The Second Gas Directive Process

Herweg applies the modified multiple streams framework to the second natural gas directive process, which took place between 1998 and 2003. Guided by the hypotheses derived in Chap. 2, she analyzes how the draft directive returned on the agenda and how decision coupling resulted in policy change. The agenda window opened with the Commission’s contribution to the Lisbon Council, in which it suggested to fully liberalize the internal energy market by 2004. It remains unclear why the Commission did not include energy liberalization in its working program, which it had published barely two months before. Given that all policy-makers supported the agenda change, no policy-entrepreneur was required to couple the streams and this shortened decision coupling.