Article

Brexit and Energy Policy

Testimony before the European Parliament's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy

Publishing date: 28 May 2018
Authors: Georg Zachmann Simone Tagliapietra

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The Impact of Brexit on the EU Energy System

Options and Considerations for the future EU energy policy and gas partnership with the UK after Brexit

Bruegel fellows Simone Tagliapietra and Georg Zachmann testified on May 16, 2018 before the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) about the impact of Brexit on the European energy system. On aggregate, they argued that energy system related impact of Brexit on EU citizens and companies will be limited. With or without the UK, the EU will be able to complete its market, to achieve its climate and energy targets with feasible readjustments, and to maintain supply security.

In addition, they do not expect that it will be in the UK’s interest to seek a competitive advantage for its companies by discriminating against EU energy companies active in the UK, or by competing with the EU’s manufacturing industry through lowering energy taxes or environmental standards. Despite the negative impact of Brexit on the EU energy system is manageable, they illustrated that a vast number of very important details that will need to be resolved in a short period of time. Moreover, they outlined that special attention should be paid to the impact of Brexit on the Irish energy system.

A video of the testimony is available here.

About the authors

Georg Zachmann

Georg Zachmann is a Senior Fellow at Bruegel, where he has worked since 2009 on energy and climate policy. His work focuses on regional and distributional impacts of decarbonisation, the analysis and design of carbon, gas and electricity markets, and EU energy and climate policies. Previously, he worked at the German Ministry of Finance, the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin, the energy think tank LARSEN in Paris, and the policy consultancy Berlin Economics.
Simone Tagliapietra

Simone Tagliapietra is a Senior fellow at Bruegel. He is also a Professor of EU Energy and Climate Policy at The Johns Hopkins University - School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Europe.

His research focuses on the EU climate and energy policy and on the political economy of global decarbonisation. With a record of numerous policy and scientific publications, also in leading journals such as Nature and Science, he is the author of Global Energy Fundamentals (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and co-author of The Macroeconomics of Decarbonisation (Cambridge University Press, 2024).

His columns and policy work are widely published and cited in leading international media such as the BBC, CNN, Financial Times, The New York Times, The Economist, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Corriere della Sera, Le Monde, El Pais, and several others.

Simone also is a Member of the Board of Directors of the Clean Air Task Force (CATF). He holds a PhD in Institutions and Policies from Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. Born in the Dolomites in 1988, he speaks Italian, English and French.