Brexit and Energy Policy

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

Introduction-Brexit-and-Energy-Policy-3-12-300x169

Bruegel fellows Simone Tagliapietra and Georg Zachmann testified on 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 .

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 Part-time professor at the Florence School of Transnational Governance (STG) of the European University Institute and an Adjunct professor at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Europe of The Johns Hopkins University.

His research focuses on the EU climate and energy policy, and on its industrial and social dimensions. 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).

On the basis of his policy and scientific production, Dr. Tagliapietra regularly supports EU and national institutions in the development of their public policies in the field of climate and energy, also through regular interaction with public decision-makers in EU and national institutions, as well as through regular parliamentary testimonies in the European Parliament and various national parliamentary assemblies inside and outside Europe, such as the French Senate, the UK House of Lords and the US Senate. His columns and policy work are widely published and cited in leading international media.

Dr. Tagliapietra also is a Member of the Board of Directors of the Clean Air Task Force (CATF) and Senior associate of the Payne Institute at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. He holds a PhD in International Political Economy from the Catholic University of Milan, where he previously graduated under the supervision of Professor Alberto Quadrio Curzio and where he also served as an Assistant professor (tenure-track) until 2024. Born in the Dolomites in 1988, he speaks Italian, English and French.