Connecting EU social policy and climate/ energy policy during ongoing crises? the case of energy poverty

European welfare states face substantial recalibration in the face of major EU policy initiatives such as the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR) and the European Green Deal (EGD). Notably, social and employment policy as well as energy and climate policy have been increasingly intertwined in the EU’s policymaking visions on ensuring a just and inclusive transition to a sustainable future for EU citizens. With the early 2022 Russian aggression in Ukraine and the already visible policy repercussions for EU economies and energy sectors, the need for policy coordination in these two domains is only likely to increase. In recent reflections on the evolution of the EU’s Open Method of Coordination, the authors argued that this mode of governance, which is central to EU’s social policy and energy policy making, fosters ‘creative appropriation’ and policy leverage for both national and EU-level actors. This contribution focuses on the EU level and explores to what extent the mechanism of creative appropriation is visible in interlinkages between the EPSR and the EGD by tracing the policymaking of policy entrepreneurs advocating this just and inclusive transition. Creative appropriation, against the background of a trend towards EU ‘harder’ soft governance may, in the long run, help build more sustainable welfare states, even against domestic resistance.