The European Commission has set renewable energy (RE) targets at the Member State (MS) level, however, at the local scale there are many issues related to renewable energy implementation. In this work, a meta-analysis of European RE generation issues from international scientific literature was carried out. Fifty-four local RE implementation issues were identified. Five main clusters of issues were determined, some were aligned along sectoral lines (e.g., governance and technology) but others were inherently multi-sectoral (e.g., complexity and multiplicity of factors), challenging the traditional sectorial view. Results show that RE issues are not just a finite list of independent issues but are hierarchical, multi-scale and cross-linked. As a further step, these issues clusters were linked to the European RE policy and subsidiarity through the National Renewable Energy Action Plans (NREAP) in selected MS. EU policy and NREAP subsidiarity proved limited in their scope in dealing with local RE issues. With this scope, the way that EU policy partially fails to facilitate delivery of RE targets, promotes weak subsidiarity through NREAPs and does not address local issues of RE, is discussed. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.