Green Market Making: Sustainable Energy and the Single Market in Europe

Our aim is to analyze the synergies and conflicts that emerge at the intersection between Europe’s sustainable energy transition and the Single Market framework. While conflicts may emerge between the divergent objectives of decarbonization and competition, synergies may also result, e.g., from EU institutions exploiting their market-making mandate for ambitious and concerted climate action. We build on Michel Callon’s notion of ‘markets in the making’ to develop the new theoretical concept of 'green market making'. The perspective addresses how different actors mutually negotiate, coordinate, and develop new technologies, regulations and market designs. Empirically, we focus on wind power and power-to-X across (1) EU institutions with their mandate to remove ‘barriers to competition’; (2) Member States aligning industrial policies with the ban on ‘State Aid’; and (3) major companies navigating their privileged positions vs legal notions of ‘market power’.