Abstract
The objective scope of the analysis performed in the text encompasses the energy security in the European Union and its member states, and includes the perspective of geopolitical conditions. The geopolitical conditions should be understood as a variety of relations between geographical conditions and decision-making processes concerned with energy security. The main objective of the text is to present a selection of theoretical problems encountered in the study of energy security, as well as to link them with such issues as gas import dependence and the risk of gas supply disruptions, mainly from the Russian direction. In order to elaborate the objective scope of analysis, the following research questions are presented: (1) To what extent do geographical conditions determine decision-making processes in the energy policy pursued by the European Union?; and (2) To what extent do geographical conditions determine threats to the security of gas supplies to the European Union and its member states? The text is chiefly an overview, but the theoretical part loosely makes use of the premises of the research program concerned with the integration of knowledge as part of the studies of energy security and energy transitions, presented by E. Brutschina, A. Cherp, J. Jewell, B. K. Sovacool and V. Vinichenka. Additionally, knowledge contained in the literature on energy and gas security has been synthesized and enriched with a critical approach, and the author’s own assessments and conclusions.
Highlights
The objective scope of the analysis performed in the text encompasses the energy security in the European Union and its member states, and includes the perspective of geopolitical conditions
The main objective of the text is to present a selection of terminological, categorial and theoretical problems encountered in the study of energy security, as well as to link them with such issues as import dependence, diversification and scenarios of gas supply disruptions
The analysis makes use of the category of geopolitical conditions which are understood as the interrelation or direct causal relation between geographical conditions and decision-making processes concerned with energy security and, more broadly, energy policy
Summary
It is to be noted that, despite a multitude of presented definitions, the category of energy security has not been unambiguously delineated and. Irrespective of the willingness to integrate the study of energy security and to create a meta-theoretical framework for the analysis of energy transitions shown by Cherp and Jewell and other members of their team, it should be pointed out that political action in the field of various challenges to energy security was undertaken regardless of the existence of three or more research perspectives This results from the fact that in the practice of decision-making processes all the emphasised spheres of chalof international relations is more of an instrumental and pragmatic character. From the perspective of the paradigm of energy sovereignty, a lack of substantial gas resources in the European Union contributes to an internal threat (egoisms or national interests of member states) and an external threat (a geopolitical threat to the whole of the European Union or its individual member states)
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