Energy dependence and rising pollution from the energy sector have compelled states to re-evaluate their energy policies and legal frameworks in favour of sustainable energy development. In this context, energy transition emerges as a strategy to achieve global climate goals while ensuring energy security. However, making the energy transition a “just transition” presents numerous challenges. These challenges are growing as innovation in the energy sector accelerates, with digitalisation presented as a tool to drive the energy transition and optimise current energy systems. This trend has been integrated into the EU’s policy objectives and regulated by the EU’s legal framework. However, this political decision has sparked ethical and legal debates about the digital transformation of the EU energy sector, particularly regarding energy justice. By analysing instruments in the EU’s policy and legal framework, this paper addresses the intersection of the twin transitions through the lens of energy justice. Therefore, this study assesses the EU policy and legal framework of twin transitions from an energy justice perspective. The geographical scope of this research covered the EU. The methodology includes doctrinal legal research. The conclusions of this research encompass an assessment of selected EU policy and legal instruments applicable to the twin transitions.

This study investigates the data protection concerns arising in the context of the cross-border interoperability of Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems in the European Union. The article first introduces the policies on digital health and examines the related interoperability issues. Second, the work analyses the latest Recommendation of the European Commission on this topic. Then, the study discusses the rules and the obligations settled by the General Data Protection Regulation to be taken into account when developing interoperable EHRs. According to the data protection by design and by default provision, EHR systems should be designed ex ante to guarantee data protection rules.

Why do some countries deviate from European Union law? More specifically, why do countries violate the Stability and Growth Pact, which is a cornerstone piece of legislation for the shared economy? Is it that violators simply have no other choice due to economic need? Are the violators intentional deviators that are simply able to violate the Stability and Growth Pact because of their power in the European Union? This article answers these questions and identifies those factors that are most likely to impact a country’s deviation from the two main clauses of the Stability and Growth Pact. The major finding is that it is economic need, not a country’s relative power, governing ideology or diffusion, that has a large impact on which clause will be violated.

The ongoing financial turmoil has brought into sharp relief the importance of financial services regulation. Yet, we still know relatively little about how financial regulation is negotiated within the EU, in particular which policy actors are most influential and what are the mechanisms that allow them to exercise influence. This paper addresses these questions using Social Network Analysis (SNA), focusing on the banking regulation network and one core piece of legislation: the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD). Of particular interest is the flow of influence among the key actors. Triangulating an in-depth case study with qualitative interview data and social network analysis, this work investigates a number of hypotheses, associating brokerage roles and extroversion with relative influence in the policy making process. We find that influential actors are those that hold key structural positions in this network and by implication appear to have a better understanding of network topography.

This paper focuses on localising network-specific market power in new markets. Three levels of transmission quality in service markets can be differentiated according to the products provided: narrowband services like PSTN/ISDN or GSM, semi high-speed broadband services, like broadband internet access up to 6 Mbps download, and VDSL services up to 50 Mbps. As long as a monopolistic bottleneck exists in local infrastructure networks due to the absence of alternative network infrastructures, the question arises what the remaining bottleneck components are for these different markets. In this paper, the shrinking bottleneck hypothesis will be demonstrated.