The EU is assumed to have a strong top-down transformative power over the states applying for membership. But despite intensive research on the EU membership conditionality, the transformative power of the EU in itself has been left curiously understudied. This thesis seeks to change that, and suggests a model based on relational power to analyse and understand how the transformative power is seemingly weaker in the Western Balkans than in Central and Eastern Europe. This thesis shows that the transformative power of the EU is not static but changes over time, based on the relationship between the EU and the applicant states, rather than on power resources. This relationship is affected by a number of factors derived from both the EU itself and on factors in the applicant states. As the relationship changes over time, countries and even issues, the transformative power changes with it. The EU is caught in a path dependent like pattern, defined by both previous commitments and the built up foreign policy role as a normative power, and on the nature of the decision making procedures. This path dependent pattern prevents the EU from actively using its strongest tools when trying to influence and steer the applicant states regarding reforms and norm transfer, effectively weakening the transformative power. Evidence from elections in Albania and Macedonia show how the domestic electoral stakeholders actively can resist, and even prune, important norms and laws, on best electoral practice, a key feature for the democratic structures required for EU membership. It is also apparent how there are few domestic change agent strong enough to actively promote normative changes, leaving much of the work for the EU. The clientelistic structures of these countries are a key aspect in shaping interests and actions of the political elite. The result is that layers of old and new institutions are created, producing the mixed pattern of reforms observed all over the Western Balkans. By combining the findings at both the EU level and in the applicant states, this thesis makes both important empirical and theoretical contributions, challenging some core aspects of the Europeanisation literature.

L’exportation des normes de l’UE vers les pays voisins dans le domaine de la régulation des marchés gaziers et de leurs infrastructures est devenue le leitmotiv de la politique énergétique européenne extérieure. Cette thèse analyse les défis énergétiques auxquels est confrontée l’UE ; elle évalue également la politique européenne en matière de sécurité énergétique vis-à-vis de l’Azerbaïdjan et de l’Algérie ainsi que l’influence transformatrice de l’Union dans ces pays. L’analyse cherche à comprendre si, et dans quelle mesure, l’UE peut exporter ses normes vers les deux fournisseurs gaziers dans le cadre de sa gouvernance énergétique extérieure. La démarche méthodologique met en évidence les limites des explications dominantes de convergence fondées sur l’institutionnalisme rationnel et constructiviste et se propose de les enrichir en s’appuyant sur les cadres analytiques des études de diffusion et du « decentring ». Sur la base d’ouvrages spécialisés, de documents officiels et de 85 entretiens avec des acteurs publics de l’UE, d’Azerbaïdjan et d’Algérie et avec des acteurs privés à Bruxelles, Bakou et Alger, l’analyse cherche à expliquer la plus ou moins grande convergence des normes de l’UE. L’analyse s’attache à la coopération énergétique avec l’UE, les secteurs énergétiques et les projets d’infrastructures des deux pays au travers de six études de cas. La thèse se propose d’élargir la portée des études existantes en intégrant les influences de la situation géopolitique et du marché qui pèsent souvent de manière plus importante que les contraintes européennes et soutient dès lors que la gouvernance énergétique extérieure est seulement durable, si elle est « décentrée ». / The export of EU norms to regulate gas markets and transnational infrastructure has become the leitmotif of EU external energy policy in the neighbourhood. This thesis unpacks the underlying energy policy challenge of the EU, before analysing its approach to ensure energy security towards Azerbaijan and Algeria and examining the Union’s transformative influence. The major question of the research is: How and to which extent can the EU export its energy norms and policies towards both strategic neighbouring suppliers of natural gas, which represent least likely cases of EU external energy governance? The analytical framework sheds light on the limits of major rationalist and constructivist institutionalist explanations in accounting for convergence with EU energy norms and addresses them by drawing on insights from diffusion studies and the decentring framework. Relying on qualitative document and data analysis as well as extensive fieldwork and 85 interviews carried out with EU, Azerbaijani and Algerian officials as well as representatives of energy companies in Brussels, Baku, and Algiers, the research accounts for a varying degree of convergence as the result of an unstable and conflictual process. Examining energy cooperation with the EU, domestic energy sectors and major infrastructure projects within six case studies, the analysis sheds light on EU norm export from a bottom-up perspective of neighbouring public actors. The thesis broadens the scope of existing studies by factoring in geopolitical and market-based constraints and influences, which often outweigh EU coercion and depicts that EU external energy governance can only be sustainable, if it is ‘decentred’.