The aim of the European Commission to empower consumers has become an increasingly prominent goal in consumer policy and law since its introduction into consumer policy in 2007. The original objective of this agenda sought to enable consumers to make informed choices in the market and to enforce their consumer rights. However, increasing pressure from the external crises of climate change and unsustainable means of production and consumption have triggered several recent changes in EU policy and law in order to achieve the ends of the Green Transition, an end to which the consumer empowerment agenda has become reorientated. Despite the increasing importance of the empowerment concept, there still remains much conceptual ambiguity surrounding how the concept of empowerment can be understood in the EU consumer law context. In addition, recent changes in consumer and energy policy put additional pressure on the need for a rethinking of the role of consumer empowerment, the objectives of the empowerment agenda and what it means when law is used as tool to empower consumers. This thesis then asks how the underexplored concept of EU consumer empowerment can be rethought. This is achieved from three perspectives. First, a theoretical rethinking of the concept of EU consumer empowerment is undertaken by drawing on interdisciplinary insights to propose a new theoretical framework on the concept of empowerment. Second, the Commission’s shifting and less visible narratives on consumer empowerment in consumer and energy policy are traced. This is followed by an analysis of the legal rules in consumer and energy law that have become reorientated towards the empowerment ends of the Green Transition. Third, through the complex and multifaceted framework on empowerment developed in the first part of this thesis, the analysis then engages in a rethinking of the empowerment concept in EU consumer law and what it means when law is used as a tool to empower.The aim of the European Commission to empower consumers has become an increasingly prominent goal in consumer policy and law since its introduction into consumer policy in 2007. The original objective of this agenda sought to enable consumers to make informed choices in the market and to enforce their consumer rights. However, increasing pressure from the external crises of climate change and unsustainable means of production and consumption have triggered several recent changes in EU policy and law in order to achieve the ends of the Green Transition, an end to which the consumer empowerment agenda has become reorientated. Despite the increasing importance of the empowerment concept, there still remains much conceptual ambiguity surrounding how the concept of empowerment can be understood in the EU consumer law context. In addition, recent changes in consumer and energy policy put additional pressure on the need for a rethinking of the role of consumer empowerment, the objectives of the empowerment agenda and what it means when law is used as tool to empower consumers. This thesis then asks how the underexplored concept of EU consumer empowerment can be rethought. This is achieved from three perspectives. First, a theoretical rethinking of the concept of EU consumer empowerment is undertaken by drawing on interdisciplinary insights to propose a new theoretical framework on the concept of empowerment. Second, the Commission’s shifting and less visible narratives on consumer empowerment in consumer and energy policy are traced. This is followed by an analysis of the legal rules in consumer and energy law that have become reorientated towards the empowerment ends of the Green Transition. Third, through the complex and multifaceted framework on empowerment developed in the first part of this thesis, the analysis then engages in a rethinking of the empowerment concept in EU consumer law and what it means when law is used as a tool to empower.