The Impact of the EU Energy Policy on Member States’ Legal Orders: State of Art and Perspectives of Renewable Energy in Italy and Great Britain

Recently, the European Union has adopted the “Climate and Energy Packet” (Directives 2009/28/EC, 2009/29/EC, 2009/31/EC) and the “Third Energy Packet” (Directives 2009/72/EC, 2009/72/EC, 2009/92/EC), aimed to create a whole competitive energy market, based on both the principle of perfect competition and that of high environmental sustainability. The environment, in fact, has become one of the elements that sensibly influence the EU policy, which for some time seems to have decisively shifted towards pursuing green economy objectives.However, moving from the assumption that the effectiveness of the European legislation can be tested just when it is transposed in the Member States’ legal orders, the article analyzes how Italy and Great Britain have complied with the above mentioned Directives. In so doing, it gives account of both the state of art and perspectives of the renewable energy policies in those Countries, looking for convergences and divergences, and concludes that sometimes the effective fulfilment of the European tasks could require, above all, a shift of perspective by Member States.