Between a rock and a hard place: European energy policy and complexity in the wake of the Ukraine war

Abstract

Despite increasing political tensions, the major European economies have done little to strengthen their energy security prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in February 2022. Shocked by Russian atrocities, Western nations condemned the war and decided to support Ukraine’s effort to defend its territory. Beyond quantifying EU’s dependence on Russian energy imports and explaining how this dependence came to be, this paper analyses the multifaceted implications of Europe’s efforts to regain its energy sovereignty. A comparative vulnerability study between Germany and Lithuania complements this analysis, highlighting two fundamentally different ways to approach energy security issues and tackle the looming energy crisis. What will become apparent in this article is that: trade cannot be a panacea for bridging political divides; the war and the policy announcements that accompany it place unprecedented burdens on Western economies; a country’s historical background plays – as the German-Lithuanian case demonstrates – an essential role in crafting its energy security strategy and in its readiness to act in crisis situations; and the accelerated deployment of renewable energies and other measures aimed at steering European economies away from Russian fuels encounter barriers that cannot be solved with political will alone, they also require breakthroughs in power storage technologies and extensive investments in critical infrastructure projects.