How do new entrants within a market use the European Union? Insights from the case of renewable energy cooperatives

Many scholars shed light on the fact that Europeanization is a process that could produce changes in terms of economic activity. While economic liberalization and European anchorage of big firms have been studied, few investigations deal with the case of less visible, smaller and less established actors. This article fills this gap by asking how new entrants within a market use the European Union through the case study of renewable energy cooperatives. It shows that three uses of the European Union are made by these cooperatives: a tool to obtain cognitive and financial resources (1); a tool for intermediation (2) and a leverage to partially open markets (3).