External Hydrogen Relations of the European Union: Framing Processes in the Public Discourse Towards and within Partner Countries

Abstract

With the need to decarbonize sectors that have hard-to-abate emissions, hydrogen as an energy carrier has increasingly gained attention. Within the European Union (EU) and its member states, hydrogen is assumed to be key for decarbonizing different sectors in the fight against climate change. Hence, state and private actors have engaged in a variety of attempts, strategies, and interests. However, energy security in Europe cannot be managed by European energy supply alone, despite high targets for the expansion of renewable energies. Rather, the EU will have to continue to rely on energy imports from partner countries. Against this backdrop, this paper seeks to provide an analysis of frame promotion processes generated by the EU’s bet on hydrogen. Drawing on a discourse analysis that is based on more than 32,000 media reports generated through the database Nexis, it conceptualizes the media debate as a carrier of frame alignment efforts by actors with a specific focus on the debates concerning external partner countries. It thus focuses on the discourses on the EU’s hydrogen approach in a complex environment with diverging interests of stakeholders from inside and outside the EU, thereby examining debates that still need further empirical research.