The Influence of Government Ideology on Renewable Energy Consumption in the European Union Countries

Abstract

By utilizing the panel quantile regression method and employing unbalanced panel data covering the years between 1972 and 2020, this study examines the impact of government ideology on renewable energy consumption for 26 EU member countries. The estimation results indicated that an increase in the relative power position of right-wing parties in government was correlated with a decrease in renewable energy consumption, whereas a rise in the relative power position of left-wing or center-wing parties in government was associated with an increase in renewable energy consumption across all quantiles evaluated. The estimation results were robust to different indicators of renewable energy consumption and government ideology. The estimation results of this study also indicated statistically significant positive associations between the share of seats in parliament for political parties classified as green and renewable energy consumption, and between the total Christian democratic governing party seats as a percentage of all legislative seats and renewable energy consumption. This result suggests that green parties and Christian democratic parties may be the key driving forces behind the positive coefficients for variables representing left-wing and center-wing parties in our study.