The Geopolitics of the EU-Russia Gas Trade: Reviewing Power in International Gas Markets

Abstract

EU-Russia gas interdependency is today one of the most endurable and largest energy partnerships in contemporary geopolitics of energy. It consistently affects different commodity markets and the stability of bilateral economies, embodying the last bridge standing of the bilateral political dialogue. However, the energy crisis started in 2021 and the fallouts of the Russian invasion of Ukraine threaten the overall stability of this relationship. So far, the geopolitics of the EU-Russia gas trade has extensively influenced the evolution of the energy security and energy geopolitics literatures. At the same time, these continue to be focused on the structural divergences of the two gas institutional models, but refrained from systematically approaching the power dynamics within them. So, the chapter reviews the existing literature of the geopolitics of the EU-Russia gas trade within the framework of the evolving academic studies of energy geopolitics. Against this background, the analysis offers a new methodological and theoretical approach to the study of power in energy and specifically gas trade, outside the classical dichotomy between energy producers and consumers. This is the result of a critical revision of the current approaches to power in international politics employing Baldwin’s conceptualization of power as a relational concept. The results offer a new research agenda for scholars interested in the EU-Russia gas interdependency issue area and, more generally, in energy interdependencies. Also, the analysis outcomes are relevant for both researchers and policy makers as they advocate for upending and rethinking many assumptions on the nexus between power politics, great powers, and international energy markets.KeywordsEuropean UnionRussiaNatural gasTradePowerInternational relations theory