The Twenty Years’ Crisis of European Energy Security: Central and Eastern Europe and the US

Abstract

In the last twenty years the European energy security debate has been overwhelmingly focused on the energy security of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) states and on their relationship with Russia. The key issue has been Russia's attempt to maintain its influence and control through its energy dependencies. The article argues that the problems encountered by the CEE states have been resolved to a large extent due to the actions taken by the European Commission (EC). The EC has played a vital role in providing a collective voice for CEE and in supporting their regional energy integration in order to reduce their vulnerability to external pressures from Russia. The article goes on to argue that while the issue of CEE energy dilemmas has been addressed this does not, however, mean that the European energy predicament regarding Russia has been fully resolved. The article contends that the European-Russian energy relationship is also conditioned by larger geopolitical concerns regarding the US-Russian relationship, NATO, as well as by Cold War legacies which have come to the surface in a cyclical manner. The Trump administration's sharp criticism of new energy infrastructure projects constructed from Europe to Russia underscores this point. The article asserts that European energy security will remain problematic in the absence of a more general political settlement between Russia and the West.

Germany and Nord Stream 2: evolution and end of an incongruous policy

“…The main cause of Europe's worsening energy crisis (Ostrowski 2022) is not supply issues per se, or resource type, price, or technology. It derives from energy being at the core of Russia's relations with major EU states, making it a geopolitical as well as commercial and socio-economic commodity.…”

Energy as a weapon of war: Lessons from 50 years of energy interdependence

“…In comparison, for Russia, since the 2000s, revenue from the country's fossil fuels has added to its ability to reassert its influence within the post‐communist neighbourhood (Ostrowski, 2022, p. 876). After the low prices of the 1990s, oil increased in the 2000s from $10 to a peak of $147 per barrel.…”

“…After the low prices of the 1990s, oil increased in the 2000s from $10 to a peak of $147 per barrel. This extra revenue funded the revitalisation of the Russian economy under President Putin (Ostrowski, 2022, p. 879). It also spurred more production, increasing almost 40% since 2000.…”

“…Before the energy crisis emerged in 2021, there were different interpretations of how former communist countries adjusted their energy strategies as EU member states. Ostrowski and others perceive less anxiety in Central Europe with a decline in the ‘perceived threat of Russia using energy as a geopolitical weapon’ even after Russia's annexation of Crimea (see Ostrowski, 2022, p. 880). In contrast, this author highlights the anxiety in Lithuania and Poland as enough to prompt diversification because energy was used as leverage for political influence (LaBelle, 2020, Chapters 3 and 5).…”

“…For this value chain to work, there are extensive exchanges of technologies, political bargaining and business practices extending back to the 1960s (see Gustafson, 2020; Högselius, 2013). Because of this history, Central European society and industry depend on Russian resources (Högselius, 2013; LaBelle, 2020; Ostrowski, 2022). From a security perspective, threats that destabilise the delivery of gas are of utmost importance to European states (Bouzarovski et al, 2015).…”