Articles

This study investigates whether, as part of a broader “Asian Energy Pivot,” Russia’s energy giant Gazprom refashioned its export strategy away from Europe, and what impact such a reorientation might have on the EU–Russia gas relationship. It uses four empirical cases to emphasize the domestic movers underlying Russia’s eastward shift in energy trade, developing a constructivist theory rooted in the dynamics of Russia’s dominant public narrative and the contours of domestic politics. It argues that Russia’s national interests changed as a result of how Russian policy-makers interpreted and reacted to the stand-off with Europe, in response to what they perceived as Europe’s attempt to isolate it economically and geopolitically. 

This paper provides an overview of the debate surrounding the Nabucco pipeline’s cancellation. Conventional wisdom holds that Nabucco failed for political reasons, but the real cause of its failure was the emergence of two more economically viable pipeline plans.

This article considers a number of political explanations for gas policy and shows that it is usually the economic interests of big energy firms that frequently take precedence, although these are often ignored and hidden as factors.

On December 1, 2014, during a visit to Turkey, Russian President Vladimir Putin abruptly announced that Gazprom was cancelling the South Stream pipeline, which would have taken natural gas from Russia through the Black Sea to Bulgaria, and through Serbia, Hungary, and Slovenia to Austria. That same day, BOTAŞ, Turkey’s state-owned pipeline company, and Gazprom signed a memorandum of understanding for the construction of a new offshore gas pipeline named Turkish Stream, which would boast a capacity of 63 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year and would run from Russia, under the Black Sea, and on to the Turkish–Greek border. In the first phase of the project, starting in December 2016, Russia agreed to supply some 16 bcm to Turkey. In the second phase, the remaining 47 bcm would be delivered to the planned hub on the Turkish side of the Turkish–Greek border.

International security debates surrounding the European Union (EU) energy supply challenge commonly invoke the need for more EU hard power – e.g. getting tough on Russia or engaging directly with other exporters. This article investigates whether what might be labeled ‘soft power with a hard edge’ instead amounts to a consistent policy strategy for the EU. The central argument is that the EU has turned a weakness into strength, and developed a set of tools that sharpen the way soft power is exercised in the energy sector. The article explores how soft power affects companies that ‘come and play’ on the EU market: the rules of the Single European Market (SEM) and how they affect external firms. It also assesses the long reach of the SEM: both the gravitational ‘pull’ the SEM exerts in the ‘near aboard’, and the EU's ‘push’ to facilitate the development of midstream infrastructure and upstream investment. The conclusion is that the EU regulatory state is emerging as an international energy actor in its own right. It limits the ways states like Russia can use state firms in the geopolitical game; and it exports its model into the near abroad, thus stabilizing energy supply and transit routes.

While the 2014 Ukrainian crisis is far from over, policy debates surrounding the standoff between Russia and the United States and Europe already offer some important lessons on the gap between the policy world and the realities of energy markets. In this communication, we will discuss three policy proposals proposed between February and April 2014 as an illustration of the aforementioned mismatch, and explain their broader implications.

Ulrich Krotz and Richard Maher, David M. McCourt and Andrew Glencross, Norrin M. Ripsman, Mark S. Sheetz and Jean-Yves Haine respond to Sebastian Rosato's spring 2011 article, "Europe’s Troubles: Power Politics and the State of the European Project."

Pierpaolo Barbieri, Ernest May Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, says that "big, international banks like Santander and BVA are well diversified. Of the others, quite a few need capital — but how much? That's the unknown and Bankia has undermined faith in financial reporting."