Energy efficiency contributes to the main objectives of energy policy in the European Union: energy security, cost effectiveness and environmental benefits. However, the efficiency potential remains widely untapped. Will White Certificate Instruments, a new framework instrument to foster end-use energy efficiency, help to close the energy efficiency gap? The analysis compares the political process of choosing and designing White Certificate Instruments in Italy, France and Great Britain. Dagmar Sibyl Steuwer shows that the type of policy instrument as well as its image has an influence not only on agenda-setting but also on the policy instrument's effectiveness due to interactions with existing energy efficiency discourses, regulatory traditions and the prevailing policy style.             Der Inhalt ·        White Certificate Instruments as Hybrid Instruments: Design Choices and Additionality ·        Constructivist Institutionalism: Strategic Action and Unintended Outcomes ·        Policy Instruments: Tools, Indicators or Agents? ·        Energy Efficiency - the Complexity Challenge ·        Methodological Approach: Process and Perception Tracing ·        Research on White Certificate Instruments ·        Comparison of White Certificate Instruments in France, Italy and Great Britain     Die Zielgruppen ·        Political scientists with a special interest in energy policy analysis ·        Policy-makers and stakeholders in the field of end-use energy efficiency     Die AutorIn Dagmar Sibyl Steuwer is Research Associate at the German Advisory Council on the Environment.