Governing at arm's length: the European Commission's orchestration of sustainable biofuels

Sammanfattning: The sustainability of biofuels has been a topic gaining recognition in the European Union’s policy making during recent years. Simultaneously, scholars have observed the use of new and indirect modes of governance in the EU, used to complement its habitual regulatory approach. On this basis, this thesis examines the European Commission’s governance of biofuels between 2003 and 2009. It aims to examine under what conditions the Commission has engaged in indirect governance of biofuels. Using the concept of orchestration, it explains that the Commission started orchestrating the sustainability of biofuels because of two reasons. The first was because of a lack of capacities to implement legislation in EU member states, and the second was because the member states did not share the Commission’s vision of biofuels as a viable means of achieving the renewable energy targets set out in the 2003 Biofuels Directive. The analysis furthermore shows that orchestration is used as a governance mode in the implementation process of EU biofuels policies and legislation. Finally, orchestration is a fruitful concept to explain why the EU has turned to softer governance modes.