiencing the consequences of economic transition (Gurgul and Lach 2014; Topalli and Ivanaj 2016). On the other hand, there is also a positive climate externality to the economic transition, which has left a deep scar on the CEE countries’ economies. Namely, some of their economic sectors, especially the heavy industry, collapsed due to their inability to face international competition once Comecon (The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) dissolved along with the Communist regimes at the beginning of 1990s. This caused a significant decrease in the countriesʼ GHG emission production during the first half of the decade, making 1990 as a reference year for emission reduction very favourable for most of them.
However, some CEE countries are much more supportive of EUʼs broader climate and energy goals, resulting in different approaches towards these issues within the region despite the countriesʼ common communist legacy and experience with economic and political transition towards market economy and democratic regime. Therefore, it would not be correct to see the CEE as a homogenous region (see also Mišík 2017). On the contrary, this edited volume opens the CEE ‘box’ and looks into individual countries, differentiating between the ambitious ones and those that—for various reasons—prefer to be laggards in the energy transition process. To provide an even more complex picture, the edited volume dedicates its final section to examining energy transition challenges faced by countries from South East Europe (SEE), very closely connected to the EU via existing legal frameworks (especially the Energy Community, as well as various agreements with the EU). Moreover, as perspective members, these countries will be important contributors to the EU’s mid- and long-term climate and energy goals. Viewed from this perspective, knowing their energy transition paths is as important as knowing the trajectory of existing member states—for example, Croatia signed the Energy Community Treaty obliging it to transpose the Union’s energy and climate acquis communautaire in 2005, long before it became a member state with co-decision competences regarding EU’s climate and energy goals. We can expect a similar pattern being repeated with other countries from the SEE region, which me...