the environment

climate and
energy,
Energy Security
in Europe
Divergent Perceptions and
Policy Challenges

edited by kacper szulecki

 Energy, Climate and the Environment

Series editor
David Elliott
The Open University
Milton Keynes, UK

‘This book is unique since it is among the few that examine the ‘subjective’
aspects of energy security in a variety of places and societal contexts. The book is
a ground-breaking work in that it scrutinizes how the concept of energy security
is linked with vulnerabilities and how it is invoked by different stakeholders. The
contribution of this rigorous book is twofold. First, on an academic level, it
relates to all disciplines that seek to unpack how rhetoric, discourse and framing
modes, around seeming threats, are constructed and mobilized around energy
policy. Second, it relates to how policy makers and practitioners struggle to craft
policy that is both politically feasible and economically and environmentally
effective. In this respect, this volume provides hands-on case studies on how to
mobilize support through securitization along with an analysis of the downside
of such a framing mode.’
—Itay Fischhendler, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

‘This book takes on a challenging task: questioning the mainstream consensus in

European energy policy debates. It excels on all fronts. Bringing together an excel-
lent group of scholars, this volume offers an inter-subjective approach to energy
security—conceptually sharp, empirically rich and theoretically brilliant.’
—Andreas Goldthau, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
Aim of the Series
The aim of this series is to provide texts which lay out the technical, envi-
ronmental and political issues relating to proposed policies for respond-
ing to climate change. The focus is not primarily on the science of climate
change, or on the technological detail, although there will be accounts of
this, to aid assessment of the viability of various options. However, the
main focus is the policy conflicts over which strategy to pursue. The series
adopts a critical approach and attempts to identify flaws in emerging
policies, propositions and assertions. In particular, it seeks to illuminate
counter-intuitive assessments, conclusions and new perspectives. The
intention is not simply to map the debates, but to explore their structure,
their underlying assumptions and their limitations. The books in this
series are incisive and authoritative sources of critical analysis and com-
mentary, clearly indicating the divergent views that have emerged while
also identifying the shortcomings of such views. The series does not sim-
ply provide an overview, but also offers policy prescriptions.

More information about this series at

http://www.springer.com/series/14966

‘Energy securitization has always been a hard case for securitization theory. This
book unlocks some of its most powerful paradoxes, in particular the relation
between politics and security, the articulation of subjective and objective aspects
of security, and the interaction between positive and negative securities. It is
theoretically diverse, forward looking, and empirically well researched, with
cases spanning a broad range of sectors that constitute energy security—from
problems of extraction to market liberalization through ethical issues, known
under the label of sustainability. The book will be of interest to those who study
security, securitization, and energy politics/policies.’
—Thierry Balzacq, University of Namur, Belgium
 Kacper Szulecki
Editor

Energy Security
in Europe
Divergent Perceptions and Policy
Challenges
Editor
Kacper Szulecki
Department of Political Science
University of Oslo
Oslo, Norway

Energy, Climate and the Environment

ISBN 978-3-319-64963-4    ISBN 978-3-319-64964-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1

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 Foreword

How much and what kind of energy we extract, trade and use has a pro-
found impact on security and sustainability in the twenty-first century.
The global energy challenges range from connecting to the grid over a
fifth of humankind who still live without electricity to replacing fossil
fuels that currently provide over four-fifths of our energy with cleaner
energy sources. While natural scientists, engineers and economists scram-
ble to advise policymakers on the best way to solve these dilemmas, it falls
on political scientists to explain why such advice is rarely followed.
Unfortunately, few political scientists meet this challenge and go beyond
the insights which emerged from the 1970s oil crises echoed in the gas
conflicts during the early aughts. This book is an exception: it contains a
fresh and novel look by a group of political scientists, most of them at the
start of their careers, at one of the most intractable and fascinating energy
problems: energy security.
As a policy problem, energy security is surrounded by confusion
defined by two extremes. On the one hand, there is a popular mantra that
‘energy security means different things to different people’. On the other
hand, there are scholars who believe that energy security should be cap-
tured in universal esoteric and barely comprehensible indicators and for-
mulae based exclusively on technical energy systems analysis. Both views
hinder policy comparison and learning since they either deny that there

v
vi  Foreword

is anything to be compared or neglect the actual views of policy

­stakeholders who are supposed to benefit from this comparison and
learning. In our work on the Global Energy Assessment and other inter-
disciplinary projects, we tried to forge a middle ground that would enable
a rigorous analysis of energy security and, at the same time, explain
observed variety of perspectives and priorities. In order to do that, we
defined energy security as ‘low vulnerability of vital energy systems’. This
approach has helped us to analyse security of diverse energy systems at
different scales, in different polities and during different time periods.
Though we primarily adhere to positivist energy systems analysis, we have
always stressed that ‘vital systems’ and ‘vulnerabilities’ are not only objec-
tively identified but also intersubjectively constructed. We have also chal-
lenged social scientists to explore the mechanisms of this construction.
This book has boldly taken up this challenge by examining the ‘subjec-
tive’ aspects of energy security with unprecedented methodological and
conceptual clarity. By connecting vital energy systems and their vulnera-
bilities with the concepts of ‘referent objects’ and ‘threats’ from the secu-
ritisation theory, it proposes a powerful analytical framework for
understanding energy security politics. It contains rich and fascinating
stories of energy debates in Poland and Germany which invoke the con-
cept of energy security with respect to the Nord Stream natural gas pipe-
line (Chap. 3), shale gas (Chap. 4) and renewables, nuclear and the power
sector (Chap. 5). The debate is expanded beyond these two countries to
the EU as a whole in Chaps. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12.
More important than the empirical case studies are conceptual advances
in energy securitisation theory which can be applied beyond the particu-
lar sectors and countries described in the book. For example, the book
makes a crucial distinction between energy security rhetoric and concrete
policy proposals. It introduces the concept of ‘security jargon’ (Chap. 2)
when threats are discussed without calls for concrete measures (see a par-
ticularly convincing illustration with respect to discussions of the Nord
Stream gas pipeline in Poland in Chap. 3). This distinction is important
for distinguishing political rhetoric and action important in all fields of
energy policy, not just in energy security. The authors also note that pol-
icy proposals arising from securitising speech are rarely ‘extra-ordinary’,
  Foreword 
   vii

as presumed by mainstream securitisation theory. In fact, the book

describes only one set of clearly extra-ordinary policy: regulating the
­construction of the first nuclear power plant in Poland (Chap. 5). This
echoes our own observation that mobilisation of commitment and
resources necessary for launching national nuclear programmes often
requires the presence of real or imagined energy security threats. Beyond
such outstanding cases, energy security considerations usually prompt
only trivial and incremental policy action.
The book also identifies unresolved problems and promising directions
for further research (primarily in Chap. 6). One of these is a problem of
causality: do securitising speech acts precede, follow or exist separately
from change in policy and material circumstances? For example, it is a
widespread view that the Nord Stream pipeline has improved Germany’s
gas supply security and undermined Poland’s political position and eco-
nomic revenues. How is this common-sense understanding improved by
demonstrating that the pipeline is portrayed as more threatening by
Polish policymakers than by their German counterparts (Chap. 3)? The
book makes it clear that a useful theory of energy securitisation should
move beyond examining isolated political speech acts by bringing in
analysis of material contexts, sociological networks and power relations.
It would be interesting to see the application of the energy securitisation
theory beyond political rhetoric, for example, to discourses of techno-
cratic elites who engage with more nuanced and sophisticated realities of
energy systems than superficially understood geopolitics.
Finally, the book touches upon a fascinating subject of the boundary
between energy security and other energy policies. It demonstrates that
securitising speech often crosses this boundary casting technological
modernisation, mitigation of global climate change, employment, and
competitiveness in terms of threats and vulnerabilities. Chapter 11 pro-
poses that some of these energy policy objectives can be viewed as ‘posi-
tive security’. The question is whether such policies can still be effectively
analysed within the securitisation framework or whether, instead, the
framework should be modified or complemented by other theoretical
and analytical tools. While solving this puzzle is outside the scope of the
book, it provides an invaluable foundation for answering and even asking
viii  Foreword

such questions. On the whole, it is a must-read for serious social scholars

interested in the new science of energy security.

Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy Aleh Cherp

Central European University,
Budapest, Hungary
Energy Program Jessica Jewell
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis,
Laxenburg, Austria
 Acknowledgements

This book grows out of the international research project ‘Towards a

common European energy policy? Energy security debates in Poland and
Germany’. The project—and in consequence, the book, could not have
come about without the organisational skills, inspirational powers and
motivation of Heiko Pleines, to whom the editor and many among the
authors are greatly indebted. He has been a great host of the project
workshops held in 2014 and 2015 at the welcoming Research Centre for
East European Studies (FSO) at the University of Bremen. The theoreti-
cal framework has also benefited from the input by Karen Smith Stegen.
I also thank Jan Osička for his last-minute comments on the introduc-
tory chapter. 
The second part of the book builds, in turn, on the international con-
ference ‘Towards a common European energy policy? Perceptions of
energy security’, organised in May 2016 as a climax of the aforemen-
tioned research project, but also helping us to cast our net widely in
search for fellow energy security buffs. There, the project team benefitted
greatly from the hospitality of Michal Buchowski and the Department
of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Adam Mickiewicz
University (AMU) in Poznan, and had some fantastic exchanges with all
the participants.
A number of people have been involved in the data-gathering process.
German media reports were selected and coded by Thomas Sattich at
ix
x  Acknowledgements

FSO Bremen, and the Polish media were combed by Agata Stasik at
AMU Poznan. Agnieszka Cyfka, Karol Dobosz, Philip Fritz, Bartosz
Gruszka Barbara Holli, Katharina Remshardt and Agnieszka Strzemeska
have assisted in the empirical research, while the literature review in the
introductory chapter has greatly benefitted from the query conducted by
Dennis Palij Bråten.
I would also like to thank all the language editors involved in making
this book reasonably readable: Brien Barnett, Lorna Judge, Matthew
Landry, Mathew Little, James Longbotham and Michael Marcoux. All
the unnecessary jargon and Proustian sentences remaining after their
editing efforts are solely our fault.
Finally, I want to thank the founding agencies which made the research
and this publication possible. The German Polish Science Foundation’s
grant Nr. 2014–15 which enabled the massive data gathering and
financed the Poznan conference, as well as the Oslo University’s energy
research unit UiO:Energi, which helped in financing the language edit-
ing of this book. I would also like to thank the Robert Schuman Centre
for Advanced Studies in Florence for hosting me during a large part of the
book’s finalisation and again acknowledge UiO:Energi’s generosity in
making that stay possible.
Last but not least, I would also like to thank my wife Julia and our two
sons for their support and understanding for my extended office hours
and work from home in the final phases of the editing process.

Kacper Szulecki
 Contents

1 The Multiple Faces of Energy Security: An Introduction   1

Kacper Szulecki

Part I Internal EU Dynamics of Energy Securitisation:

Divergent Perceptions    31

2 Energy Securitisation: Applying the Copenhagen

School’s Framework to Energy  33
Andreas Heinrich and Kacper Szulecki

3 Securitisation in the Gas Sector: Energy Security

Debates Concerning the Example of the Nord Stream
Pipeline  61
Andreas Heinrich

4 Politics and Knowledge Production: Between

Securitisation and Riskification of the Shale Gas Issue
in Poland and Germany  93
Aleksandra Lis

xi
xii  Contents

5 Energy Security and Energy Transition: Securitisation

in the Electricity Sector 117
Kacper Szulecki and Julia Kusznir

6 Energy Securitisation: Avenues for Future Research 149

Andrew Judge, Tomas Maltby, and Kacper Szulecki

Part II Europe’s External Policy Challenges:

Critical Perspectives on Energy Security  175

7 Taking Security Seriously in EU Energy Governance:

Crimean Shock and the Energy Union 177
Kacper Szulecki and Kirsten Westphal

8 Unpacking the Nexus Between Market Liberalisation

and Desecuritisation in Energy 203
Irina Kustova

9 EU Gas Supply Security: The Power of the Importer 221

Jakub M. Godzimirski and Zuzanna Nowak

10 Identities and Vulnerabilities: The Ukraine Crisis

and the Securitisation of the EU-Russia Gas Trade 251
Marco Siddi

11 Positive and Negative Security: A Consequentialist

Approach to EU Gas Supply 275
Paulina Landry

12 The Global Oil Market and EU Energy Security 311

Dag Harald Claes

Conclusion 333
Kacper Szulecki

Index 339
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 The “pendulum” of (de-)securitisation

and (de-)politicisation in energy policy 44
Fig. 8.1 Domestic/international liberalisation
and (de)securitisation: a typology 206
Fig. 11.1 The EU gas security strategy 285
Fig. 12.1 European and US oil consumption, 1925–2015, million
barrels per day (mbd) 314
Fig. 12.2 European and US oil production as share of
consumption (%)  315
Fig. 12.3 Origin of EU-28 crude oil imports (%)  324

xiii
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 Grammars of security 51

Table 3.1 Counter-measures proposed in Poland with a positive
or neutral attitude (number of documents and ratio) 71
Table 3.2 Counter-measures proposed in Germany with a positive
or neutral attitude (number of documents and ratio) 78
Table 3.3 Documents sorted by theoretical concept 79
Table 3.4 Perceived risks/threats linked to the Nord Stream pipeline
by source (number of documents) 80
Table 3.5 Proposed counter-measures in Poland and Germany
with a positive or neutral attitude (number of documents
and ratio) 86
Table 5.1 Comparing objective systemic context, threats discussed
and referent objects across the two cases and sub-sectors
(own elaboration, with input from Aleh Cherp) 141
Table 9.1 External suppliers of energy to the EU—shares of EU
import in per cent (official EU data for 2014) 223
Table 9.2 EU gas production, consumption, and import—recent
dynamics (European Commission 2016, p. 9) 225
Table 9.3 External sources of gas supply to the EU between 2004
and 2014 (in per cent of import—EU official data) 226
Table 11.1 Negative and positive security 284

xv
 1
The Multiple Faces of Energy Security:
An Introduction
Kacper Szulecki

1 ‘Energy Security’ in Europe: Setting

the Scene
The European Union’s prosperity and security hinges on a stable and abun-
dant supply of energy. The fact that citizens in most Member States have
not had to experience any lasting disruption of their energy supply since
the oil crises of the 1970s’ is a testimony of the success of the Member
States and the EU in guaranteeing this. For most citizens, energy is avail-
able ‘on tap’, it is ubiquitous and un-intrusive. This has a major influence
on the factors that affect national decisions on energy policy, with security
of supply not being on par with other considerations. (European
Commission 2014: 2)

This opening paragraph from the 2014 ‘European Energy Security

Strategy’ captures the total nature of energy in our modern societies
(Ciută 2010). It is omnipresent, it is abundant and it is ‘on tap’—at least
that is the societal expectation. For years, the apparent smoothness of

K. Szulecki (*)
Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

© The Author(s) 2018 1

K. Szulecki (ed.), Energy Security in Europe, Energy, Climate and the Environment,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1_1
2  K. Szulecki

energy provision made ‘energy security’ a secondary priority in Europe

(Szulecki and Westphal 2014: 46–7). That smoothness covers the degree
of import dependence of the European Union (EU), which imports more
than half of all the energy it consumes, including 90% of crude oil and
66% of natural gas (European Commission 2017). This attitude changed
to a large extent following the winters of 2006 and 2009. After the
Eastern enlargement of 2004–2007, the European Union (EU) became a
community with a much larger variance of energy systems. The tempo-
rary disruptions of gas supplies following the Ukraine-Russia gas disputes
had a direct impact on EU citizens, particularly in the ‘New’ Member
States of Central-Eastern Europe. That moment was a ‘stark wake up call’
(European Commission 2014: 2) for policymakers, making the need for
a revised approach to European energy supply security evident.
‘Energy security’ began gaining prominence in the EU political debate
(Natorski and Herranz Surrallés 2008; Bridge 2015) and turned into
something of a catchy ‘buzzword’, attracting media attention. In the
years following the two gas disputes, that increased interest and media
presence of the ‘energy security’ concept hardly translated into European
level policy change, though the 2009 dispute was followed with the adop-
tion of the Third Energy Package—soon becoming an important base for
efforts to integrate and harmonise EU energy governance. However, it
was also increasingly apparent that the way Member States perceive,
define and act upon ‘energy security’ varies across Europe and creates a
very fragmented policy landscape (Szulecki and Westphal 2014: 46).
A strong push for dealing with this problem came in the aftermath of
the Russian annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and as a result of the
enduring armed conflict in Ukraine (see:  Chap. 7). The first sign of a
changing climate in EU energy policy was the above cited ‘European
Energy Security Strategy’ released in May 2014, displaying ‘an unprece-
dentedly geopolitical tone’ (Youngs 2014). In October, the Commission
published the results of stress tests in the European gas sector, showing
that a complete halt of Russian gas imports or a disruption of Russian gas
imports through Ukraine ‘would have a substantial impact on the EU’
with Eastern members and Energy Community countries ‘particularly
affected’ (European Commission 2017). What the report highlighted
was the need for cooperation—because in a functioning integrated gas
 1  The Multiple Faces of Energy Security: An Introduction    3

market, the Union could sustain supply disruptions lasting even six
months. The need for increased solidarity in energy policy became the
crux of Polish prime minister Donald Tusk’s proposal for an ‘Energy
Union’ presented in April 2014 (Tusk 2014), and later taken up, re-­
shaped, by the new Commission under Jean-Claude Juncker (Szulecki
et al. 2016). Unfortunately, ‘too often energy security issues are addressed
only at a national level without taking fully into account the interdepen-
dence of Member States’—noted the Commission. ‘The key to improved
energy security lies first in a more collective approach through a function-
ing internal market and greater cooperation at regional and European
levels’ (European Commission 2014: 2).
If EU Member States face similar energy security challenges on many
occasions, but often opt for differing interpretations and policy solutions,
how can we assess the potential for energy cooperation among them and
at the EU level in general? Divisions are no longer only between ‘old’ and
‘new’ Member States (Mišík 2017), they cut across seemingly established
political and geographical regions, as countries follow a multitude of
paths in different energy sectors. The divergent understanding and differ-
ent policy implications of ‘energy security’ make the debates around it
one of the biggest challenges to the development of a common European
energy policy.
What are these divergent understandings? How do they differ between
states, energy sectors and within each sector? Understanding the scale
but, more importantly, the reasons behind the apparent divergence in
perspectives on ‘energy security’ in Europe has been the main driver
behind this book. The volume gathers contributions from a set of authors
with different disciplinary, institutional and national backgrounds,
united by an interest in the policy challenges that Europe faces in the
energy sector and in the reluctance to take ‘energy security’ at face value.
The aim of this volume is to challenge the visible mainstream consensus
in energy policy debates, which simply detours the problem of defining,
understanding and theorising ‘energy security’. It combines a critical
review of existing approaches with theoretically grounded empirical stud-
ies at two levels: internal and external. The former draws on securitisation
theory to trace and understand within-EU variation in energy policy,
4  K. Szulecki

while the latter applies a spectrum of different approaches to the problem

of EU’s energy import dependency.
This introductory chapter begins with a review of the academic discus-
sion on the way ‘energy security’ should be understood. After presenting
the most conventional definition, I distinguish between three main
approaches to elaborating and (re)defining that notion, and argue for the
importance of an analytical concept of ‘energy security’, allowing to dis-
tinguish it properly from other areas of security and other policy fields.
Defining energy security as ‘low vulnerability of vital energy systems’
(Cherp and Jewell 2014), allows for the operationalisation of the general
research problem posed earlier. I then present the rationale of the two
parts of the book and the research questions they try to answer, and con-
clude with an overview of the chapters.

2  onventional Approaches to ‘Energy

C
Security’
What is ‘energy security’? This seems to be one of the favourite questions
many political scientists like to ask—and give very different answers to.
For sure, this is a policy-relevant and timely topic, and having a clear idea
what is at stake is important. Reading the previous section, one could
think that, in Europe, ‘energy security’ is shorthand for ‘reliability of
natural gas supply’—but that is, of course, a caricature. As noted, over the
last two decades, it has developed into a buzzword, with the content very
often left undefined. A wide range of academic journal publications and
think tank reports leaves the meaning of the term implicit, assuming the
meaning is agreed upon or simply does not need to be specified (Austvik
2016; Carroccio et al. 2016; Kline et al. 2016; Layton 2014; Mišík 2017;
Orttung and Overland 2011; Rasul 2014; Smith-Stegen 2011; Stulberg
2015; Sussex and Kanet 2015; Tunsjo 2010; Wigell and Vihma 2016;
Zabyelina and Kustova 2015; Ziegler 2013). Certainly, in policy discus-
sions, it might seem to be a waste of space and unnecessary intellectual
hair-splitting to constantly re-establish the meaning of a basic concept
like this. After all, we do not go around defining ‘democracy’ in every
conversation and every op-ed, do we?
 1  The Multiple Faces of Energy Security: An Introduction    5

If ‘energy security’ does not need to be defined, it is because it indeed

rests on some minimal or, better, a smallest common denominator kind
of ‘conventional’ definition which is generally accepted. It will not be
very controversial to say that the ‘classic’ definition, associated with
Daniel Yergin, serves that purpose (Yergin 1988, 2006). ‘The objective of
energy security’—writes Yergin—‘is to assure adequate, reliable supplies
of energy at reasonable prices and in ways that do not jeopardize major
national values and objectives’ (1988: 111). The definition is simple, but
it is difficult not to note that elements such as ‘reasonable prices’ and
‘major national values’ beg further scrutiny. The International Energy
Agency (IEA) defines energy security as the ‘uninterrupted availability of
energy sources at an affordable price’. Both the IEA’s definition and the
classic formulation by Yergin share a common root. They grow out of the
study of the global oil supply, and they are influenced by the experience
of the 1973 oil crisis (see: Perlot and Hoogeveen 2007).
It is also clear that the definition is constructed from the perspective of
policymakers, public officials and decision-makers responsible for run-
ning a state. In fact, Yergin explicitly calls energy security an ‘objective’—
and so, a policy goal rather than a state or characteristic of the energy
system. The general idea of energy security as a particular policy goal
remains also in the slightly more complicated though increasingly popu-
lar idea of the ‘four As’ of energy security: availability, affordability, acces-
sibility and acceptability (see: Cherp and Jewell 2014). In its conventional
use, ‘energy security’ denotes a certain state of equilibrium of energy rela-
tions. And indeed, ‘energy equilibrium’ could perhaps even be used as a
synonym of energy security in most contexts. Importantly, in its empha-
sis on availability and affordability, ‘energy security’ draws much more on
the semantics of the verb to secure than the noun security.1 In many policy
contexts, however, when the object (security for whom?) is left unspeci-
fied, the meaning of energy security is close to energy procurement. This
is in line with the widespread equating of energy security with supply
security.2
The idea that energy security is a particular policy objective of the
nation-state is not only strongly embedded in public administration and
policy-making circles across the globe—it also seems to be the most pop-
ular and practically accepted way of approaching the question of what
6  K. Szulecki

‘energy security is’ in scholarly literature. Conventional definitions based

on the minimal, classic-inspired framework with ‘availability’ (having
enough energy) and ‘affordability’ (being able to pay for it) is broadly
accepted and sometimes called up in analyses, even if only in ritual form
(e.g. Cao and Bluth 2013; Chakrabarti and Arora 2016; Cheon and
Urpelainen 2015; Hughes 2012; Kalicki and Goldwyn 2013; Kurian and
Vinodan 2013; Kama 2016; McCollum et  al. 2014; Molyneaux et  al.
2016; Månsson et al. 2014b; Narula and Reddy 2015; Proedrou 2016a,
b; Sander 2013; Speight 2013; Vivoda 2012). Moving with the Zeitgeist
(and the warming planet), some have also begun to add an environmental
component, which emphasises that energy has to be secured not just rea-
sonably cheap, but without drastic environmental impacts (Brauch 2015;
Mišík 2016; Narula and Reddy 2015; Szulecki and Westphal 2014).
It would be a mistake to say that this conventional definition is wrong;
it is just not very clear and ultimately—not very useful. Widely shared
among practitioners, it surely says something important about energy
security as a policy goal. To once again draw a parallel to studying democ-
racy, this conventional definition would be akin to defining democracy as
‘having your voice heard and having a good government’. This certainly
does convey some meanings and expectations associated with a demo-
cratic political system, and might even help in distinguishing a democ-
racy from a dictatorship—but comparing the quality or depth of
democracy or understanding what makes democratic governance ‘good’
requires a different kind of definition.
More recently, in energy security discussions, there has been a growing
understanding that oil is not all—far from it, that the idea of energy
security has to be thought through and reformulated to work for different
energy sources, systems, technologies and different contexts. Yergin
importantly proposed to expand the scope to all energy sectors and ‘to
include the protection of the entire energy supply chain and infrastruc-
ture’ (Yergin 2006: 78). Ways of expanding that scope are multiple, but
before we briefly survey them, it is important to ask the fundamental
question: why are we doing this?
Consider this: natural gas accounts for 13% of Poland’s primary energy
supply, a third of it is extracted domestically, and 80% of the remainder
is imported from Russia. In the neighbouring Slovakia, gas supplies 30%
 1  The Multiple Faces of Energy Security: An Introduction    7

of primary energy, only 2% is produced domestically, and imports are

almost exclusively from Russia (99%). And yet it is in Poland that discus-
sions about the country’s dependency on Russian energy imports and the
imminent endangerment of its national security has sparked political
controversy and has put a strain on the relations between Warsaw and
Moscow. Clearly, ‘energy security’ as a political concept has dynamics that
escape a one-size-fits-all, policy-objective type of definition. If energy
security is ‘context dependent’ what does that mean?
The case of Poland and Slovakia is by no means unique. Differences in
understanding and in perceiving energy security occur between states,
between organisations, companies and non-state actors, between politi-
cians and commentators, as well as between different groups within the
society. Why, for example, has the Nord Stream pipeline project—build-
ing a direct supply link between Russia and Germany under the Baltic
Sea, sparked such a controversy across Europe (a case to which we shall
return several times in the following chapters)? Why have all the sides of
the conflict been citing ‘energy security’ as a justification for their actions
and divergent evaluations of the project?

3 Inductive, Abductive and Deductive

Approaches to Defining ‘Energy Security’
In the light of such apparent differences in the way ‘energy security’ actu-
ally functions as a concept, a policy goal and a rhetorical commonplace,
scholars have proposed three different strategies for redefining and under-
standing energy security. These can be fairly neatly (though admittedly
not absolutely accurately) categorised as inductive, abductive and
deductive.
An inductive approach to the meaning of energy security relies on cast-
ing a wide net to capture all the different kinds of meanings that are out
there, in political and technical practice. It is motivated by the drive to
‘open the black box of energy security’ (Cox 2016) or to ‘propose a work-
able framework’ to objectively measure it (Sovacool and Mukherjee
2011). Research conducted in this vein values precision, nuance and
8  K. Szulecki

complexity, trying to inductively acquire some conceptualisation (much

less definition) of ‘energy security’ from the policy practitioners and aca-
demic experts. The logic is simple and genuinely convincing: if we are
interested in the way political and business actors understand ‘energy
security’, why not ask them or trace the way they actually do it? Such
attempts can rely on expert interviews and surveys (Cox 2016; Mišík
2016; Sovacool 2016; Sovacool and Mukherjee 2011), a query of (aca-
demic) papers (Månsson et al. 2014a, b; Winzer 2012), comparison of
indexes (Narula and Reddy 2015) or policy document analysis (Aalto
and Korkmaz Temel 2014; Nyman and Zeng 2016; Ang et  al. 2015).
What these attempts share is an appreciation for the diversity of mean-
ings and perspectives on energy security, as well as a more or less explicit
scepticism towards searching (and finding) a single definition of ‘energy
security’. ‘It is…improbable, and perhaps undesirable, for researchers to
agree upon one single definition and interpretation of energy security’
(Månsson et al. 2014a: 2), and so the goal is ‘not to generate an agreed-­
upon definition of energy security, but rather to shed more light on the
diversity of perspectives among key energy experts’ (Cox 2016: 2).
For sure, energy security perceptions can vary due to objective factors:
resource endowment, geographical location, infrastructure and so forth.
‘The concept of energy security varies between the producer, consumer
and transit states’—write Dellecker and Gomart—‘to complicate things
further, the final concept of “national energy security” also depends on
the individual countries’ geographical location and domestic policies, as
well as the traditional state, economic and business ties it entertains with
its partners’ (2011: 25). They can also vary, as Sovacool (2016) proposes,
due to cultural differences.
While this idea is interesting, what the inductive approach tends to
lead to is not necessarily in-depth research on the nature and roots of the
context-dependent differences in perceptions, but rather large, at times—
huge—sets of factors that need to be taken into account as elements of
‘energy security’. Kisel et al. (2016) propose three ‘layers’, Radovanović
et al. (2016) put forth six ‘indicators’, Ang et al. (2015) list seven ‘themes’
and Sovacool (2016) 16 ‘dimensions’, while Sovacool and Mukherjee
(2011) raise the bar to 320 ‘simple indicators’ and 52 ‘complex indica-
tors’. Although they provide a potentially useful way of comparing an
 1  The Multiple Faces of Energy Security: An Introduction    9

objectivised level of energy security across regions, states and localities, it

is not clear whether they move us beyond the appreciation that ‘energy
security is indeed a highly context-dependent concept’ (Ang et al. 2015:
1081). They seem to be stretching the meaning of energy security beyond
something particular and towards a list of desirable components—a
menu of a rational and well-designed energy policy (compare: Cherp
2012). Their potential input to explaining such cases as the earlier quoted
Slovakia-Poland mismatch of energy security perspectives or the Nord
Stream controversy is in detailed mapping of the national energy land-
scapes and possibly probing expert discourses—and so, providing typolo-
gies and a framework for descriptive background research. However, all
too often, they are formulated in a prescriptive form as the ‘correct’
approach to designing sound energy security policies—which seems to be
trespassing on normative ground in analytical shoes.
An abductive approach, much less popular in the literature, proceeds
slightly differently and with very different results. Abductive reasoning
starts with an observation of what is out there and then seeks to find a
likely and possibly simple explanation. Ciută’s (2010) conceptual notes
are a good example. Similarly, to the inductively minded scholars, Ciută
also begins with a broad literature review, surveying energy security
­definitions, but he does that not to render the rainbow of aspects taken
into account, but to distil a narrow set of ‘logics’ that inform all these
definitions. He distinguishes between the logic of war, the logic of subsis-
tence and a ‘total’ security logic, each representing a very different para-
digmatic perspective on energy security (compare other notable abductive
endeavours: Cherp and Jewell 2011; Bridge 2015). This typology allows
us to move beyond description. For example, by analysing energy security
discourses in different EU Member States, we can suggest that the lack of
understanding between country X and country Y in their perspectives on
an infrastructural project like the Nord Stream results from a difference
in dominant logics: ‘war’ logic that preponderates policy debate in one,
and ‘subsistence’ logic visible in the other. We find a hint for moving a
step forward in analysing the roots of these differences in what is other-
wise an inductive survey of energy security definitions. Winzer impor-
tantly notes that ‘the main reason for difference between energy security
concepts is…the way in which the authors select the subset of…threats
10  K. Szulecki

that they consider in their analysis, [they focus] on different risk sources
or choose different impact measures’ (2012: 37).
Approaches to defining ‘energy security’ which I call deductive have a
different goal. Whereas the inductive approach asks how practitioners
and experts understand ‘energy security’, a deductive take asks how
‘energy security’ ought to be understood to make it analytically sharp and
useful. This is based on a shared founding assumption which is, bluntly,
that ‘defining energy security takes more than asking around’ (Cherp
2012). Such attempts can depart from Security Studies, to take the ‘secu-
rity’ in ‘energy security’ more seriously (e.g. Cherp and Jewell 2014), or,
for instance, from economics, arguing that ‘without rigorous microeco-
nomic foundation, the notion of energy security remains a vague catch-
word rather than an operational concept’ (Böhringer and Bortolamedi
2015).
The goal is casting ‘energy security’ as an analytical concept, meeting
such important scientific requirements as precision and delimitation
from other concepts.3 This is based on the assumption that energy s­ ecurity
is indeed something unique, different from security in general (we come
back to this discussion in Chap. 6). In a nutshell, it can be convincingly
argued that within these two domains of security, threats are of a qualita-
tively different sort.
Yergin’s (1988, 2006) proposals for ways to approach energy security
certainly follow the deductive approach, as does Bahgat, suggesting that
‘the notion of energy security is not an “either–or” proposition [but
should] be understood as a “less–more” proposition in which the risks to
energy security span a spectrum of possibilities’ (2011: 213). An impor-
tant shift, visible already in Yergin’s (2006) article, is a ‘systemic turn’
towards understanding ‘energy security’ not only as something that
occurs ‘at the pump’ and ‘in the socket’4 but is relying on a whole supply
chain, comprising multiple elements. It includes infrastructure and more
or less formal institutions, spanning from production, through
transport/transmission to distribution and consumption (Johansson
2013a; Cherp and Jewell 2013; Johansson 2013b; Thangavelu et  al.
2015). These systems can be delineated ‘sectorally and/or geographically’,
where sectors can be ‘the total primary energy supply (PES), individual
 1  The Multiple Faces of Energy Security: An Introduction    11

fuels, energy carriers, or end-uses’, while geographic focus can be on

‘individual nations, regions, or the global system as a whole’ depending
on the level of analysis (Cherp et al. 2016).
Such solidly grounded and analytical definitions are scarce. In fact, the
only one which tries to cast energy security as an ideal type, emphasising
an energy system’s characteristics has been put forth only recently by Aleh
Cherp and Jessica Jewell (2013, 2014). Drawing explicitly on Arnold
Wolfers, in a clear attempt to combine the rich tradition of Security
Studies with an independently evolving literature on energy security,5
they specify what energy security would or should imply. Namely, they
suggest that if energy security is indeed security, we need to ask: security
for whom? for which values? and from what threats?—questions that most
energy security conceptualisations not only fail to answer but forget to
ask. They thus arrive at a simple but analytically significant definition of
energy security as ‘low vulnerability of vital energy systems’ (2014).
Defined by the threatening lack, the degree of resilience and preparedness
is an objective fact or state that can be measured. This is the punchline of
Cherp and Jewell’s approach, bringing forth an energy security
benchmark.
So does that mean that ‘energy security’ is an objective ‘fact’? Not nec-
essarily, because while we can design ways of measuring the level of vul-
nerability, understood as a function of exposure to risks and systemic
resilience, it also leaves space for actors’ interpretations of these vulnera-
bilities as well as the values and meanings they associate with the entire
energy system because visibly, ‘energy security and energy systems are
value-laden’ (Sovacool and Saunders 2014: 649).

When defining energy security, secure supply, demand, transit, diversifi-

cation of sources, price, and physical availability are the main elements
to keep in mind. However, their relevance varies across countries and
over time. Thus, we ought to conclude that the definition of energy
security has much to do with a country’s own particular situation and
the way it subjectively perceives its vulnerabilities. (Skalamera 2015: 4, my
emphasis – KS)
12  K. Szulecki

Which energy systems are vital and why? What constitutes a vulnera-
bility and who defines it? ‘Both vital energy systems and their vulnerabili-
ties are not only objective phenomena, but also political constructs
defined and prioritized by various social actors’ (Cherp and Jewell 2014:
419).6 In this way, Cherp and Jewell not only create a more objective
benchmark against which different ideas about energy security can be
evaluated but problematise ‘classic’ and inductive approaches, by casting
their preferred definitions as something to be itself explained.

4  apping and Explaining Divergent

M
Energy Security Perceptions
As the example of Slovakia and Poland as well as the early sketch of the
Nord Stream controversy suggests, material aspects alone, stressed by
objectivist approaches, cannot sufficiently explain this divergence of per-
ceptions. Analyses relying on a ‘classic’ and unproblematic approach to
energy security seem unable to identify what exactly triggers insecurity, as
Guzzini points out in a general argument (2011). Accordingly, energy
security cannot be analysed as an exclusively objective condition but is
better understood as an intersubjective phenomenon.
Offering an input from interpretive political studies to interdisciplin-
ary energy security studies (cf. Cherp and Jewell 2011: 211), ‘energy
security’ should perhaps be understood as conditioned by the interplay of
a sociotechnical imaginary—‘a form of social understanding embedded in
policy action that elucidates how certain forms of technoscience and
political order are coproduced’ (Tidwell and Smith 2015: 689, 690),
overlapping with a particular security imaginary—‘a structure of well-­
established meanings and social relations out of which representations
about the world of international relations are created’ (Weldes 1999: 10).
If we define ‘energy security’ as ‘low vulnerability of vital energy sys-
tems’, how can we then explain the apparent divergence in understand-
ings and perspectives across the EU? What we are interested in is which
systems are perceived as vital (or most vital, and worth protecting more
than other and at a higher cost) and how are vulnerabilities perceived—
between actors and in relation to objective risks and resilience levels
 1  The Multiple Faces of Energy Security: An Introduction    13

associated with particular energy systems. Cherp and Jewell hint that
the application of securitisation theory to energy as seen through the lens
of vital energy systems ‘offers promising avenues of future research’
(2014: 419; also Ciută 2010: 125), a call to which this volume tries to
respond.
This book is divided into two parts, reflecting an inward and outward-­
oriented gaze on European energy security. In both, the authors seek to
understand the divergence in perspectives and understandings of energy
security challenges—either between EU member states or in multilateral
relationships between the EU as a whole, its different members and exter-
nal actors.
The first part develops a theoretical framework for the study of energy
security debates, based on the securitisation model proposed by the
Copenhagen School, which brings together debates about security with
actual decision-making processes (Chap. 2). Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver,
the major proponents of the approach, define securitisation as ‘the dis-
cursive process through which an intersubjective understanding is con-
structed within a political community to treat something as an existential
threat…and to enable a call for urgent and exceptional measures to deal
with the threat’ (Buzan and Wæver 2003: 491).
The concept of securitisation enables an analysis of the way energy
becomes a security problem—where, how and why it does. Importantly,
energy security, as we will argue (especially in Chap. 6) is not always secu-
ritised. In fact—it quite rarely is. The Copenhagen Schools’ securitisation
model is also providing us with a framework for categorising and com-
paring perception and identification of threats (a subjective component of
vulnerabilities), referent objects to be protected (values and vital systems)
and the policy implication in form of (at times extra-ordinary)
measures.
Based on this approach, the book’s first part focusses on the analysis of two
important EU Member States—Germany and Poland. This selection of cases
helps to highlight several important division lines within the EU but also to
problematise these easy distinctions. Many studies emphasise the prevailing
differences between ‘old’ and ‘new’ EU Member States regarding their under-
standing of energy security and the necessity and range of a common energy
policy (Austvik 2016). This is especially true for the relationship towards the
14  K. Szulecki

EU’s single largest source of gas supplies, Russia. Moreover, with Poland and
Germany, the analysis covers two countries that have confronted the EU
with considerable challenges. Poland has been enthusiastically embracing the
development of shale gas, which has raised noticeable concerns in other
member countries regarding possible environmental problems caused by this
new technology. Germany’s Energiewende (i.e. the phasing out of nuclear
energy and rapidly expanding renewables) causes not only problems for the
country itself but also for the EU, as this change in Germany’s energy balance
might endanger the EU’s climate goals and destabilise grids. Thus, these two
cases offer a very interesting analytical setup, as they visibly differ in all energy
sectors that we analyse. The analysis will, on the one hand, focus on debates
of key audiences, namely political elites, business elites, epistemic communi-
ties and the general public (covered through mass media reporting), on the
domestic, bilateral and EU arenas. On the other hand, it will examine deci-
sion-making processes in politics and business. The approach in the analysis
that follows departs from the assumption that divergences in energy security
perceptions are a key explanatory factor for the slow progress in establishing
a common, integrated and harmonised EU energy policy.
Although the securitisation approach comes from a theory which aims
to bridge the divide between neo-realist analysis of ‘hard’ facts and the
constructivist focus on perceptions and interpretations, actual research is
still firmly positioned on either side of the divide. As Cherp and Jewell
state, ‘there is virtually no research on the interaction between the scien-
tific analysis of vulnerabilities of energy systems and policy narratives
about risks and response capacities. At the same time, such narratives are
often used in both setting the agenda of energy security research and
interpreting the results’ (2011: 210). This assessment is also true for
Poland and Germany. For both countries, there is a substantial body of
literature examining the energy sector and challenges to energy security.
However, research on related debates is much rarer and is in most cases
limited to a mere summary of the positions of key stakeholders, com-
monly in think tank publications. Where there is a reference to the con-
cept of securitisation, it is often as a catchword (Nyman and Zeng 2016;
Nyman 2013; Özcan 2013). Where there is a reference to Poland or
Germany, it is in the context of EU-Russian energy relations (Khrushcheva
2011; Judge and Maltby 2017; Zeniewski 2011).
 1  The Multiple Faces of Energy Security: An Introduction    15

The book’s second part departs from precisely the latter issue. It asks
about the assumptions regarding energy security that are linked to the
relationship of the EU with the ‘outer world’. Zooming out from the
focus on energy systems bounded by sectors/resources and national bor-
ders, the chapters in this part work on a regional scale. These contribu-
tions do not share a common theoretical framework, although they all
refer to vulnerabilities of EU’s vital energy systems. What does unite
them is the push to problematise important ‘truths’ in energy security
studies and provide a critical perspective—though the meaning of ‘criti-
cal’ varies between these pieces, ranging from International Political
Economy to postmodern ‘new security studies’. These approaches can
thus be seen as ‘critical’ in a broad sense, not limited to critical theoretic
and normative approaches but rather used as a label to describe all pos-
sible challenges to the prevailing ‘wisdom’ in the policy and public debates

5  ook Structure and Overview

B
of the Chapters
The following Chap. 2 by Andreas Heinrich and Kacper Szulecki lays out
the theoretical framework for this analysis. Drawing on Buzan et  al.
(1998)—central to the so-called Copenhagen School in Security
Studies—the chapter proposes a way of applying the classic formulation
of the securitisation model to energy security. Signalling some important
critique that the Copenhagen School model picked up over the last two
decades, the authors propose some reformulations. This proves necessary,
as ‘securitisation theory’ does not provide clear guidance for empirical
research (Stritzel 2007). Most importantly, extra-ordinary measures which
should result from a securitising move—and so, the changes in political
practice going beyond what is usually accepted—are specified in a way
which enables empirical research of securitisation in the energy sector.
Furthermore, they expand the idea of a security speech act and shift the
focus onto securitised discourses rather than individual utterances.
Finally, they delineate ‘securitisation proper’ from similar notions of riski-
fication (Corry 2012), security jargon and draw a (de)securitisation
16  K. Szulecki

‘pendulum’, which can move from de-politicisation, through politicisation

to securitisation (Fig. 2.1.). The authors operationalise the relevant aspects
of the theoretical approach and put forth a multi-method approach for
data gathering and data analysis, which was the basis for the research on
which Chaps. 3, 4 and 5 report.
The empirical triptych that follows presents the findings of the research
project ‘Towards a common European energy policy? Energy security
debates in Poland and Germany’—a comparative study of these two EU
Member States across three energy sectors. This last element is important
and breaks new ground, as previously energy securitisation studies were
conducted either at a very general level or focussed on particular domes-
tic case studies. The logic behind this research project was that energy
securitisation is context-dependent and might have very different dynam-
ics in different energy sectors—constituting separate ‘vital energy sys-
tems’ in Cherp and Jewell’s (2014) parlance.
In Chap. 3, Andreas Heinrich compares the German and Polish
debates in the natural gas sector around its transmission infrastructure—
focussing on the case of the Nord Stream pipeline under the Baltic Sea.
Through that example, he compares the securitisation of transnational
energy infrastructures in both countries, and the Nord Stream is arguably
one of the most controversial energy issues in German-Polish relations.
Scrutinising the national debates about the project, Heinrich examines
the kind of security debates that have occurred, what risk and threat per-
ceptions exist, and the nature of the counter-measures that have been
proposed in Poland and Germany. While the debate on the Polish side
was emotional and rich in historical references, political risk/threat per-
ceptions did not dominate the debate. They did, however, dominate the
much more sober German debate. The most surprising result of the anal-
ysis has been that full ‘securitising moves’ are quite rare. It was ‘security
jargon’, that is, threat-based security language that does not offer any
solutions and counter-measures, which dominated the Nord Stream
debate in the Polish Parliament. At the same time, ‘riskification’, the
more sober analysis of the problem and search for solutions, dominated
the German debate in general and was also more common in the Polish
media debate.
 1  The Multiple Faces of Energy Security: An Introduction    17

The following Chap. 4 by Aleksandra Lis compares shale gas debates in

Poland and Germany. The analysis shows that an important part of shale
politics has involved the production of knowledge on the relation between
the shale gas extraction processes and the environment. Two different
modes of knowledge production informed the debates in Poland and
Germany. In Poland, the Polish Geological Institute conducted empirical
measurements of environmental impacts in seven locations, where com-
panies drilled for shale gas. In Germany, ExxonMobil set up an expert
panel which modelled the worst-case scenarios of hypothetical drilling.
Knowledge produced in these methodologically different ways served to
underpin different political moves around shale gas: in Poland it led to
securitisation and in Germany to riskification. However, in the Polish
case, it was also used by political actors to prevent riskification of the
shale gas issue taking place at the EU level.
In Chap. 5, Kacper Szulecki and Julia Kusznir look at the electricity
sector, which is very rarely the object of interest in security studies and
political science, despite its clear importance as a vital energy sector sus-
taining vital functions and values of (post)modern societies. They trace
security debates in two sub-sectors—renewables and nuclear energy. In
Poland, renewables were often framed as a threat for the electricity system.
The German debate, less securitised, seems to be closer to the ‘objective’
systemic vulnerabilities, whereas in Poland the major vulnerability of the
power sector—a weak and inadequate grid—remains a non-issue. An
instrumental use of securitisation and security jargon is visible among
pro-renewable environmental activist in both countries, who mimic the
securitising moves known from the gas sector to portray renewables as a
solution to national security problems. Debates around nuclear energy
resemble those around shale gas in Chap. 4, where German riskification
of nuclear reactor operation is met in Poland with arguments about energy
independence and national security. In the nuclear sector, the authors also
find the strongest example of a successful and full securitising move, with
the announcement of the nuclear project as a national security issue, fol-
lowed by proposed and implemented extra-ordinary measures. The analy-
sis also shows that, especially in the Polish case, politicians are more prone
to use and accept security jargon, while technical experts in energy are
most active in desecuritisation, even of such serious and problematic
18  K. Szulecki

issues as uncontrolled electricity flows. The more international the energy

issue, the more likely it is to see spillovers from foreign policy and securi-
tising moves drawing on a broader ‘security imaginary’.
In Chap. 6, two scholars working at the forefront of energy securitisa-
tion studies—Andrew Judge and Tomas Maltby, as well as the book’s
editor, draw broader theoretical and methodological conclusions from
the experience and findings of the empirical chapters. They identify some
key areas for future research on energy securitisation through both an
examination of what securitisation studies could learn from the study of
energy issues, and what insights could be drawn from theoretical devel-
opments within securitisation studies for the study of energy security.
After a brief overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the Copenhagen
School framework, as illustrated by the empirical Chaps. 3, 4 and 5, they
outline several possibilities within two main strands of research: the dis-
cursive construction of energy security and the process of energy securiti-
sation. In the case of the former, future research should focus on the
question of whether or not energy is a distinct ‘sector’ of security, and
whether it is constituted by ‘logics’ of security that depart from the
Copenhagen School’s conception of securitisation. In the case of the lat-
ter, they suggest that greater attention should be paid to the audience’s
energy securitisation attempts and the ways in which such attempts are
shaped by power relations, systems of energy governance and the materi-
ality of energy systems.
Chapter 7 by Kacper Szulecki and Kirsten Westphal opens Part II of the
book, which focusses on the way energy security is perceived in the rela-
tionship of the European Union with its external environment—energy-
exporting states, especially Russia, Norway, and the Middle Eastern and
North African (MENA) countries. The authors provide a very broad over-
view of different energy policy and energy security issues that Europe faces,
and those for which it needs to prepare itself in the future. Referring back
to an article written several years ago, on the onset of the Ukraine crisis
(Szulecki and Westphal 2014), they ask whether EU energy governance
has gained a new sense of direction since then. They argue that the Ukraine
crisis was a moment of political bombshell for European energy governance,
but it is yet to be seen whether that challenge has been turned into oppor-
tunity or, to the contrary, will we see a deepening of the existing rifts and
 1  The Multiple Faces of Energy Security: An Introduction    19

further fragmentation? Can we see a new idea for balancing the ‘energy
triangle’ emerging, and what is the understanding of energy security driv-
ing it? The authors sketch the increasingly fluid geopolitical environment
and the global challenges, which European energy policy has to address:
shifting demand, the problem of energy access and changing global energy
governance architecture. They then turn to internal hindrances of effective
external energy policy, highlighting a split over economic efficiency, diver-
gent climate policy ambitions, and the tension between market-oriented
and statist energy policy approaches. The chapter concludes with a strong
argument for streamlining energy and climate policy, as well as energy
sustainability and security, in a longer-term EU energy strategy framework
that seems to be emerging. The authors also emphasise the need for an
approach to energy security moving beyond supply security.
Though the remaining chapters in this part of the book do not share a
common theoretical framework, they are all informed by approaches to
energy security, which can be broadly described as critical and as ques-
tioning many established truths and orthodoxies of (international) energy
politics and energy security studies. Chapter 8 by Irina Kustova takes on
the widespread assumption that a choice of market reforms presupposes
a desecuritised path of energy policies. She argues that market liberalisa-
tion is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the energy poli-
tics’ desecuritisation or ‘normalisation’. Linking a particular type of
energy market governance (‘market liberalisation’) with (de)securitisation
processes requires the analysis of case-specific conditions, where tenden-
cies for either securitisation or desecuritisation could prevail. These con-
ditions include, according to Kustova: the compatibility of domestic
institutional models of the energy sector, and the ‘non-strategic’ socio-­
economic role of resources, which reflects actors’ perceptions about their
importance for states’ economy, security and policies. In this regard, this
author understands market liberalisation as a specific institutional model
of domestic energy markets (‘domestic liberalisation’) and as a specific
mode of international energy governance (‘international liberalisation’),
both of which comprise a set of rules, perceptions and ideas. By subject-
ing the concepts of liberalisation and (de)securitisation to greater scru-
tiny, the chapter demonstrates that no deterministic and linear relationship
between the two exists.
20  K. Szulecki

In Chap. 9, Jakub Godzimirski and Zuzanna Nowak examine how the

European Union can exert its market and regulatory power in its relations
with the key external suppliers of energy. The focus is on the EU’s instru-
mental toolbox and how various policy instruments have been used in
relations with main suppliers of gas to the Union. Due to the centrality
of Norway and Russia as external gas suppliers and their different ways of
relating to the EU in formal and regulatory terms, the chapter focusses
on the impact the EU market and regulatory power has had on the opera-
tions of these two actors. In this way, the authors show that these two
suppliers, usually portrayed as very different trade partners for the EU,
can be analysed with one conceptual framework. What differs, the analy-
sis seems to show, is not only their internal characteristics (liberal democ-
racy and an illiberal plutocratic regime) and their actual behaviour but
also the way the EU itself approaches them and creates different kinds of
interactive policy settings. The chapter also presents some general conclu-
sions on the effectiveness of the EU’s use of various policy instruments in
relations with external suppliers of energy.
Marco Siddi, in Chap. 10, returns to the concept of securitisation, but
this time takes the EU-wide debate as a departure point. European dis-
courses, he observes, resonating the findings of Part I, increasingly frame
the EU-Russia gas trade as a security issue. The securitisation of the topic
is particularly strong in East-Central European countries. The chapter
applies realist and social constructivist theory to examine the securitisa-
tion of energy discourses. Siddi finds that realist theory, relying solely on
material power factors, does not provide a satisfactory explanation
because most of the alleged threats to EU energy security are constructed
discursively, and they are not based on actual vulnerabilities. Instead of a
classic securitisation analysis, however, he turns to a social constructivist
approach, arguing that identities play an important role in this process.
The Ukraine conflict has strengthened perceptions of Russia as a threat-
ening Other, which were deeply rooted especially in the national identi-
ties of East-Central European countries. This has affected perceptions of
energy trade too, which has thus become the subject of acrimonious
political contestation.
In Chap. 11, Paulina Landry applies a consequentialist approach to
energy, bringing cutting-edge insights from critical security studies and
 1  The Multiple Faces of Energy Security: An Introduction    21

computer sciences together to generate a novel conceptual framework for

studying EU natural gas policy and governance. She differentiates
between positive and negative security models. By advancing an argu-
ment for the consequentialist nature of gas security, Landry criticises the
EU policy’s prevailing focus on technical aspects of gas security and on
developing a negative security model while not adequately considering
the role the individual user plays in the gas system and how gas consum-
ers create positive gas security for Europe. Also, gas security is almost
exclusively viewed as a matter of securing natural gas supplies, while its
definition should also include biomass and other alternative gas supply
sources that comply with and support the sustainable fuels strategy in
Europe. Landry demonstrates that the EU gas policy in its current shape
does not constitute a sufficient solution for the maintenance of gas secu-
rity in Europe, although there have been several advancements towards
changing this situation that include the recent proposal on the gover-
nance of the Energy Union. As regards the positive gas security, the chap-
ter concludes that this model requires further advancement and a stronger
regulation that would underpin it in the EU energy policy. The final
point is that the Energy Union governance process is crucial to mainte-
nance of gas security in Europe, since it constitutes the necessary condi-
tions for the future enhancement of both the negative and positive gas
security models.
Turning away from gas and electricity towards the world’s most estab-
lished strategic resource—oil—Dag Harald Claes, in Chap. 12, refines
the concept of energy security into physical, economic and political com-
ponents, which contain both structural and strategic elements. He then
provides a historical account, going back to the early twentieth century,
of how the European Great Powers, and later the European Union, have
followed various strategies in order to secure oil supplies from external
sources. The challenges facing the EU in this endeavour are discussed
further in relation to the ‘Peak Oil’ debate, which seems dubious in Claes’
account, and the import dependency of EU member states. This is fol-
lowed by a critical assessment of the EU’s ability to act coherently and
effectively in the political diplomacy of the global oil market.
22  K. Szulecki

The conclusion then tries to bring all important threads of the book
together and sketch some directions for further critically minded research
on European energy security.

Notes
1. The meanings of the verb include: to make certain; ensure; to guarantee;
to get possession of; acquire; to bring about as well as to protect from
danger or risk. Compare my take on the matter with Bridge’s thesis that
‘energy security’ implies a ‘securitisation of energy’ which ‘normalizes cer-
tain practices of resource use, and establishes grounds for intervention’
(2015: 328 and 336).
2. While ‘energy security’ is not reducible to ‘supply security’, this is not to
say that ‘security of demand’ should necessarily be integrated into the
definition. That is something that many scholars (Austvik 2016; Brauch
2015; Cao and Bluth 2013; Reddy 2015) and especially energy-exporting
states emphasise. There are, however, good reasons not to treat ‘demand
security’ as a necessary element of energy security—leaving it rather to
international trade.
3. The by now canonical least of features ‘making a concept good’ in the
social sciences is provided by Gerring (2011): (1) familiarity, (2) reso-
nance, (3) parsimony, (4) coherence, (5) differentiation, (6) depth, (7)
theoretical utility and (8) field utility.
4. An earlier definition, similar to the one proposed by Cherp and Jewell
(2014) was developed in the Global Energy Assessment by, among others,
these authors, as ‘uninterrupted provision of vital energy services’ (my ital-
ics). This availability-based and consumption-centred definition is some-
thing mid-way between a conventional and an analytical one. See: Cherp
et al. (2012).
5. They themselves speak of an ‘interdisciplinary Energy security studies’.
6. As a matter of fact, this contextualised meaning of energy and energy
security was already present in Yergin’s (1988) approach, but few scholars
noted the latter part of his definition: ‘major national and objectives’.
 1  The Multiple Faces of Energy Security: An Introduction    23

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 Part I
Internal EU Dynamics of Energy
Securitisation: Divergent
Perceptions
 2
Energy Securitisation: Applying
the Copenhagen School’s Framework
to Energy
Andreas Heinrich and Kacper Szulecki

1 Introduction
As the previous chapter has emphasised, energy security is a deeply polit-
ical concept shaped by factors beyond the materiality of energy systems
(Cherp and Jewell 2014: 419). It is clear that in looking at energy secu-
rity from the perspective of ‘vital systems’ (Collier and Lakoff 2015), the
perception of that ‘vitality’ will vary between contexts. Some communi-
ties (e.g., countries) will put a greater emphasis on certain systems, either
due to their objective importance for the economy and society, because
of path dependencies, or due to the way they are constructed as impor-

A. Heinrich (*)
Research Centre for East European Studies, University of Bremen,
Bremen, Germany
K. Szulecki
Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

© The Author(s) 2018 33

K. Szulecki (ed.), Energy Security in Europe, Energy, Climate and the Environment,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1_2
34  A. Heinrich and K. Szulecki

tant and presented as such in political debates. In consequence, the way

the ‘vulnerabilities’ of these energy systems are seen is in itself relational
and should be analysed interpretively (Szulecki 2016). Thus, energy
security, like security in general, cannot be analysed only as an objective
condition but is better understood as an intersubjective, relational phe-
nomenon (Buzan 1991: 187; Lipschutz 1995b: 213). In this chapter, we
introduce the theoretical framework of energy securitisation as a means
for the empirical analysis of the social construction of ‘vulnerabilities’ as
‘threats’ and ‘risks’, keeping in mind that in analysing these we need to
‘take into account the actors’ history, identities, and strategic myths’
(Ciută 2010: 317).
For the so-called Copenhagen School, one of the leading constructiv-
ist approaches to security studies, the meaning of security lies within the
security discourse. Within this approach, security is considered the out-
come of specific social processes in which issues intersubjectively become
security issues through speech acts. Thus, security is a social construc-
tion, a self-referential social practice produced in discursive interaction
(Buzan et al. 1998: 204). ‘Conceptualisations of security – from which
follow policy and practice – are to be found in discourse of security. These
are neither strictly objective assessments nor analytical constructs of
threats, but rather the products of historical structures and processes, of
struggles for power within the state, of conflicts between the societal
groupings that inhabit states and the interests that besiege them. Hence,
there are not only struggles over security among nations, but also strug-
gles over security among notions’ (Lipschutz 1995a: 8, emphasis in the
original).
This chapter introduces the common theoretical framework for the
three empirical chapters that follow. Our starting point was a some-
what revised version of the securitisation approach developed by the
Copenhagen School, supported by the concepts of ‘riskification’ and
‘security jargon’, which are operationalised in the sections that
follow. 
 2  Energy Securitisation: Applying the Copenhagen School’s...    35

2 Securitisation
It was Ole Wæver who first introduced the concept of ‘securitisation’
(1995), later elaborated in more detail together with Barry Buzan and Jaap
de Wilde (Buzan et al. 1998) in the presently ‘canonical’ form, making the
concept a centrepiece of the so-called Copenhagen School’s approach.
Weaver’s entry point was critical of both the political and the academic
treatment of ‘security’, which he perceived as doubly ­problematic: first, in
the way security is portrayed as something having a real existence irrespec-
tive of political discussions, and secondly, being inherently a ‘good thing’,
with security maximisation as a naturalised policy goal (cf. Wæver 1989).
The Copenhagen School was thus advancing a new approach to security
on ontological, epistemological and political grounds. Security is not an
objective thing—it comes into being through speech—and thus the utter-
ance is its primary reality. It exists intersubjectively as a mode in which we
understand a particular element of the world. In consequence, the study
of security requires a move towards interpretive and reflexive methodolo-
gies that do not draw the problematic dualist distinction between the
observer and the reality ‘out there’. Finally, the underlying value commit-
ment of securitisation studies is the problematisation of instances where
security is invoked, understanding that speech acts have a purpose and
securitisation, as the Cold War era has shown, can be a means of limiting
(democratic) political oversight.
Buzan and Wæver define securitisation as ‘the discursive process
through which an intersubjective understanding is constructed within a
political community to treat something as an existential threat […] and
to enable a call for urgent and exceptional measures to deal with the
threat’ (2003: 491). Securitisation presents a linear and dynamic mecha-
nism of security construction and consists of several major components.
In a first step, a securitising actor constructs a referent object and threat
narrative claiming the existence of an existential threat to the survival of
this referent object. This narrative of existential threat is then presented
by the securitising actor via speech act to an audience recommending
extra-ordinary emergency measures which would break the ‘normal’ rules
36  A. Heinrich and K. Szulecki

of the game (e.g., of the political process) for reasons of security. This
process so far is called a securitising move. If in a final step the audience
accepts this move (audience acceptance), securitisation is successfully
completed (Buzan et al. 1998: 25, 31; Buzan and Wæver 2003: 71). This
ideal typical model was our departure point in the analysis of energy
securitisation.
As our project has been examining how discrepancies between
European Union (EU) member states’ understanding and articulation of
‘energy security’ impede the development of a common European energy
policy, only the first step of securitisation, the securitising move, has been
relevant. The core elements of a securitising move are the referent object,
the securitising actor(s), the extra-ordinary measures and the security
speech act.1
Referent objects are things that are considered to be existentially
threatened and that have a legitimate claim to survive. The threats to
their survival can be viewed similarly to vulnerabilities of vital energy
systems, that is, a combination of their exposure to risks and their resil-
ience (ability to withstand disruptions) (Cherp and Jewell 2014). Referent
objects/vital energy systems and their vulnerabilities reflect an interplay
between material factors and actors’ interpretation. ‘In practice, securitiz-
ing actors can attempt to construct anything as a referent object’ (Buzan
et al. 1998: 36). The constitution of a referent object involves the con-
struction of identity by creating a community via the exclusion of others
(Wæver 2003: 18; Behnke 2007: 109–110). This implies that securitisa-
tion happens in a broader discursive space, where commonplace or inter-
subjective structures of meaning such as ‘security imaginaries’ (Weldes
1999; Guzzini 2012) and national identities are called up to (de)legiti-
mise particular moves.
A securitising actor is an individual, or a group, who performs the
security speech act, who securitises issues by declaring a referent object
existentially threatened (Buzan et al. 1998: 36). No one is excluded from
attempts to articulate alternative interpretations of security. But as the
relationship among actors is not equal or symmetrical, the possibility for
a widely visible and recognised securitising move and, thus, ultimately
successful securitisation varies dramatically with the social position held
by the actor.
 2  Energy Securitisation: Applying the Copenhagen School’s...    37

Even though different actors might compete in the field of security,

state actors are generally privileged by being more widely accepted voices
on security matters, by having the power to define security (Buzan et al.
1998: 31, 37; Salter 2008: 331). This fact makes security very much a
structured field (in the sense of Pierre Bourdieu). However, non-state
actors (individuals or small groups) can utilise security language as well to
achieve certain aims, provided they possess sufficient social capital (Vuori
2008: 70, 77). However, these actors ‘can seldom establish a wider secu-
rity legitimacy in their own right. They may speak about security to and
of themselves, but few will listen’ (Buzan et al. 1998: 36).
Another important element of the securitisation model is the call for
extra-ordinary measures characterised by the breaking of the ‘rules of the
game’. Securitisation ‘takes politics beyond the established rules of the
game and frames the issue either as a special kind of politics or as above
politics’ (Buzan et al. 1998: 23). The Copenhagen School remains rather
vague regarding the relationship between normal politics and extra-­
ordinary measures: ‘Although in one sense securitisation is a further
intensification of politicisation (thus usually making an even stronger
role for the state), in another sense it is opposed to politicisation’ and it is
also presented as ‘justifying actions outside the normal bounds of politi-
cal procedure’ (Buzan et al. 1998: 29 and 24, respectively). Taking into
account the critical roots of securitisation (see Wæver 1989), as well as
the broader discussion on the politics of securitisation (Hansen 2012),
we are rather inclined to see securitisation as the opposite of politicisa-
tion, not its logical continuation (compare Kustova (Chap. 8), in this
volume). To put it again in the terms proposed by Buzan et al., ‘politicisa-
tion opens up, and securitisation closes down’ (1998: 143), meaning that
the political mode is that of open contestation, debate and scrutiny, while
securitisation (and de-politicisation) implies removing issues from the
sphere of what is debatable and allowed to be scrutinised.
Overall, the original securitisation concept focusses on the process of
securitising an issue; ‘the practice of securitisation is the centre of analysis’
(Buzan et al. 1998: 32). Thus, to sum up, any securitising moves require an
existential threat, a referent object that is threatened and the proposition of
extra-ordinary measures to save to referent object. These three elements are
essential for the empirical application of the securitisation theory.
38  A. Heinrich and K. Szulecki

The final element of the securitisation model is the security speech act.
For Buzan et  al. (1998: 26) ‘[t]he process of securitisation is what in
­language theory is called a speech act. It is not interesting as a sign refer-
ring to something more real; it is the utterance itself that is the act’. They
name three conditions for a successful speech act: (1) the speech act has
to follow the internal grammar of security, (2) the securitising actor has
to have a position of authority in order to increase the likelihood of the
audience accepting the claims made in a securitising move (social capital)
and (3) features of the alleged threats that either facilitate or impede secu-
ritisation (1998: 33). Conditions 2 and 3 bring in an external, contextual
and social component.
However, as we have already pointed out, audience acceptance is
beyond the scope of our analysis. What we should therefore be more
interested in is the nature of the securitising speech act and its specificity.
How do we know a securitising speech act when we see (or hear) it? For
Wæver and the Copenhagen School, rooted in security studies and the
Cold War experience, this issue did not seem that problematic. It was the
very word ‘security’ that became something similar to a spell—or a man-
tra chanted by hawkish statesmen and strategic studies experts. As the
previous chapter has shown, ‘energy security’ seems to be something dif-
ferent from ‘uttering security in relation to energy’. As Jonna Nyman puts
it, while ‘energy security is sometimes securitised, it often is not, despite
being the subject of consistent security speech-acts by elite actors’ (2013:
1). Understanding that already from the onset of our project, we had to
find a way to distinguish between instances when the utterance of ‘secu-
rity’ is indeed a securitising speech act and those moments when it appears
to be something else. We, therefore, expand the original Copenhagen
School vocabulary by taking in some of the critical points aimed at the
‘canonical’ model, most importantly through the notions of ‘riskification’
and ‘security jargon’.

3 Criticism
The Copenhagen School set out to develop ‘a comprehensive new frame-
work for security studies’ (Buzan et al. 1998: 1). While admittedly secu-
ritisation provides a new understanding of and a fresh analytical focus on
 2  Energy Securitisation: Applying the Copenhagen School’s...    39

security issues, the framework presented by the Copenhagen School is far

from comprehensive. Since the mid-1990s, critics have scrutinised vari-
ous central elements of securitisation ‘theory’. In fact, the very nature of
these proposals and their status as a theory rather than a model, an ideal
type or a hypothesis has also been questioned. Holger Stritzel summarises
much of this critique: securitisation theory suffers ‘from several internal
tensions in the argument, an often too vague and undertheorised termi-
nology and, in general, the fact that too much weight is put on the
semantic side of the speech act articulation at the expense of its social and
linguistic relatedness and sequentiality’ (2007: 358).
Most critics argue for a more systematic and clearer conceptualisation
of securitisation theory and clear guidance for empirical research. For our
research, the following points of criticism are most relevant:

• The definition of extra-ordinary measures.

• The overemphasis on linguistic speech act methodology.

3.1 Extra-ordinary Measures

The Copenhagen School defines extra-ordinary measures as breaking the

rules that otherwise bind. Thereby, an issue is elevated from the normal
political process in order to legitimise otherwise disputable policies. As
the breaking of rules (or at least the proposition of this procedure) is of
the utmost importance for the theory, the question has been raised if
there can be security (or securitisation) in the absence of a call for excep-
tional measures and/or the breaking of rules (Hansen 2000: 300; Ciută
2009: 312, 313). Can securitisation occur in the normal political pro-
cess? The understanding of ‘extra-ordinary measures’ and the border
between normal politics and some ‘securitised’ sphere has been contested.
Jörn Richert suggests that ‘in its current form, the framework ignores
securitizing moves – even if they result in referent objects conceived as
being existentially threatened, and even if this insight provokes political
action – as long as the occurring action does not break the rules that oth-
erwise bind’ or intend to break them (2010: 12). This would exclude
from the analysis measures that do not leave the ‘normal’ political process
and are still embedded in the process of politicisation (Richert 2010: 11).
40  A. Heinrich and K. Szulecki

Empirical evidence, however, has shown that most securitising attempts

(especially in the environmental and energy sector) have ended in mea-
sures that are ‘part of ordinary politics’ (cf. Wæver 1996, 2007; Richert
2010; Mulligan 2010; Besson and McDonald 2011; Rogers-Hayden
et al. 2011; Fischhendler and Katz 2013: 332).2 ‘The disjuncture between
the securitised rhetoric and actual practices […] indicates either a failure
of the securitisation process or a failure of securitisation theory to account
for what evoking “security” accomplishes’ (Watson 2011: 2; see also
Hansen 2000: 305). Thus, the rather extreme conditional conceptualisa-
tion of securitisation limits the theory’s empirical applicability (with the
exception of military matters including terrorism) as ‘extra-ordinary mea-
sures’ rarely bypass ‘normal’ procedures (Sjöstedt 2008: 10).
Wæver (2003: 27) concedes that it might be helpful ‘if the criteria to
apply in specific instances is less the extra-ordinary nature of particular
measures (because hard to make precise) but rather the threat construc-
tion as such and the argument about necessity. The extra-ordinary mea-
sures cannot be left out of the theory, but the focus of empirical
investigations should be on the rhetorical structure of statements more
than on institutional history of particular measures’. Mark Salter (2011:
121) claims that ‘ordinary measures’, which do not break the rules of the
normal political process, also qualify for a securitising move as long as
there is some public policy change, either in discourse, budget or in actual
policy, such as the granting of new or emergency executive powers (see
also Zittoun 2015). In a similar vein, Caroline Kuzemko (2014: 260)
understands extra-ordinary measures ‘to break with previous political
practice’. Nyman’s claim that in the energy sector, ‘emergency measures
are rarely possible’ (2013), equating these with military measures (e.g.,
the invasion of Iraq), can easily be challenged. Following the suggestion
made by Wæver and others, one can in fact expect ‘extra-ordinary mea-
sures’ to be quite common in the energy sector because energy has a long
tradition of technocratic governance detached from public scrutiny or
even awareness.
Paraphrasing Carl Schmitt (1985 [1922]) who stated that ‘sovereign is
he who decides on the exception’—governments, companies or other rel-
evant actors exercise sovereignty in that issue area by deciding over its
exception from regular policymaking. Giorgio Agamben (2005) concep-
 2  Energy Securitisation: Applying the Copenhagen School’s...    41

tualised the ‘state of exception’ as a particular paradigm of government.

Drawing on both Agamben and Schmitt allows us to understand what
these special measures of ‘exception’ may imply in political processes and
what that means for the image of politics underpinning securitisation
theory (Wæver 2015; Hansen 2012). Narrowing down ‘emergency mea-
sures’ and ‘exceptional means’ to military interventions excludes most of
what might be interesting in energy securitisation if we were to move
beyond the narrow classic focus on the international politics of oil pro-
curement. If ‘extra-ordinary measures’ and ‘exceptional politics’ mean the
removal of energy issues from public oversight, the securitisation model
gains a political/normative edge which is especially interesting. Who
should be exercising power and governing the energy sector? To what
extent is securitisation—and expert insulation—of energy security
acceptable?
Itay Fischhendler (2015: 248–249) emphasises organisational und
institutional change such as concrete infrastructures that aim to protect
the referent object or institutional mechanisms to counter perceived
threats (e.g., special representatives or committees, exclusion of public
stakeholders from governance, civilian disengagement). ‘This [break with
previous political practice] at once both reduces government responsibil-
ity for policy while also leaving it less subject to political discretions,
deliberations and interventions’ (Kuzemko 2014: 261).
With these clarifications in mind, in the empirical case studies pre-
sented in the following chapters, we have been trying to identify how
‘extra-ordinary measures’ proposed by the securitising actors have aimed
at rupturing regular political practices, strengthening executive powers of
selected agencies or insulating some decisions and potentially important
information from public access. This is based on an understanding of
energy policy as a public policy, where transparency, rule of law and dem-
ocratic oversight are important values and where societal welfare is the
ultimate governance goal. These three kinds of ‘extra-ordinary mea-
sures’—(1) breaking norms (that is, explicit or implicit prescriptions
about ‘how things are done’), (2) shifting competences and power
(towards the executive) and (3) withholding or limiting information—do
not have to occur together. Any of these in our analysis qualifies as ‘extra-­
ordinary measures’ if it is legitimised by reference to security.
42  A. Heinrich and K. Szulecki

3.2 Speech Act

Criticism has been voiced against the methodological groundings of

securitisation in linguistic speech act theory (cf. Balzacq 2008, 2011a, b;
Stritzel 2007; Curley and Herington 2010), arguing that ‘too much
weight is put on the semantic side of the speech act articulation at the
expense of its social and linguistic relatedness and sequentiality’ (Stritzel
2007: 358).
The strong focus on the specific speech act limits itself to a purely lin-
guistic analysis (excluding images, etc.) and leads to actor-centrism, while
the structure (i.e., the social context of what can be spoken), the core
rules for authority/knowledge (who can speak) and the degree of success
(what is heard) are underdeveloped in securitisation theory (Stritzel 2007:
373; Salter 2008: 322; Curley and Herington 2010: 145). In practice,
there are seldom simple securitising moves but rather a complex play of
competing authorities, power metrics and discourses (Salter 2008: 322).
The sole focus on language has been criticised as it excludes images and
forms of bureaucratic practices, institutional mechanisms and infrastruc-
tures or physical actions (cf. e.g., Hansen 2000; Bigo 2002; Williams
2003: 524; Huysmans 2006; McDonald 2008: 568–569, 576;
Fischhendler 2015: 248–249). Several authors argue for a wider and
more reflective range of forms through which meaning can be communi-
cated (McDonald 2008: 569) because the ‘conditions of the production
and reception of communicative acts are influenced fundamentally by
the medium through which they are transmitted’ (Williams 2003: 526).
The reliance on speech act theory produces a static model of securitisa-
tion that ‘does not match the complexity of contemporary social dynam-
ics of security’ (Salter 2008: 324). The speech act theory is too narrow,
reducing social phenomena to certain textual makers, and thereby failing
to address discursive practices and the existence of security outside the
speech act.
The model defines security as survival in the face of an existential
threat, a distinctly inflexible definition. Security has a general meaning
independent of its context; securitisation theory rules out the notion that
the meaning of security can vary contextually (Wæver 2003: 9, FN 33).
 2  Energy Securitisation: Applying the Copenhagen School’s...    43

However, as what constitutes an existential threat can change (Ciută

2009: 307–308), security is ‘conceptualised and politically practised dif-
ferently in different places and at different times’ (Bubandt 2005: 291).
The model neglects the temporary dimension by assuming that securitis-
ing actor(s) and audience(s) remain unchanged over time, whatever the
context, and that the securitised issue does not develop either (Abrahamson
2005: 59; Salter 2008: 324; Ciută 2009: 303; Balzacq 2011a: 7). The
static model also does not take into account that securitisation is not an
instantaneous or irrevocable act as every security issue tends towards
politicisation over time for considerable resources have to be spent in
order for a threat or a danger to remain present in political discourse
(Salter 2011: 120–121).
However, as security is the product of historical structures and pro-
cesses of power struggles between societal groups with competing inter-
ests, the context (the historical and social structures) is important
(Lipschutz 1995a: 8). Wæver (2003: 28) grants that extending the speech
act logic is possible. This view is supported by other authors who believe
that ‘supplementary concepts—such as non-verbal forms of political
communication—do not pose a methodological challenge to the funda-
mental concept of securitisation per se’ (Curley and Herington 2010:
145). They propose a more complex, sociological methodology of analys-
ing the process of securitisation, including discursive practices, context
and power relations that are considered important to explain the emer-
gence and origin of security problems (Stritzel 2007; Vaughn 2009: 279;
Salter 2011: 118; Balzacq 2011a; Huysmans 2011: 372).
Some simple methodological adjustments can mitigate the aforemen-
tioned shortcomings of securitisation theory by extending the focus towards
the discourses in which the securitising speech act takes places. Discourse
analysis, which relies heavily on speech acts, in that it is based on the prem-
ise that an utterance is the basic unit of communication (Schiffrin 1994:
90), provides a more comprehensive picture. Stefano Guzzini (2011: 331,
335) sees that already included in the original concept; he stresses the pro-
cedural character of securitisation and security speech acts. ‘Only in its
most legal sense can security be empirically conceived as a “speech act” in
terms of a single event […]. Hence, the idea of a speech act refers here to a
process, not a kind of single bombshell event’ (Guzzini 2011: 335).
44  A. Heinrich and K. Szulecki

Fig. 2.1  The “pendulum” of (de-)securitisation and (de-)politicisation in energy

policy

Discourse analysis can be seen as a methodological tool allowing to tap

into the intersubjective structures of meaning that surround and condi-
tion an individual speech act. We should also understand that securitisa-
tion is ultimately about creating a certain kind of semantic tension by
moving an issue from one area to another, by drawing on one discourse
(security) to reposition elements otherwise associated with a different dis-
course (here: energy). Figure 2.1 illustrates how the pendulum of (­de-)
securitisation and (de-)politicisation moves in relation to these broader
structures.3

4 Résumé and Revision
The critique of securitisation theory has not been fundamental but rather
constructive in order to widen its appeal and range. First, instead of con-
straining the approach by insisting on single security speech acts, the
approach is opened for the analysis of contextual factors by using dis-
course analysis.
 2  Energy Securitisation: Applying the Copenhagen School’s...    45

Second, the definition of extra-ordinary measures as a central part of

securitisation model has to be improved. These measures should include
the breaking with previous political practice and the business-as-usual
habit leading to policy change, either in discourse, budget or in actual
policy as well as organisational and institutional change. Earlier, we have
identified the three broad categories of these extra-ordinary measures:
breaking of/with norms guiding political practice, shifting power, and
competences and constraining access to information. However, to iden-
tify such measures as ‘extra-ordinary’ it requires detailed knowledge about
the usual habit, the practices and ways of doing things in politics in order
to spot the unusual.
In Germany, for instance, the Energiewende (i.e., the energy transfor-
mation involving the decision to phase out nuclear energy) can be con-
sidered as an extra-ordinary measure because it was finally put into
practice by a conservative CDU-led government after it had reversed an
earlier decision by the previous social democratic SPD-led government to
that effect. It was a complete political turnaround for the CDU, which
had strongly opposed the phasing out of nuclear energy before, triggered
by the accident in the Japanese nuclear power plant of Fukushima in
2011.
In a similar vein, the construction of the Polish liquefied natural gas
(LNG) terminal at the Baltic Sea can also be seen as an extra-ordinary
measure. Its construction was initiated by a conservative government and
the liberal successor government did not, as it has been usual practice in
Poland after the government changed hands between the two political
camps, reverse that decision. In this sense, somewhat counterintuitively,
continuity in energy policy can be interpreted as extra-ordinary and
breaking with the practice of Polish post-1989 politics.
Besides the aforementioned problems with extra-ordinary measures,
empirical evidence also shows that security references are often not asso-
ciated with any existential threat and/or that the referent object is not
specified (Fischhendler and Katz 2013: 334; see Heinrich’s chapter
(Chap. 3) in this volume). Abrahamson (2005: 59) describes securitisa-
tion as a gradual process moving from normal politics to extra-ordinary
measures: ‘The process of securitisation is thus better understood as grad-
ual and incremental, and importantly an issue can be placed on the secu-
46  A. Heinrich and K. Szulecki

rity continuum without necessarily ever reaching the category of

existential threat’ (see also Vuori 2008: 72; Salter 2011: 119; Stetter et al.
2011: 445). For Williams (2011: 218) ‘[t]he concept of intensification
[of unease, risk, and emergency] may hold some promise as a means of
moving beyond the division between exceptional and normal politics
that pragmatic approaches see as a key problem in securitisation theory’.
However, trying to resolve the division between exceptional and nor-
mal politics within the securitisation approach would dilute it as an ana-
lytical tool; it is rather necessary to employ an additional concept in order
to deal with non-existential threats, unspecified referent objects and other
deviations from the securitisation model as proposed by Buzan, Wæver
and de Wilde.

4.1 Riskification

Olaf Corry (2012) introduces the concept of risk politics (riskification)

which he considers distinctly different from securitisation. Threats and
risks are similarly considered socially constructed and changeable; however,
while threat-based security deals with direct causes of harm, risk-­based
security is oriented towards the conditions of possibility (or constitutive
causes) of harm promoting long-term precautionary governance.
‘Appeals to “security” based on risk’ Corry writes, ‘do not necessarily
trigger emergency measures, friend–enemy thinking and militarisation
against existential threats’ (2012: 238). Riskification decouples security
from the idea of an existential threat to a valued referent object leading to
exceptional measures against external and ungovernable threatening oth-
ers. ‘Rather, it posits risks (understood as conditions of possibility for
harm) to a referent object leading to programmes for permanent changes
aimed at reducing vulnerability and boosting governance-capacity of the
valued referent object itself ’ (Corry 2012: 248; compare again with vul-
nerabilities in Cherp and Jewell 2014). The notion of ‘riskification’ allows
us to analyse security language in cases where issues (of an endangerment
of a referent object) are not excluded from the political debate; on the
contrary, political debate is instigated and policy proposals are presented
(compare Judge and Maltby 2017).
 2  Energy Securitisation: Applying the Copenhagen School’s...    47

4.2 Security Jargon

The concept of ‘security jargon’ refers to discourses in which only a secu-

rity threat is mentioned but no plan for action is advocated for as in the
cases of securitisation and riskification. Security language is simply used
to communicate a sense of urgency in order to influence a discussion,
gain media attention, avoid sceptical counterclaims, etc. (Fischhendler
and Katz 2013: 322, 333). Fischhendler (2015: 247) calls that also ‘tacti-
cal securitisation’; low politics issues are linked with high politics issues of
national survival in order to raise the profile of the issue, increase public
awareness, mobilise resources, and so on. In such a move, ‘security’
becomes a rhetorical commonplace to which the actors refer in order to
gain legitimacy and the upper hand in rhetorical struggle (cf. Krebs and
Jackson 2007; Szulecka and Szulecki 2013). It is not invoked as an onto-
logical claim about the existential threat to the referent object, but rather
name-dropped. The notion of ‘security jargon’ allows us to analyse ritual-
ised rhetorical practices and elements of deeply normalised security dis-
courses which become elements of rather casual debates.

4.3 De-politicisation

Politicisation, or ‘normal politics’, means that issues are not phrased as

existential risks/threats but presented as governable and subject for open
discussion and, therefore, entail responsibility (Buzan et  al. 1998: 29;
Corry 2012: 249). Such discourse aims to propose a ‘[p]lan of action to
maximise utility in trade-offs with other goods’ and to legitimise these
trade-offs (Corry 2012: 249).
De-politicisation, in a move resembling delegation, means that respon-
sibility for policy-making is shifted away, by a range of tools, mechanisms
and institutions, from the government and its institutions to either quasi
or wholly independent bodies. This results in lower degrees of political
contestation, less active public scrutiny and a decrease in transparency by,
for example, a delegation to an epistemic community of experts and/or
the use of technical language, specific and often unintelligible to others
(Kuzemko 2014: 259; see also Wood 2015: 4). Matthew Flinders and
48  A. Heinrich and K. Szulecki

Jim Buller (2006) distinguish three tactics used to enact de-politicisation:

‘institutional’ (creating ‘independent’ agencies), ‘rule-based’ (creating
laws constraining action) and ‘preference-shaping’ (rhetorically present-
ing a logic of ‘no alternative’). In a similar vein, Kuzemko (2016:
110–113) speaks of marketised, technocratic/institutional and non-­
deliberative forms of de-politicisation.
This discarding of responsibility for certain policies (i.e., outsourcing
of decision-making) also reduces the government’s political discretion
and its opportunities for interventions (Kuzemko 2014: 261). It estab-
lishes ‘a more “rules-based” system over which civil servants and politi-
cians have less active day-to-day control  […]’ (Kuzemko 2016: 109).
This reduction of political deliberation might lead to a lack of existing
political capacity and technical expertise within the government dedi-
cated to the issue at hand (Kuzemko 2014: 261, 262, 270). With its
outsourcing of decision-making, de-politicisation removes an issue from
the ‘normal’ political process and public scrutiny. Looking at the three
tactics of de-politicisation proposed by Flinders and Buller, we immedi-
ately notice that they bear striking similarity to the three types of extra-­
ordinary measures that we have identified in our operationalisation of
securitising moves. Rule-based de-politicisation focuses on prescriptions
that constrain and guide practice, institutional measures are about shift-
ing competences and power, while preference shaping involves limiting
the ‘thinkable’ by constraining some arguments or information. In many
ways, de-politicisation becomes the flip side or a mirror image of securi-
tisation (see also Fig. 2.1, where the downward movement of the ‘pendu-
lum’ indicates the level of publicness). The difference between these two
concepts is the reference to security and lack thereof.
What is important to bear in mind is that de-securitisation is a process
through which the urgency of existential threats and the language of
security are questioned in order to bring issues back onto the fore of
political debate. It should not be conflated with de-politicisation, even
though the latter can result from the former—that is, contentious and
securitised issues are put under a more technocratic mode of governance
in order to reduce tensions but, as a result, remain outside the realm of
political contestation.
 2  Energy Securitisation: Applying the Copenhagen School’s...    49

5 Operationalisation and Method
Given that energy security debates are deeply political and the notion
itself is conditioned by factors beyond the materiality of energy systems,
we have to approach it as an intersubjective, relational phenomenon
rather than just an objective characteristic of the energy system. We chose
Copenhagen School’s securitisation theory as a theoretical foundation for
our research project on energy security debates in Poland and Germany.
For this constructivist approach to security studies, the meaning of secu-
rity lies within the security discourse expressing perceived threats to a
referent object. However, inherent ambiguities of the securitisation
model, and its lack of clear guidance for empirical research in combina-
tion with empirical evidence that deviate from the theoretical framework,
pose serious challenges for the project’s empirical inquiry into energy
security debates.
Therefore, to mitigate these challenges, the original ‘canonical’ model
put forth by Buzan et al. (1998) has been revised with ‘riskification’ and
‘security jargon’—two additional analytical concepts applied to study the
topic. These changes and additions enable the case studies that follow in
the next chapters to analyse the energy security discourse in Poland and
Germany even though much of the material appeals to security without
fulfilling the requirements of the strict securitisation model. We believe
that these adjustments, drawing on theoretical and methodological cri-
tiques discussed earlier, provide a more detailed picture of energy security
debates. What we hope was avoided is the unnecessary blunting and
banalisation of the concept of securitisation as an analytical tool, which
could have occurred had we subsumed every reference to security under
the ‘securitisation’ label.
In his proposals for a more ‘sociological’ theory of securitisation,
Thierry Balzacq (2011b: 35–37) recommends analysing—among oth-
ers—the securitising actor (who made the claims about the existence of
existential threats) and the discursive tools used by the securitising actor
to mobilise an audience (metaphors, emotions, stereotypes, etc.). One of
these discursive tools are frames. Frames can be defined as the basic cog-
nitive structures that guide the perception and representation of reality
50  A. Heinrich and K. Szulecki

(Gitlin 1980: 6). They are entities larger than one sentence that define
problems, diagnose causes, make moral judgements and suggest remedies
(Entman 1993: 52).4 Combining a discourse analytic approach to broader
structures of meaning and the rhetorical analysis focussed on frames gives
us flexibility in tracing securitising moves across levels of analysis, as both
a broader societal process and a mechanism playing out in
micro-interactions.
For ‘a more credible study of securitisation’, Balzacq (2011b: 38) pro-
posed analysing the ‘how’, ‘who’ and ‘what’ of the energy security dis-
course under study. As outlined before, any securitising move (i.e., the
appeal to ‘security’ based on threat) requires an existential threat, a refer-
ent object that is threatened and the proposition of extra-ordinary mea-
sures to save the referent object (i.e., a plan to defend). These three
elements are essential to identify a securitising move and to distinguish it
from riskification or security jargon (Table 2.1).
Riskification on the other hand appeals to ‘security’ based on risk;
therefore, it requires a risk, a referent object at risk and precautionary
measures (i.e., a plan to govern). Security jargon appeals to ‘security’
based on (no clear) existential risk or threat and proposes no precaution-
ary or extra-ordinary measures (i.e., no plan of action).
The concept of de-politicisation does not appeal to ‘security’ at all; it
refers to a governable object that is best dealt with by a shift of responsi-
bility to somebody/something other than the government (e.g., by creat-
ing a commission) and specific governance measures (i.e., a plan to
govern) such as to analyse and evaluate the issue at hand and to report
back to the government.
Our project also followed Balzacq’s advice that ‘[…] to capture the
breadth and depth of securitisation processes, the analyst cannot focus on
one text, but instead examine various genres of texts, at different points in
time, in distinct social contexts’ (2011b: 43). Each case study was anal-
ysed with the same multi-method approach. The major part of research
was a software-based manual quantitative and qualitative content analysis
of the full reporting of selected Polish and German mass media on the
case studies. Our data collection focussed on print media, with four major
national Polish newspapers and five German papers. From over 8,000 hits
(most print media articles were retrieved using the online database
Table 2.1  Grammars of security
Language De-politicisation (not Politicisation Riskification (risk Securitisation
game security based) (normal politics) ‘Security jargon’ politics) (security politics)
Definition/ ‘It argues that ‘Politicisation Tactical ‘Construction of Securitisation is
Grammar responsibility for means to make securitisation conditions of possibility an extreme
economic policy an issue appear means that low of harm (a risk) to a form of
making has been to be open, a politics issues governance-­object’ politicisation;
passed away, by matter of choice, are linked with (Corry 2012: 249). it is also
various means, from something that is high politics ‘It is argued that risk opposed to
government to decided upon issues of politics is not an politicisation
either quasi or and that national instance of (Buzan et al.
wholly independent therefore entails survival in order securitisation, but 1998: 23, 29)
bodies resulting in responsibility to raise the something distinct with ‘Construction of
lower degrees of […].’ (Buzan profile of the its own advantages scenario of
political et al. 1998: 29) issue, increase and dangers. Threat- direct harm
contestation and Issues do not have public based security deals (an existential
less active collective to be ‘phrased as awareness, with direct causes of threat) to a
representation of threats against mobilise harm, whereas valued
public bodies by we have resources, etc. risk-security is oriented referent
majoritarian countermeasures’ (Fischhendler towards the conditions object’ (Corry
institutions.’ (Buzan et al. 2015: 247) of possibility or 2012: 249)
(Kuzemko 2014: 1998: 29) Tactical constitutive causes of
259) ‘Construction of securitisation: harm a kind of
A ‘process through object as security jargon ‘second-­order’ security
which the political governable (no clear threat politics that promotes
character of (making it etc.) long-term
2  Energy Securitisation: Applying the Copenhagen School’s... 

decision making is distinct, (Fischhendler precautionary

shifted away from malleable, et al. 2016: governance’ (Corry
the central state.’ measurable).’ 162). 2012: 235)
  51

(Wood 2015: 4) (Corry 2012: 249)

(continued)
Table 2.1 (contined)
52 

Language De-politicisation (not Politicisation Riskification (risk Securitisation

game security based) (normal politics) ‘Security jargon’ politics) (security politics)
Political Plan to create quasi ‘Plan of action to No plan of action ‘Plan of action to ‘Plan of action
imperative or wholly maximise utility increase governance for defence
independent bodies in trade-offs with and resilient of against threat,
or laws constraining other goods’ referent object’ (Corry that is external
government action (Corry 2012: 249) 2012: 249) to referent
object’ (Corry
2012: 249)
Performative Discard responsibility ‘Legitimation of Security jargon as ‘Legitimation of ‘Legitimation of
effects for certain policies trade-offs in a means to precautionary exceptional
(outsourcing), relation to other influence a measures, i.e. inclusion measures
A. Heinrich and K. Szulecki

reduction of goods’ (Corry discussion, gain of a safety margin’ (secrecy,

contestation, 2012: 249). media (Corry 2012: 249) no-holds-
decrease public attention, avoid barred action,
scrutiny, increase sceptical no trade-offs
secrecy (e.g., via counterclaims with security)
technical language, etc. aiming for
delegation to (Fischhendler survival’ (Corry
epistemic and Katz 2013: 2012: 249)
community of 322).
experts) Security language
is used to
communicate a
sense of
urgency
(Fischhendler
and Katz 2013:
333)
(continued)
Table 2.1 (contined)
Language De-politicisation (not Politicisation Riskification (risk Securitisation
game security based) (normal politics) ‘Security jargon’ politics) (security politics)
Empirical Governable object, Governable object, Existential threat Risk, referent object, Existential
indicators shift of ordinary (sometimes precautionary threat,
responsibility, measures (plan to diffuse), but no measures (plan to referent
governance optimise) precautionary govern) object,
measures (a plan to No appeal to or extra- Appeals to ‘security’ extra-ordinary
govern) ‘security’ ordinary based on risk measures (plan
No appeal to measures (no to defend)
‘security’ plan of action) Appeals to
Appeals to ‘security’ based
‘security’ as on threat
empty rhetoric
2  Energy Securitisation: Applying the Copenhagen School’s... 
  53
54  A. Heinrich and K. Szulecki

Factiva), after checks by the responsible coders, a total of 1,237 newspaper

articles were included in the analysis.5 This was supported by semi-struc-
tured interviews, following a questionnaire prepared by the entire project
team, with decision-makers and experts. The interviews were fully tran-
scribed and coded.6 The last data-gathering method was the desktop anal-
ysis of official documents related to the case studies (including transcripts
of policy debates from parliamentary databases and policy documents).

Notes
1. Despite its importance for the success of a securitisation move, however,
the audience is not among Buzan’s et al. (1998: 36) units of analysis. This
has been seen as problematic and a weakness of this approach (e.g.,
Balzacq 2011a). However, the methodological challenges of addressing
audience acceptance have been too difficult to tackle in a comparative
project like ours. Some of the studies do address the question of accep-
tance, but this issue has been left to the researchers’ discretion.
2. Even Buzan et al. (1998: 179–189) do not mention emergency measures
in their case study on EU policy.
3. The notion of a ‘security imaginary’ draws on Weldes (1999) and Guzzini
(2012) and is understood as ‘a structure of well-established meanings and
social relations out of which representations about the world of interna-
tional relations are created’ (Weldes 1999: 10). This suggests that securiti-
sation, by invoking (most often) national security positions, an issue in an
inherently inter-national us-them, Self-Other dyadic frame, even if it
occurs in a domestic debate without a clear reference to foreign policy.
4. Entman’s definition comes very close to a description of the mechanism of
securitisation: ‘To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and
make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to
promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral
evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described’
(Entman 1993: 52).
5. For a detailed description of the operationalisation of the research project,
see ‘Documentation of data collection’, available at: http://www.forsc-
hungsstelle.uni-bremen.de/UserFiles/file/04-Forschung/documentation_
data-collection.pdf.
 2  Energy Securitisation: Applying the Copenhagen School’s...    55

6. No interviews were conducted for the case study on the Nord Stream gas
pipeline.

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 3
Securitisation in the Gas Sector: Energy
Security Debates Concerning
the Example of the Nord Stream
Pipeline
Andreas Heinrich

1 Introduction
This chapter compares the securitisation of transnational infrastructures
in Germany and Poland through the example of the Nord Stream gas
pipeline. The pipeline allows for direct natural gas deliveries from Russia
to Germany through the Baltic Sea, bypassing the traditional transit
countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Poland among them. Thus, its
construction is one of the most controversial energy issues in German-­
Polish relations. It has caused an emotional debate about energy security
in Poland and moved an economic infrastructure project into the realms

This publication has been prepared as part of the research project, ‘Towards a common European
energy policy? Energy security debates in Poland and Germany’, which has been financially
supported by the German-Polish Science Foundation.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Agnieszka Cyfka, Philip Fritz, Barbara Holli,
Katharina Remshardt, and Agnieszka Strzemeska for their assistance with research, and the
translation of Polish texts and documents. Also, I would like to thank Marco Siddi and Kacper
Szulecki for their helpful comments.

A. Heinrich (*)
Research Centre for East European Studies, University of Bremen,
Bremen, Germany

© The Author(s) 2018 61

K. Szulecki (ed.), Energy Security in Europe, Energy, Climate and the Environment,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1_3
62  A. Heinrich

of international politics—in the case of transnational gas pipelines,

actions by one country are seen as a direct threat by the other. That is why
Radosław Sikorski, defence minister of Poland from 2005 to 2007, linked
the German-Russian pipeline agreement to the Ribbentrop-Molotov
(Hitler-Stalin) Pact.1
Scrutinising the national debates about the Nord Stream pipeline, the
chapter examines what kind of security debates have taken place, what
risk/threat perceptions exist, and what kind of counter-measures have
been proposed in Poland and Germany. Since discussions of energy secu-
rity often move energy policy issues into the realms of strategic national
politics, they carry the potential to securitise relations between the coun-
tries involved.
The chapter is structured as follows: after a brief description of the
Nord Stream pipeline, the methodological approach of the analysis is
presented. Then the Polish and German debates about the Nord Stream
pipeline are analysed in detail. In a conclusion, the two national debates
are compared and linked back to securitisation theory.

2 The Nord Stream Pipeline2

The construction of a wide gas pipeline network in the second half of the
1960s enabled the Soviet Union to become the world’s largest exporter of
natural gas. The centrepieces of this pipeline grid were the pipelines,
‘Brotherhood’ and ‘Northern Lights’, which connect Russia with Central
Eastern Europe running through Ukraine and Belarus. These export
pipelines were complemented by the Yamal-Europe pipeline which was
opened in the late 1990s and was built through Belarus and Poland to
Germany. However, plans for a second line of the Yamal pipeline (Yamal
II) to double its capacity never materialised.
After repeated and protracted conflicts with transit countries on the
territory of the former Soviet Union, especially with Ukraine in
2005–2006, 2009 and 2014–2015, which resulted in disruptions of
Russian gas supplies to European customers, the diversification of export
routes became an important part of Russia’s natural gas export strategy.
 3  Securitisation in the Gas Sector: Energy Security Debates...    63

The first Russian export pipeline to Western Europe which avoids

transit countries is the Nord Stream pipeline. This 1,200-kilometre-long
pipeline, consisting of two lines with a total capacity of 55 billion cubic
metres per year, runs from the Russian town of Vyborg below the Baltic
Sea to Ludmin, near Greifswald in Germany. The construction agree-
ment between Gazprom, which, since 2006, has held a legal monopoly
on Russian gas exports, and its German partners E.ON Ruhrgas and
BASF, was signed in September 2005 with the explicit support of the
German and Russian governments. Fierce criticism of the Nord Stream
project was voiced primarily by Poland and, to varying extents, by the
Baltic States which saw their energy security threatened by a pipeline that
would bypass them. Sweden cited concerns for the ecology of the Baltic
Sea as major reason for its opposition.3
The pipeline began operating at the end of 2011. However, due to the
European Union’s (EU) legal requirements (i.e., the Third Energy
Package) Nord Stream has so far not been able to use its full capacity. This
is because the connecting pipelines in Germany are subject to the EU’s
third-party access regulations. According to these regulations, which
apply to the telecommunication, electricity, and natural gas sectors, pro-
duction and transport have to be controlled by separate companies on
EU territory. For gas pipelines, this means that 50 per cent of the pipe-
lines’ capacities have to be made available to competitors. As a result, only
half of Nord Stream’s capacity could be used in its first year of operation.
After a second connecting pipeline was opened in November 2013, Nord
Stream was able to increase its utilisation to 36 billion cubic metres per
year, that is, two-thirds of its capacity.4

3  perationalisation: Analysing Pipeline

O
Debates
The analysis of the German and Polish debates about Nord Stream is
based on a revised version of the securitisation theory developed by the
Copenhagen School (see Chap. 2), which brings together debates about
security with actual decision-making processes and postulates that a
64  A. Heinrich

state’s perception of security threats—including energy security—is an

intersubjective construction by key actors. Accordingly, the analysis
focuses on debates of key actors—namely, political elites and the mass
media (as proxies for the public debate). Additionally, the concepts of
‘riskification’ and ‘security jargon’ have been applied.
As outlined in Chap. 2, any securitising move (i.e., the appeal to ‘secu-
rity’ based on threat) requires an existential threat, a referent object that
is threatened, and the proposition of extraordinary measures to save the
referent object (i.e., a plan to defend). These three elements are essential
to identifying a securitising move and distinguishing it from ‘riskifica-
tion’ or ‘security jargon’.
‘Riskification’ refers to ‘security’ based on risk; therefore, it requires a
risk, a referent object at risk, and precautionary measures (i.e., a plan to
govern). ‘Security jargon’ refers to ‘security’ based on (no clear) existential
risk or threat and proposes no precautionary or extraordinary measures
(i.e., no plan of action).
In this context, the analysis focuses on the perception of the Nord
Stream project in German and Polish debates about energy security. For
the period from 2004 to 2014, German and Polish press reporting and
parliamentary debates regarding the perceived risks and threats related to
the Nord Stream gas pipeline have been examined, using a software-based
but non-automated quantitative and qualitative content analysis. As the
focus is on national public debates, only mass media with nationwide
coverage addressing a national audience in the respective countries were
included. The analysis has been restricted to quality print media because
these outlets provide (potentially) a regular and more substantiated cov-
erage. For both countries, the selection includes the most popular print
media and the most important media for the major political camps. All
articles with any meaningful reference to the topic and with a reference
to energy security were included, based on multiple searches in electronic
databases.
In order to identify the positions of important political actors, debates
and inquiries in the German and Polish parliaments related to the Nord
Stream pipeline have been analysed based on searches in the online
archives of both parliaments, using the same technique as with media
reporting.5
 3  Securitisation in the Gas Sector: Energy Security Debates...    65

4 The Polish Debate About Nord Stream

In Poland, the discussion of the Nord Stream pipeline—in the media as
well as in parliament and across party lines—has been overwhelmingly
negative. Nord Stream is seen as politically motivated and a threat to
Poland’s energy security. It has been argued that Russia would be able to
interrupt gas deliveries to Poland, without harming Germany and other
West European consumer countries, as soon as the pipeline construction
is finished. Additionally, the construction of Nord Stream would result in
environmental damage, in a loss of transit fees for Russian gas presently
transported through Poland via the Yamal-Europe pipeline, and in the
blockage of the harbour entrance in Świnoujście for larger vessels (which
in turn would hamper Poland’s diversification of energy supplies through
the import of liquefied natural gas, LNG).
There has been a remarkably large debate in the Polish parliament
(resulting in 118 documents included in this analysis).6 The main risks or
threats linked directly to the pipeline were mostly of an economic nature
(61 documents) followed by political risks (50 documents). Technical
risks related to the potential blockage of the harbour entrance in
Świnoujście were mentioned in 42 documents, while environmental risks
were mentioned in 40 documents (see Table 3.4).
However, of these 118 documents, only four include a full securitising
move (i.e., can be considered a securitisation in the sense of the theory
laid out in Chap. 2), while 47 documents qualify as ‘riskification’ and the
majority of 67 documents fall into the category of ‘security jargon’. Thus,
the majority of documents detail the risk/threat caused by the Nord
Stream pipeline but do not propose any counter-measures to mitigate the
assumed negative effects (see Table 3.3).
The key arguments made can be illustrated by the following quotes:

The realization of these plans means for Poland the omission of the con-
struction of the Yamal II pipeline [trough Poland], the loss of transit fees
and, therefore, the deterioration of its economic position. Additionally, it
would block the construction of a gas pipeline between Poland and Norway
and, thereby, hinder a diversification of gas supplies. Experts point to
66  A. Heinrich

serious obstacles with intersecting underwater pipeline. (Deputy Adam

Stanisław Szejnfeld, PO)7

The majority of public opinion in our country considers this investment an

attempt by Russia to increase its influence in Central Eastern Europe. This
opinion is shared by our current Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, who
compared the construction with the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. […] In my
opinion, there is a real danger that after the Baltic Sea pipeline is finished
Poland will be pressured by Russia. The gas conflicts between Ukraine and
Russia are evidence that such blackmail is possible. (Deputy Jarosław
Jagiełło, PiS)8

I want to remind you that the gas pact between Moscow and Berlin is not
the first agreement in the history of these capitals that ignored Poland and
that was against Polish interests. The Baltic Sea pipeline which connects
Russia directly with Germany bypassing Poland is a political decision with
strategic consequences for Poland. […] Has the minister not heard of the
economization of Russia’s foreign policy, reaching its political goals by uti-
lizing resource dependence? The Russians admit openly that gas transit has
a political dimension, even a strategic one. If the construction of the Baltic
Sea pipeline would be a purely economic investment, why would the inves-
tors be willing to pay four times the amount needed for the construction of
the Yamal II pipeline? (Deputy Elżbieta Kruk, PiS)9

However, these documents—while stating the risk/threat caused by the

Nord Stream pipeline—do not propose any counter-measures to mitigate
the assumed negative effects. Thus, they can only be considered ‘security
jargon’.
A ‘riskification’, on the other hand, has to propose a counter-measure
to the risks/threats caused by the Nord Stream pipeline, such as the diver-
sification of gas supplies:

We have to make a political decision of strategic importance. The Baltic Sea

pipeline […] connects Russia directly with Germany. Its construction harms
our energy security; it also harms the energy security of Lithuania, Latvia,
Ukraine, Belarus, the Czech Republic and Slovakia and – considering the
environmental damage  – of Estonia, Sweden and Denmark.  […]  Poland
 3  Securitisation in the Gas Sector: Energy Security Debates...    67

needs Russian gas as well as a sensible diversification of supplies. We do not

have an aversion against Russia but common sense requires us to diversify
our suppliers. Energy security is one of the most elementary goals of any
state. Thus, it is also a priority for the European Union. (Deputy of the
European Parliament, Bogusław Sonik, PO)10

Another counter-measure would be an alternative pipeline for Russian

gas to Europe:

For a proper judgment of the [Nord Stream, AH] pipeline project other
factors are also important to consider: the risk of an ecological disas-
ter […] and the risk to the emerging common European gas market. The
[Polish, AH] government considers at the moment a feasibility study for
the Amber pipeline project in cooperation with the Baltic States and maybe
with Germany. The feasibility study will be able to demonstrate the advan-
tages of an onshore pipeline while highlighting the disadvantages of an
offshore pipeline. (Under-secretary in the Ministry of Economy, Eugeniusz
Postolski)11

Under-Secretary Postolski cites risks to the environment and the com-

mon European gas market caused by the Nord Stream pipeline and pro-
poses a feasibility study which should convince the involved parties of the
advantages of an onshore pipeline through Poland (i.e., the Amber
project).
One of the few examples of a securitising move is the speech of the
Deputies, Czesław Hoc and Joachim Brudziński (PiS) from early 2008.
However, it makes only an implicit reference to counter-measures in the
form of a supply diversification.

The realization of the Nord Stream project involves a range of negative

consequences for the Republic of Poland […]. The most important ones
are: (1) A substantial degradation of Poland’s energy security, (2) a high risk
of an ecological catastrophe in the entire Baltic Sea, (3) a limitation of mari-
time traffic for Polish civilian and military vessels during the construction
and operation of the pipeline, including chiefly the limitation of the fishing
area  […]. […]  Considering Poland’s energy security the construction
68  A. Heinrich

of the Nord Stream pipeline at the bottom of the Baltic Sea bypassing
Polish territory is a fundamental threat to the Polish raison d’état and the
Polish state. Any participation of Poland in its construction in any form is
completely unacceptable. It is the strategic aim of the Russian Federation
and the German companies to force Poland to participate in the realisation
of the Nord Stream project and/or accompanying investments. The Russian
Federation, majority owner of Gazprom, which is a key instrument of
Russian foreign policy, aims to increase Poland’s and other countries’
dependency on Russian energy resources. The German companies aim to
connect the Polish key energy consumers to their energy supply network on
their terms. […] In this context, it has to be resolutely stressed that any hint
by the Polish government to receive any additional gas supplies from Russia,
especially via the Nord Stream pipeline, is a critical threat for a successful
diversification of Poland’s gas supplies. (Deputies Czesław Hoc and Joachim
Brudziński, PiS)12

A similarly large debate occurred in the Polish media (a total of 102 doc-
uments). In the media, the perception of the Nord Stream pipeline is as
negative as in the Polish Sejm, with references to political risks (60 docu-
ments) followed by economic (45 documents), environmental (28 docu-
ments), and technical risks (14 documents). Table  3.4 provides an
overview of the figures.
Nevertheless, of these 102 documents, none can be considered a secu-
ritisation in the sense of the theory laid out in Chap. 2; 71 documents
can be considered a ‘riskification’, while 31 documents fall into the cate-
gory of ‘security jargon’ (Table 3.3).
Although the Polish media corpus is dominated by ‘riskification’,
insightful discussion is scarce. Only a few documents in the Polish media
reporting include a discussion which puts Polish risk/threat perceptions
into perspective or demands changes in Poland’s diplomatic efforts in
order to avert the pipeline’s construction.

As the Swedish press announced the government will shortly approve the
construction of the German-Russian gas pipeline through the Baltic
Sea. […] The Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said […] that if
there are no serious environmental obstacles (which he does not expect) his
government would too approve of the pipeline construction. Such result
was to be expected from the beginning. The Baltic Sea pipeline does doubt-
 3  Securitisation in the Gas Sector: Energy Security Debates...    69

lessly hurt our economic interests. But the maritime law of 1982 ensures
not only the freedom of passage by ship and plane but also the freedom to
lay subsea cables and pipeline. Aspects of environmental protection might
limit these freedoms but in such cases only a redirection of the pipeline
route would be necessary. The Nord Stream AG expressed its willingness to
such redirections and on many occasions such changes have already been
made. In Poland, as well as in Scandinavia, opposition to the pipeline has
focused mainly on environmental aspects. However, we have often not
been credible in our opposition. In an ecological seminar in Helsinki a
high-ranking representative of the Polish environmental administration
shocked the audience by claiming that the consequences of the pipeline
construction would be worse than that of the explosion of the atomic
bomb over Hiroshima. (Polityka 2009)13

Another example is an article by Slawomir Debski, director of the

Research and Analysis Office at the Polish Institute for International
Affairs (Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych, PISM):

Russia views Germany as its most important partner in Europe. The suc-
cessful conclusion of the Russo-German contract for building the Nord
Stream gas pipeline has emboldened the Russians so much that they inten-
sified their efforts to pour sand into the gears of European integration and
to break up European unity. This is promoted by offers to grant to Germany
the status of Russia’s privileged economic partner, especially with regard to
the extraction and deliveries of fossil fuels. For the time being, offers of this
kind produce effects contrary to those intended, by making Germany more
wary in its contacts with Moscow. That is because the Germans would
never risk enfeebling the European Union in return for the mirage of eco-
nomic privileges touted by a partner with a dubious reputation who does
not respect agreements. (Gazeta Wyborcza 2007)14

4.1  pplying Securitisation Theory to the Polish

A
Debate

What Kind of Security Debate?

In the Polish debate, there were only four securitising moves, all of which
occurred in the Sejm. However, the debate in the Polish parliament is
70  A. Heinrich

dominated by ‘security jargon’, as the largest portion of the documents

fall into this category (67 out of 118 documents, or 56.8 per cent);
­‘riskification’ occurs in 39.8 per cent of the documents (47 out of 118).
The situation is reversed in the Polish media; here, ‘security jargon’
accounts for only 30.4 per cent of the documents (31 out of 102), while
‘riskification’ dominates with 69.6 per cent of the analysed documents
(71 out of 102).
Overall, the Polish debate is rather evenly split between ‘security jar-
gon’ (45.0 per cent) and ‘riskification’ (53.6 per cent).

What Kind of Risk/Threat Perception?

In both parliament and media, the construction of the Nord Stream
pipeline is viewed as an entirely negative development. While the Sejm
considers the main risks or threats linked directly to the pipeline to be
mostly of an economic nature (61 out of 118 documents, 71.7 per cent)
followed by political risks (50 documents, 42.4 per cent), in the Polish
media, political risks dominate the discussion (60 out of 102 documents,
58.8 per cent) followed by economic risks (45 documents, 44.1 per cent)
(see Table 3.4).
In the Sejm, technical risks related to the potential blockage of the
harbour entrance in Świnoujście were mentioned in 42 documents (35.6
per cent), while environmental risks were mentioned in 40 documents
(33.9 per cent). In Polish media reporting, environmental risks are men-
tioned in 28 documents (27.5 per cent) and technical risks in 14 docu-
ments (13.7 per cent).
Overall, the Sejm considers the main risks or threats to be mostly of an
economic nature, while, in the Polish media, political risks dominate the
discussion. Both corpora show similar proportions for environmental
risks; however, technical risks are much more prominent in the debate in
the Sejm.

What Kind of Counter-Measures?15

Overall, the Nord Stream debate in the Polish Sejm has been rather short
on counter-measures, reflected in the dominance of ‘security jargon’.
 3  Securitisation in the Gas Sector: Energy Security Debates...    71

Both corpora rank the counter-measure, ‘new pipelines/ transit route’

first, with 25.5 per cent of the parliamentary documents and 31.0 per
cent of the media documents mentioning this option. While the Polish
media place ‘supply diversification’ as the second most frequently men-
tioned counter-measure (26.8 per cent of the documents), the Sejm cited
the ‘deepening of the pipeline’ (23.5 per cent) more often than ‘supply
diversification’ (15.9 per cent) (see Table 3.1).

Table 3.1  Counter-measures proposed in Poland with a positive or neutral atti-

tude (number of documents and ratio)
Sejm (51) Polish Media (71)
New pipelines/transit 13 (25.5%) New pipelines/transit 22 (31.0%)
route routes
Deepening of pipeline 12 (23.5%) Supply diversification 19 (26.8%)
Supply diversification 8 (15.9%) Connection to Nord 16 (22.5%)
Stream
Legal processes and 6 (11.8%) LNG 14 (19.7%)
mechanisms/contracts
Common European 4 (7.8%) Common European 12 (16.9%)
energy policy energy policy
LNG 4 (7.8%) Grid integration 9 (12.7%)
Connection to Nord 2 (3.9%) Deepening of pipeline 4 (5.6%)
Stream
Use of alternative 2 (3.9%) Nuclear energy 3 (4.2%)
energies
Market mechanisms/third 1 (2.0%) Clean coal technology 2 (2.8%)
EU energy package
Grid integration 1 (2.0%) Development of existing 2 (2.8%)
gas transit network
Cooperation with other 1 (2.0%) Legal processes and 2 (2.8%)
countries/joint mechanisms/contracts
oppositional front
Clean coal technology 1 (2.0%) Use of alternative 2 (2.8%)
energies
Storage 1 (2.0%) Energy saving 1 (1.4%)
Surveying of the Baltic Sea 1 (2.0%) Market mechanisms/third 1 (1.4%)
EU energy package
Shale gas 1 (1.4%)
Public supervision of 1 (1.4%)
Nord Stream
construction
Common investment 1 (1.4%)
decisions within the EU
72  A. Heinrich

However, the deepening of the Nord Stream pipeline at the harbour

entrance in Świnoujście can be considered a necessary means of supply
diversification (as it enables the import of LNG via larger vessels and the
construction of a pipeline from Scandinavia). Therefore, these two coun-
ter-measures might be combined, amounting to 39.4 per cent of the par-
liamentary documents. For the media, that would result in a total of 32.4
per cent (even though the media did not consider technical risks very
important).
In the Polish media, the ‘connection to Nord Stream’ is mentioned by
16 documents (22.5 per cent); on the one hand, in interviews with for-
eign politicians or businessmen, and on the other, in discussions about a
solution for the perceived threat that Russia might interrupt gas supplies
to Poland via the ‘Brotherhood’ or ‘Yamal’ pipelines.
In fourth place comes ‘legal procedures and mechanisms/ contracts’
against the construction of Nord Stream in the Sejm and the import of
LNG in the media reporting.
In both corpora, the counter-measure ‘common European energy
policy’ is ranked fifth. However, there are significant differences within
the Polish discourse regarding cooperation on an EU level: while, in
the Sejm, this counter-measure was mentioned in 7.8 per cent of the
parliamentary documents, it occurred in 16.9 per cent of the media
reporting. Thus, the Sejm does not consider ‘common European
energy policy’ a suitable remedy against the Nord Stream pipeline. If
the counter-­measure, ‘common European energy policy’, is combined
with the measures ‘grid integration’ (i.e., the integration of the
European pipeline grid with interconnectors in order to allow for gas
transportation across all EU member states with the exception of
Malta) and ‘market mechanism/ third EU energy package’ (i.e., reli-
ance on market mechanisms and increased c­ ompetition within the EU
in order to enhance energy security), the picture becomes even more
skewed: cooperation on energy policy at the EU level was mentioned
in only 11.8 per cent of the parliamentary documents, while these
combined counter-measures cropped up in 32.4 per cent of the media
reporting.
 3  Securitisation in the Gas Sector: Energy Security Debates...    73

Cooperation with other countries is only mentioned with respect to oppo-

nents of the Nord Stream pipeline within the EU but not in connection to
Germany and other countries benefiting from the Nord Stream pipeline.

5 The German Debate About Nord Stream

The discussion in Germany has been more positive towards the Nord
Stream pipeline which has often been presented as an alternative trans-
port route that avoids transit countries and, therefore, enhances Germany’s
energy security. Dissenting voices in the German debate point to the
environmental risks involved in the pipeline’s construction, the harm to
relations with Poland and the Baltic States, which strongly oppose the
pipeline, and the increasing dependence on Russian gas deliveries.
In the German parliament, there was only a minor discussion about
the Nord Stream pipeline (leading to a total of 25 documents relevant for
our analysis). Overall, as Table  3.4 shows, in German parliamentary
debates, environmental risks (directly linked to the Nord Stream pipe-
line) and political risks were mentioned in eight documents, respectively,
followed by economic (four documents) and technical risks (one
document).
However, of these 25 documents, none includes a securitising move
(i.e., can be considered a securitisation in the sense of the theory laid out
in Chap. 2). Twenty-one can be considered a ‘riskification’, while four
documents fall within the category of ‘security jargon’ (see Table 3.3).
The respective government coalitions (no matter which parties were
involved), as well as parts of the opposition, were mostly in favour of the
pipeline. The following examples of ‘riskification’ cite unreliable transit
countries as the main reason for their positive view of the Nord Stream
pipeline which is considered a counter-measure to this risk:

The dependency [on gas supplies from Russia, AH] will probably rise to
more than 40 per cent. The import dependency for natural gas in the
European Union is currently 57 per cent (from countries outside the EU)
and it is expected to increase to more than 70 per cent. However, the
74  A. Heinrich

dependency from Russia is not problematic for Europe or Germany,

respectively; it is a problem that 80 per cent of the gas is transported
through pipelines crossing Ukraine. Thus, we will be constantly involved
in the unresolved conflicts between Russia and Ukraine and so at risk of
being held hostage every winter. As an alternative there are two additional
pipelines […]: on the one hand, the Nabucco pipeline carrying Caspian
gas to Europe and, on the other, the Baltic Sea pipeline. It would be desir-
able if not only former statesmen would support these projects but also if
Europe and the German government would foster these projects more
strongly. (Deputy Manfred Grund, CDU/CSU)16

[…]  around 80 per cent of the European natural gas imports are trans-
ported through Ukraine. Even after the completion of the Baltic Sea pipe-
line ‘Nord Stream’ this amount will only be reduced to 66 per cent.
[…] The German Bundestag requests the government to: […..] (9) foster
cooperation in energy issues among EU countries more strongly than
before. The aim of a European energy community should not only include
the setting of international standards but also coordinated reactions to sup-
ply interruptions. It is necessary to develop European standards for the
storage of oil and especially gas reserves in order to initiate solidarity mea-
sures to protect all member states from the consequences of such interrup-
tions. (Parliamentary group of the FDP)17

It was the Green party (in opposition since shortly after the pipeline con-
tract was signed) which was most critical. Representatives of the Green
party primarily cited the environmental risks involved in the construc-
tion and the harm for Germany’s relations with Poland and the Baltic
States as arguments against constructing the Nord Stream pipeline.
Interestingly, these critical voices often employed ‘security jargon’:

The mustard gas grenades and other ammunition in the Baltic Sea that
fishermen continuously haul out of the water are life-threatening and can
cause ecological catastrophes.  […]  At the bottom of the Baltic Sea lie
400,000 tonnes of ammunition and chemical weapons. […] We Germans
have a historical responsibility to solve this problem. We will not be able to
do that alone but only in cooperation with other littoral states. (Deputy
Rainder Steenblock, Bündnis 90/ Die Grünen)18
 3  Securitisation in the Gas Sector: Energy Security Debates...    75

The planned Baltic Sea pipeline is an ecological and political questionable

project. […] Additionally, ecological concerns in the littoral states are grow-
ing against the background that several hundred thousand tonnes of ammu-
nition lie on the ground of the Baltic Sea […]. […] Dumped into the sea after
the end of the Second World War, mines, torpedoes, bombs and grenades
endanger people at the beaches, fishermen, sportsmen as well as the maritime
flora and fauna. (Deputy Rainder Steenblock, Bündnis 90/ Die Grünen)19

[…] the Nord Stream project is not beneficial for the diversification of
European gas supplies but for Gazprom’s monopolistic infrastructure from
the production, via transport to the final customers. (Parliamentary group
of Bündnis 90/ Die Grünen)20

In German media reporting (in total 51 documents), the pipeline was

criticised for being a political project meant to exert pressure on transit
countries for Russian gas and for harming relations with Poland and the
Baltic States. The pipeline would also increase Germany’s dependence on
Russian gas imports, while risking environmental damage to the Baltic
Sea, and be too expensive compared with alternative pipelines on land.
As for the main risks/threats caused by the Nord Stream pipeline, the
German media listed political (23 documents), environmental (15 docu-
ments), and economic risks (three documents). There was no mention of
technical risks. Table 3.4 provides an overview of the figures.
However, of these 51 documents, only one includes a de-securitising
move.21 It was uttered by the Russian Minister of Industry, Viktor
Kristenko, in 2006, when he tried to refute arguments against the Nord
Stream pipeline and the underlying risk perceptions (i.e., it can be sub-
sumed under securitisation as laid out in Chap. 2); 47 documents can be
considered a ‘riskification’, while three documents fall under the category
of ‘security jargon’ (see Table 3.3).
An article from Süddeutsche Zeitung provides an example of a ‘riskifica-
tion’, where the environmental risk is prescribed and counter-measures in
the form of legal procedures are mentioned22:

The project has been highly controversial in the littoral states. The Baltic
States and Poland were concerned about an expansion of the Russian
76  A. Heinrich

sphere of influence. In Sweden, too, politicians warned that Moscow might

use the pipeline as a pretext for increasing its military presence in the Baltic
Sea. Environmental organizations criticize that requirements are still not
strict enough. In Germany […] two environmental organizations filed a
lawsuit. WWF and Bund Naturschutz [sic! Bund für Umwelt und
Naturschutz Deutschland, Friends of the Earth, AH] want to make sure
that the Nord Stream consortium will be obliged to make compensation
measures if the pipeline causes any damage. (Süddeutsche Zeitung 2010)23

A counter-argument against the presented risk/threat perceptions was

provided by former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. He now
works for the Nord Stream AG, which builds and operates the pipeline,
as Chairman of the Shareholders’ Committee:

According to Schröder, [Nord Stream’s capacity, AH] amounts to only a quar-

ter of the additional demand needed in a few years. The limited capacity of the
pipeline alone would prove that Nord Stream is not directed against any littoral
states such as Poland or the Baltic States that are bypassed by the pipeline. ‘We
need additional transport routes’ Schröder said. (Spiegel Online 2008)24

5.1  pplying Securitisation Theory to the German

A
Debate

What Kind of Security Debate?

In the German debate, there was only one securitising move (a de-­
securitisation move by the Russian Minister of Industry). Overall, the
discourse in Germany was characterised by a dominance of ‘riskification’
(68 out of 76 documents, or 89.5 per cent). Of the total of 76 docu-
ments, only seven fall into the category of ‘security jargon’ which amounts
to 9.2 per cent. ‘Security jargon’ is more prominent in parliament, with
four out of 25 documents, or 16.0 per cent; in German media reporting,
only three out of 51 documents fall into this category (5.9 per cent).

What Kind of Risk/Threat Perception?

In German parliamentary debates, environmental risks (directly linked to the
Nord Stream pipeline) and political risks were mentioned in eight docu-
 3  Securitisation in the Gas Sector: Energy Security Debates...    77

ments, respectively (32.0 per cent each), followed by economic (four docu-
ments, 16.0 per cent) and technical risks (one document, 4.0 per cent).
In the German media reporting, political risks/threats dominate the
debate with 23 documents, or 45.1 per cent, followed by environmental
(15 documents, 29.4 per cent) and economic risks (three documents, 5.9
per cent). Technical risks received no mention (Table 3.4).
Overall, political risks are more prominent in the German media
debate, while, in parliament, the economic risks were more extensively
discussed (often with Nord Stream as a solution). Both corpora show
similar concerns about the environmental risks of the pipeline construc-
tion. Technical risks do not play a role.

What Kind of Counter-Measures?25

In Germany, the first three counter-measures proposed by both parlia-
ment and media are similar (see Table 3.2): around half the documents
propose ‘new pipelines/ new transit routes’ as a solution for perceived
risks for German energy security. This counter-measure often includes
the Nord Stream pipeline which is considered, in many documents, to
be a solution to energy security risks (especially, the protracted Russian-­
Ukrainian gas conflicts). Thus, Nord Stream is the most often proposed
counter-measure (in nine documents from the Bundestag and 16 from
the media). Texts that consider the Nord Stream pipeline a problem for
Germany’s energy security due to an increasing dependence on Russian
gas supplies, for instance, often cite the Nabucco pipeline as a possible
solution (two documents from the Bundestag and in five from the
media).
This is followed by ‘supply diversification’ which receives more atten-
tion in the German media than in parliament (39.6 per cent to 28.6 per
cent). Both corpora rank a ‘common European energy policy’ third
(stronger in parliament with 28.6 per cent to 18.8 per cent).

The counter-measure, ‘connection to Nord Stream’, refers to Polish

concerns about the pipeline which have been discussed in Germany.
However, it is barely considered an option in the German media. The
‘new business model’ (i.e., a new payment model for Russian gas supplies
to Ukraine) and ‘EU monitoring of gas transit’ counter-measures both
78  A. Heinrich

Table 3.2  Counter-measures proposed in Germany with a positive or neutral atti-

tude (number of documents and ratio)
Bundestag (21) German Media (48)
New pipelines/transit 10 (47.6%) New pipelines/transit routes 24 (50.0%)
routes
Supply diversification 6 (28.6%) Supply diversification 19 (39.6%)
Common European 6 (28.6%) Common European energy 9 (18.8%)
energy policy policy
Connection to Nord 3 (14.3%) Grid integration 9 (18.8%)
Stream
LNG 2 (9.5%) Use of alternative energies 7 (14.6%)
Storage 2 (9.5%) Market mechanisms/third EU 6 (12.5%)
energy package
Use of alternative 2 (9.5%) Energy saving 5 (10.4%)
energies
Grid integration 1 (4.8%) Storage 5 (10.4%)
Market mechanisms/ 1 (4.8%) Legal processes and 3 (6.3%)
third EU energy mechanisms/contracts
package
Nuclear energy 1 (4.8%) New business modela 3 (6.3%)
Development of existing 2 (4.2%)
transit networks
Integration of EU and 2 (4.2%)
Russian energy markets
Nuclear energy 2 (4.2%)
EU monitoring of gas transita 1 (2.1%)
Connection to Nord Stream 1 (2.1%)
Shale gas 1 (2.1%)
Note: aThese counter-measures also relate to the perceived risk/thread of the
protracted Russian-Ukrainian gas conflicts for Germany’s energy security

refer to the perceived risk of supply interruptions caused by disputes

between Russia and Ukraine.
In summary, in the German debate, the Nord Stream pipeline is first
of all treated as an industrial project which raises serious environmental
concerns. The growing dependence on Russia as energy supplier is also an
issue in the German debate. However, in Germany, the issue becomes
politicised mainly through a reflection of political concerns in Poland. As
a result, any search for solutions/counter-measures points in the direction
of high environmental standards and diplomatic efforts to address the
concerns of Poland and other transit countries. Overall, the German
 3  Securitisation in the Gas Sector: Energy Security Debates...    79

media seems to have a more critical stand towards the Nord Stream pipe-
line than the parliament.

6  omparing the Nord Stream Debate

C
in Poland and Germany
In a final step, the debates in both Poland and Germany about the Nord
Stream pipeline are now compared.

What Kind of Security Debate?

Applying the theoretical framework developed in Chap. 2 leads to rather
surprising observations. Despite a lot of security language, securitisation
is a rare exception. Out of total of 296 documents, only five include what
can be considered a securitising move. A total of 105 documents alone
fall into the category of ‘security jargon’—even though they use threat
rhetoric, they do not offer any counter-measures to avoid the predicted
harm (Table 3.3).

Overall, ‘security jargon’ is considerably more prevalent in the Polish

debate. It is especially common in the Polish Sejm where more than half
of all documents belong to this category. The German debate largely
abstained from ‘security jargon’; here ‘riskification’ dominates the
discourse.
Thus, it can be concluded that the Polish debate is conducted in a
much more emotional fashion than the debate in Germany. As the fol-
lowing analysis shows, this significant difference can be explained in
terms of underlying threat perceptions.
Table 3.3  Documents sorted by theoretical concept
Polish Polish German German
Sejm media Bundestag media Sum
Securitisation 4 0 0 1a 5
Riskification 47 71 21 47 186
Security jargon 67 31 4 3 105
Sum 118 102 25 51 296
Note: aIt was actually a de-securitising move
80  A. Heinrich

Table 3.4  Perceived risks/threats linked to the Nord Stream pipeline by source
(number of documents)
Nature of Polish Polish German German
perceived Sejm media Bundestag media Germany
threat/risk (118) (102) Poland (220) (25) (51) (76)
Political 50 60 110 (50.0%) 8 23 31 (40.8%)
Economic 61 45 106 (48.2%) 4 3 7 (9.2%)
Environmental 40 28 68 (30.9%) 8 15 23 (30.3%)
Technical 42 14 56 (25.5%) 1 0 1 (1.3%)
Note: Includes all three theoretical categories, ‘security jargon’, ‘riskification’,
and securitisation

What Kind of Risk/Threat Perception?

While all the Polish documents consider Nord Stream a severe threat to
the country’s energy security, only some of the documents analysed in the
German debate perceive the pipeline as a threat to Germany’s energy
security as it would lead to an overreliance on one single gas supplier.
Other critical German voices see the pipeline as a liability for the rela-
tions with neighbouring countries (first of all, Poland).
Supporters of the Nord Stream pipeline in Germany see the recurring
gas conflicts between Russia and Ukraine as one of the main threats to
German energy security and, therefore, a diversification of import routes
as a solution to that problem: Nord Stream would be able to mitigate the
negative consequences of another gas conflict.
Poland, on the other hand, considers the Russian-Ukrainian gas con-
flicts only as a symptom of Russia’s overarching intention to dominate
Central Eastern Europe and to pressure the EU. This intention—accord-
ing to the common opinion in the Polish debate—would only be
strengthened by the Nord Stream pipeline.
These different threat perceptions make cooperation difficult. As Nord
Stream is widely seen as a pure threat in Poland, German ­recommendations
to join the pipeline (as a counter-measure) might be considered scornful
by the Polish side.
The perceived risks/threats to the country’s energy security can be
grouped into four categories: political, economic, environmental, and
technical risks/threats. In both the Polish and the German debate,
 3  Securitisation in the Gas Sector: Energy Security Debates...    81

political risks receive the highest number of mentions: in 50.0 per cent
of documents in the Polish case and in 40.8 per cent in the German
one.
In Germany, there are only limited concerns for economic risks caused
by the Nord Stream pipeline, while 48.2 per cent of the Polish docu-
ments mention this kind of risk (a close second to political risks). The
proportion of documents that mention environmental risks are similar in
both countries—around 30 per cent. While Poland fears for its access to
the harbour of Świnoujście, technical risks are not a topic in the German
debate.

What Kind of Counter-Measures?26

As expected, the counter-measures (with a neutral or positive attitude)
reflect the prevailing risk/threat perceptions in the countries under
study. The most often proposed counter-measure in all four corpora is
‘new pipelines/ transit route’. In Poland, this means everything but
Nord Stream, especially the Amber pipeline project and the Yamal-
Europe II pipeline. In Germany, however, Nord Stream is mostly seen as
a solution to energy security risks (especially, in the context of the gas
conflicts between Russia and Ukraine). ‘Supply diversification’ comes
second in both the Polish and the German debate (see Table 3.5 in the
appendix).

There are significant differences regarding the counter-measure, ‘com-

mon European energy policy’, between the two countries; this is not
immediately obvious as the counter-measure comes third in the German
debate, while in Poland it comes fifth. However, while critics of the Nord
Stream pipeline in Germany often call for more cooperation in the field
of energy within the EU and warn of further unilateral decisions, this
counter-measure plays only a marginal role in Poland (21.7 per cent of
the German documents, 13.1 per cent of the Polish documents). If the
counter-measure, ‘common European energy policy’, is combined with
the related counter-measures, ‘grid integration’, and, ‘market mechanism/
third EU energy package’, the figure increases in Germany to 46.4 per
cent of the documents and to 23.8 per cent of the Polish documents.
82  A. Heinrich

In Poland, the reason for the limited support for cooperation on the
EU level might lie in the perception that the EU is only a club for big
countries:

We agree and support the thesis that the development of the EU and the
realisation of EU policies should be characterised by cooperation. How can
in this context the economic pact between Russia and Germany, which
agrees on the pipeline construction at the bottom of the Baltic Sea neglect-
ing the interests of Poland and the Baltic States, be explained? The pipeline
construction at the bottom of the Baltic Sea shows that the EU in practice
has neither a common foreign policy nor a common security policy. The
Polish protests against such actions will only be effective if they succeed in
building a strong front of opposition that bundles the interest of the
affected member states. It looks as if the new EU members are regarded
mainly as a sales market and as a source of cheap labour; they are not
treated as equals when political and economic interests are at stake. The
pipeline case can become a trigger for resistance against the diktat of the
great powers of old Europe and may lead to radical reconstruction of the
Union in the spirit of solidarity. (Deputy Waldemar Starosta, Samoobrona
Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej)27

In Germany, on the other hand, a common European energy policy is

considered desirable:

Nobody really believes in the development of a common energy policy as

proposed in the [EU, AH] Green Book. Since Germany decided—against
the explicit will of its EU partner Poland—to build with Russia the Baltic
Sea pipeline, it is more unlikely than ever that Europe will ever speak with
one voice when it comes to energy. Regarding the supply security with
energy—considered by all EU member states as essential—national ego-
isms probably will increase.28

The Baltic Sea pipeline—as partner in the red-green government coalition

we were involved in its last phase—is not a cooperation project. This is not
the way to conduct the Baltic Sea cooperation; the project only aggravates
all cooperation partners in the Baltic Sea region.  […]  If the Baltic Sea
 3  Securitisation in the Gas Sector: Energy Security Debates...    83

cooperation is supposed to be functioning […] it would be helpful that the

question of pipelines is not solved bilaterally but within the cooperation
framework and with the EU in the background. (Deputy Rainder
Steenblock, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)29

Surprisingly, the counter-measure ‘connection to Nord Stream’ was much

more frequently mentioned in the Polish debate than in Germany (8.2
per cent to 5.3 per cent). ‘Connection to Nord Stream’ as a mitigation for
Polish energy security concerns is proposed in four German documents
(three of them from the Bundestag), while in the Polish media this is
considered an option in 18 documents (it should, however, be noted that
a positive attitude towards this option comes mostly from foreign authors
or interviewees).

7  onclusion: What the Debate Did

C
Not Show
As the Polish debate has left no doubt that the Nord Stream pipeline
constitutes a threat to Poland’s national security, one would have had
expected:

• A very emotional debate steeped in history (i.e., using many historical

references).
• A dominance of political risk/threat perceptions in the Polish debate.
• A large number of securitising moves, as the Nord Stream pipeline is
considered an existential threat to Poland.

While the debate on the Polish side was emotional and rich in histori-
cal references,30 other theory-based expectations, however, were not
fulfilled.
Political risk/threat perceptions did not dominate the Polish debate;
this category was on par with economic risks/threats. They did, however,
dominate the much more sober German debate.
84  A. Heinrich

The most surprising result of the analysis has been so far that securitis-
ing moves did not only not dominate the debates about Nord Stream,
but they were rare exceptions (only five out of 296 documents). ‘Security
jargon’, threat-based security language that does not offer any solutions
and counter-measures, dominated the Nord Stream debate in the Polish
Sejm. The deputies trusted with producing legislation did not show much
resolve to propose any solutions but seemed more interested in maintain-
ing a high level of fear and hysteria. However, ‘riskification’, the more
sober analysis of the problem and search for solutions, dominated the
German debate, in general, and was also more common in the Polish
media debate.
To summarise, the emotional Polish debate about the Nord Stream
pipeline has clearly been focused on a threat perception which links most
risks directly to fears of Russian-German rapprochement at the expense
of Polish interests. However, the question remains: why are solutions
and/or counter-measures so seldom discussed? Do politicians simply use
populism as a strategy and play the ‘blame game’, that is, ascribe respon-
sibility for the crisis to the opposing political camp and/or the predeces-
sor government?
Examples of the ‘blame game’ are plentiful:

The Polish government does nothing, it even facilitated the realisation of

this project [the Nord Stream pipeline, AH]. […] In February 2003, vice
minister Marek Pol signed a contract which made Poland completely
dependent on gas deliveries. This contract alone has made Poland com-
pletely dependent on Russia. (Deputy Elżbieta Kruk, PiS)31

Finally, the compromising fact about Donald Tusk and his foreign minister
Radosław Sikorski—their complete capitulation in front of the Russian-­
German investment of Nord Stream. Due to the prime minister’s lack of
distinct opposition, Germany has built together with the Russians a gas
pipeline through the harbour entrance of Świnoujście which will perma-
nently hinder  […]  the development of our harbour in Świnoujście.
(Deputy Joachim Brudziński, PiS)32
 3  Securitisation in the Gas Sector: Energy Security Debates...    85

There was a time when Poland was against the construction of the Baltic
Sea pipeline. However, since the change of government in 2007 the oppo-
sition has been suppressed. It can be assumed that the defence of Poland’s
main interests is not a priority for the PO-PSL government. (Deputy
Jadwiga Wiśniewska, PiS)33

After 2007, however, the Tusk government did not change decisions of
the predecessor government regarding energy policy; it did not abandon
the construction of an LNG terminal on the Baltic Sea coast. Before that
point, it had been usual practice in Poland after every change of govern-
ment between centre-left and centre-right for the incoming administra-
tion to renounce the energy projects initiated by its predecessor.34
Nevertheless, a continuation of the conservative energy policy by the
Tusk government did not stop the opposition from using ‘security jargon’
to, so it seems, spread fear and disinformation:

Unfortunately, the Nord Stream pipeline will be built but it is not true that
it will block the harbour entrance of Świnoujście. Your whole argument is
based on the fact—and you abuse it—that not everybody knows that
Świnoujście has two harbour entrances: the western channel und the cur-
rently not used northern channel. Through the western channel, where the
pipeline will be build, ship traffic will reach Świnoujście as before, espe-
cially the LNG tankers. The discussion refers only the some corrections
concerning the northern channel. Stop scaring and misleading the Polish
public! (Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski)35

While from a theoretical perspective, ‘security jargon’ is something differ-

ent from ‘securitisation’, their effects on political discourse are rather
similar: in both cases, the use of security language results in de-­
politicisation. Contested issues/topics are removed from the field of ‘nor-
mal’ political discourse, leading to an insulation from critical discussion.
While a particular perspective becomes locked in and dominates the dis-
course, other divergent positions are blocked, resulting in a stifling of
political debate.
86  A. Heinrich

Appendix
Table 3.5  Proposed counter-measures in Poland and Germany with a positive or
neutral attitude (number of documents and ratio)
Germany Poland
New pipelines/transit 34 (49.3%) New pipelines/transit 35 (28.7%)
routes routes
Supply diversification 25 (36.2%) Supply diversification 27 (22.1%)
Common European 15 (21.7%) Connection to Nord 18 (14.8%)
energy policy Stream
Grid integration 10 (14.5%) LNG 18 (14.8%)
Use of alternative 9 (13.0%) Common European 16 (13.1%)
energies energy policy
Market mechanisms/third 7 (10.1%) Deepening of pipeline 16 (13.1%)
EU energy package
Storage 7 (10.1%) Grid integration 10 (8.2%)
Energy saving 5 (7.2%) Legal processes and 8 (6.6%)
mechanisms/
contracts
Connection to Nord 4 (5.8%) Use of alternative 4 (3.3%)
Stream energies
Legal processes and 3 (4.3%) Nuclear energy 3 (2.5%)
mechanisms/contracts
New business model 3 (4.3%) Clean coal technology 3 (2.5%)
Nuclear energy 3 (4.3%) Market mechanisms/ 3 (2.5%)
third EU energy
package
Development of existing 2 (2.9%) Development of 2 (1.7%)
transit networks existing gas transit
network
Integration of EU & 2 (2.9%) Energy saving 1 (0.8%)
Russian energy markets
LNG 2 (2.9%) Shale gas 1 (0.8%)
EU monitoring of gas 1 (1.4%) Public supervision of 1 (0.8%)
transit Nord Stream
construction
Shale gas 1 (1.4%) Common investment 1 (0.8%)
decisions within the
EU
Cooperation with 1 (0.8%)
other countries/joint
oppositional front
Storage 1 (0.8%)
Surveying of the Baltic 1 (0.8%)
Sea
 3  Securitisation in the Gas Sector: Energy Security Debates...    87

Notes
1. Cf. for example, ‘Poland recalls Hitler-Stalin pact amid fears over pipeline’,
The Guardian, 1 May 2006, available at https://www.theguardian.com/
world/2006/may/01/eu.poland. For a clarification by the Polish Ministry
of Defence see: Paszkowski, Piotr (2006) Minister Sikorski o współpracy w
dziedzinie energetyki, Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej, 30 April, available
at http://www.mon.gov.pl/artykul_wiecej.php?idartykul=1696. Speaking
of a misinterpretation, the press release states: ‘The minister did not place
the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact and the pipeline agreement on the same
level. He referred to painful historical events to explain Poles’ sensitivity to
agreements made without their knowledge. He used the Ribbentrop-
Molotov pact to picture emotions raised by the construction of the pipe-
line’ (all translations by the author unless stated otherwise).
2. For a more detailed analysis of Russian export pipelines see: Heinrich
(2014).
3. Analytical overviews of criticism and underlying rationales are given by:
Bouzarovski and Konieczny 2010; Larsson 2007; Lidskog and Elander
2012.
4. Meanwhile, the EU has revised its decision in October 2016 and allowed
Gazprom to use up to 80 per cent of one of the connecting pipelines.
However, Poland has challenged this decision in court and, as a result, it
has been suspended. Cf., e.g., Yafimava 2017; Loskot-Strachota 2017.
5. For a detailed description of the media selection and the operationalisation
of the research project see ‘Documentation of data collection’, available at:
http://www.forschungsstelle.uni-bremen.de/UserFiles/file/04-Forschung/
documentation_data-collection.pdf.
6. This chapter scrutinises only the theoretical aspects of the Nord Stream
debate. For a detailed analysis of the arguments for or against the Nord
Stream pipeline in Poland and Germany (which includes a larger num-
ber of documents, as it is not based on securitisation theory), see Heinrich
and Pleines 2017.
7. Szejnfeld, Adam Stanisław (2004) Interpelacja nr 6806 do prezesa Rady
Ministrów w sprawie zwiększenia polskiego bezpieczeństwa w zakresie
dostaw gazu dla ludności i gospodarki, 28 February, available at http://
www.sejm.gov.pl/sejm7.nsf/stenogramy.xsp.
8. Jagiełło, Jarosław (2008) Interpelacja nr 4634 do ministra spraw
zagranicznych w sprawie budowy gazociągu północnego, in: Sejm
88  A. Heinrich

Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, Kadencja VI: Aneksu do Sprawozdania

Stenograficznego z 21. posiedzenia Sejmu w dniach 2, 3, 4 i 5 września
2008 r [2.-5.9.2008], pp. 208–209.
9. Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej (2005) Kadencja IV: Sprawozdanie
Stenograficzne z 107. posiedzenia Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w dniu 7
lipca 2005 r [7.7.2005]. Informacja bieżąca, pp. 364–381, here p. 371.
10. Sonik, Bogusław (2005) Opinie: Gazowy szantaż, Rzeczpospolita, 2 July,
obtained via Factiva, Document RZEPOL0020050702e1720000f.
11. Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej (2007) Kadencja VI: Sprawozdanie
Stenograficzne z 4. posiedzenia Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w dniu 19
grudnia 2007 r [19.12.2007]. Punkt 10. porządku dziennego: Pytania w
sprawach bieżących, pp. 162–182, here pp. 166–167.
12. Hoc, Czesław/Brudziński, Joachim (2008) Interpellation nr 826 do
ministra gospodarki w sprawie budowy gazociągu północnego po dnie
Bałtyku (koncernu Nord Stream AG), in Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej,
Kadencja VI: Aneksu do Sprawozdania Stenograficznego z 8. posiedzenia
Sejmu w dniach 6, 7 i 8 lutego 2008 r. [6.-8.2.2008].
13. ‘Pogoda dla gazociągu’, Polityka, No. 37 (2722), 12 September 2009,
p. 11, available at: http://archiwum.polityka.pl/wydanie/0,19680.htm.
14. Dębski, Sławomir (2007) Z Rosją – bez pośpiechu, Gazeta Wyborcza, 17
January, available at: http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,3854024.html.
15. Only documents that fall into the categories of ‘riskification’ and securi-
tisation are analysed, as per the definition, the category ‘security jargon’
proposes no counter-measures (the total number of documents from the
Sejm is 51, and from the Polish media reporting, it is 71).
16. Deutscher Bundestag (2009) Stenografischer Bericht, 230. Sitzung,
Plpr-Nr. 16/230, 2 July, pp. 25699–25700.
17. Deutscher Bundestag (2007) Antrag der Abgeordneten Gudrun Kopp,[…]
und der Fraktion der FDP—‘Energieaußenpolitik für das 21. Jahrhundert’,
Drucksache 16/6796, 24 October.
18. Deutscher Bundestag (2007) Stenografischer Bericht, 109. Sitzung,
Plpr-Nr. 16/109, 6 July, pp. 11333–11334.
19. Deutscher Bundestag (2008) Stenografischer Bericht, 160. Sitzung, 8
May, p. 16968.
20. Deutscher Bundestag (2007) Entschließungsantrag der Abgeordneten
Marieluise Beck (Bremen)[…]weiterer Abgeordneter und der Fraktion
BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN und deren Antwort (Drucksachen 16/4932,
16/6241)—‘Aktuelle Entwicklungen in Russland und ihre Auswirkung auf
 3  Securitisation in the Gas Sector: Energy Security Debates...    89

die Beziehungen zwischen der EU und Russland’, Drucksache 16/7186, 14

November.
21. The Copenhagen School understands de-securitisation as moving an
issue ‘out of emergency mode and into the normal bargaining process of
the political sphere’ (Buzan et al. 1998: 4, see also p. 29). De-securitisation
means to turn threats into challenges and security into politics again
(Wæver 1995: 55, 60).
22. However, these counter-measures are envisaged only in the case of an
accident causing environmental damage; they do not mitigate other
risks/threats or try to prevent the construction of the Nord Stream pipe-
line (I thank Marco Siddi for his comment).
23. Herrmann, Gunnar (2010) Ostsee-Pipeline genehmigt: Finnland macht
Weg endgültig frei für Bau der Gas-Röhre, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 13 February,
obtained via Factiva, Document SDDZ000020100213e62d0000y.
24. Wittrock, Philipp (2008) Energiekonferenz des Umweltministers:
Schröder singt Jubelarien auf Russland, Spiegel Online, 25 September,
obtained via Factiva, Document SPGLO00020080925e49p0006c.
25. Only documents that fall into the categories of ‘riskification’ and securi-
tisation are analysed; as per the definition, the category ‘security jargon’
proposes no counter-measures (the total number of documents from the
Bundestag is 21, and, from the German media reporting, it is 48).
26. Only documents that fall into the categories of ‘riskification’ and securi-
tisation are analysed; as per the definition, the category ‘security jargon’
proposes no counter-measures.
27. Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej (2005) Kadencja IV: Sprawozdanie
Stenograficzne z 5. posiedzenia Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w dniu 16
grudnia 2005 r. [16.12.2005]. Punkt 25. porządku dziennego: Informacja
w sprawie planu legislacyjnego Komisji Europejskiej na 2006 rok (druk nr
120), pp. 253–280, here pp. 262–264.
28. Fischer, Manfred/Wetzel, Daniel/Müller, Peter (2006) Europa hängt an der
Pipeline: Auf dem Gipfeltreffen der Industriestaaten (G-8) in St. Petersburg
steht die Energieversorgung Europas ganz oben auf der Tagesordnung. Doch
die Gegensätze sind zu groß für einen Erfolg, Welt am Sonntag, 16 July,
obtained via Factiva, Document WSONNT0020060717e27g00053.
29. Deutscher Bundestag (2007) Stenografischer Bericht, 109. Sitzung,
Plpr-Nr. 16/109, 6 July, pp. 11333–11334.
30. For a more detailed analysis of historical references in Polish energy secu-
rity debates see: Siddi 2017; Heinrich 2007.
90  A. Heinrich

31. Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej (2005) Kadencja IV: Sprawozdanie

Stenograficzne z 107 posiedzenia Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w dniu 7
lipca 2005 r [7.7.2005]. Informacja bieżąca, pp. 364–381, here p. 371.
32. Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej (2011) Kadencja VII: Sprawozdanie
Stenograficzne z 1. posiedzenia Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w dniu 18
listopada 2011 r [18.11.2011]. Punkt 10. porządku dziennego: Przedstawienie
przez Prezesa Rady Ministrów programu działania Rady Ministrów z
wnioskiem o udzielenie jej wotum zaufania, pp. 57–152, here p. 121.
33. Wiśniewska, Jadwiga (2012) Interpelacja nr 10803 do prezesa Rady
Ministrów w sprawie konsekwencji budowy Gazociągu Północnego Nord
Stream, 22 October, available at: http://www.sejm.gov.pl/sejm7.nsf/
InterpelacjaTresc.xsp?key=26DA7771.
34. Wielowieyska, Dominika (2009) Gaz dzieli polityków, Gazeta Wyborcza,
8 January, available at: http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/Wiadomosci/
1,80353,6130767.html.
35. Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej (2011) Kadencja VI: Sprawozdanie
Stenograficzne z 87. posiedzenia Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w dniu 16
marca 2011 r [16.3.2011]. Punkt 2. porządku dziennego: Informacja min-
istra spraw zagranicznych o założeniach polskiej polityki zagranicznej w
2011 roku, pp. 3–70, here p. 66.

References
Bouzarovski, Stefan, and Marcin Konieczny. 2010. Landscapes of Paradox:
Public Discourses and Policies in Poland’s Relationship with the Nord Stream
Pipeline. Geopolitics 15 (1): 1–21.
Buzan, Barry, Ole Wæver, and Jaap de Wilde. 1998. Security: A New Framework
for Analysis. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
Heinrich, Andreas. 2007. Poland as a Transit Country for Russian Natural Gas:
Potential for Conflict, KICES Working Papers No. 9–10. Koszalin: KICES.
———. 2014. Introduction: Export Pipelines in Eurasia. In Export Pipelines
from the CIS Region: Geopolitics, Securitization, and Political Decision-Making,
ed. Heinrich, Andreas, Pleines, Heiko, 1–73. Stuttgart: ibidem Publishers.
Heinrich, Andreas, and Heiko Pleines. 2017. Towards a Common European
Energy Policy? Energy Security Debates in Poland and Germany on the
Example of the Nord Stream Pipeline. In Europeanisation vs. Renationalisation:
Learning from Crisis for European Development, ed. Ulrike Liebert and Anna
Jenichen. Leverkusen: Barbara Budrich Publishers.
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Larsson, Robert L. 2007. Nord Stream, Sweden and Baltic Sea Security. Stockholm:
Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI).
Lidskog, Rolf, and Ingemar Elander. 2012. Sweden and the Baltic Sea Pipeline:
Between Ecology and Economy. Marine Policy 36 (2): 333–338.
Loskot-Strachota, Agata. 2017. The OPAL Pipeline: Controversies About the Rules
for Its Use and the Question of Supply Security, OWS Commentary No. 229.
Warsaw: Centre for Eastern Studies. Available at: https://www.osw.waw.pl/
en/publikacje/osw-commentary/2017-01-17/opal-pipeline-controversies-
about-rules-its-use-and-question.
Siddi, Marco. 2017. National Identities and Foreign Policy in the European Union:
The Russia Policy of Germany, Poland and Finland. Colchester: ECPR Press.
Wæver, Ole. 1995. Securitization and Desecuritization. In On Security, ed.
Ronnie D. Lipschutz, 46–86. New York: Columbia University Press.
Yafimava, Katja. 2017. The OPAL Exemption Decision: Past, Present, and Future,
OIES Paper NG 117. Oxford: Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Available
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present-future/.
 4
Politics and Knowledge Production:
Between Securitisation and Riskification
of the Shale Gas Issue in Poland
and Germany
Aleksandra Lis

1 Introduction
Debates on shale gas in Europe and in the USA have been studied by
social scientists quite extensively already (Jaspal and Nerlich 2014; Cotton
et al. 2014; Ocelik and Osicka 2014; Mazur 2014; Boudet et al. 2014;
Evensen et al. 2014; Williams et al. 2017; Thomas et al. 2016). Existing
studies point to the existence of two dominant frames in media discourses
in various European countries: that of energy security and environmental
risks (Upham et al. 2015; Jaspal et al. 2014). Polish and German debates
have also been studied with regard to shale gas development. For exam-
ple, some scholars point out that shale gas in the Polish media and politi-
cal discourses has been mainly presented as a potential domestic fuel in
the context of debates on the security of gas supply (Lis and Stankiewicz
2017; Upham et al. 2015; Wagner 2014; Jaspal et al. 2014). Others have
shown that framing of environmental risks has been expressed only

A. Lis (*)
Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poznan, Poland

© The Author(s) 2018 93

K. Szulecki (ed.), Energy Security in Europe, Energy, Climate and the Environment,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1_4
94  A. Lis

in local contexts and has been unable to influence the national debate (Lis
and Stankiewicz 2017). The German debate on shale gas, much less
prominent in the media and within the national political arena, has, con-
versely, concentrated more on environmental risks and especially on
drinking water safety (Upham et al. 2015).
In this chapter, I examine Polish and German shale gas politics from
the perspective of the securitisation framework that has been extended,
by Heinrich and Szulecki (Chap. 2) in this volume in relation to energy,
through concepts, such as politicisation, riskification, security jargon, de-­
riskification and de-politicisation. I compare three dimensions of the
Polish and German cases: “opening” or “closing” of the shale gas issue for
public debate, definition of the threat and the type of measures
undertaken.
The first distinction allows us to demarcate politicisation and securiti-
sation, whereby politicisation means “opening” an issue for a public
debate and securitisation involves “closing” it away from the public
(Buzan et al. 1998). The second dimension allows us to see whether there
is a clear definition of a threat (securitisation), no clear threat is defined
(security jargon) or the conditions of the possibility of harm/risk were
constructed (riskification). Finally, the third dimension allows us to
examine whether the proposed measures are exceptional in any way—
that is, whether they constitute the breaking of/with norms guiding
political practice, shifting power and competences and constraining
access to information (see Chap. 2), which classifies as securitisation. Or
whether in fact the political practice leads to programmes for permanent
change aimed at reducing vulnerability and boosting the governance-
capacity of the valued referent object itself (Corry 2012), which, in turn,
counts as riskification.
Through this analysis, we also contribute to one of the unresolved
questions in the securitisation debate (see Chaps. 2 and 6 in this book).
Namely, whether the character of securitisation can be defined as a mere
speech act or whether there are other means through which securitisa-
tion, or riskification, is communicated.
The examined cases show that scientific knowledge, and the different
modes of its production, is an important part of both securitising and
 4  Politics and Knowledge Production: Between Securitisation...    95

riskifying politics. It is thus also through the construction of scientific

facts, and through the discussion of their status in the policy worlds, that
securitisation and riskification are achieved. Two different types of
knowledge production—environmental risk assessment and environ-
­
mental impact assessment—were organised in Germany and Poland,
respectively. Each underpinned different politics and policy measures in
these countries. In Poland, the political decision was “going all for shale”
and the policy moves involved amendments of tax regulations and licens-
ing procedures at the national level, as well as preventing any additional
environmental regulations at the EU level. In Germany, the political deci-
sion was to put a moratorium on fracking at the national level and the
policy choice was to prepare a new piece of legislation that, in the long
run, would strengthen the safety of the environment and of the people.
Moreover, the analysed cases show that the actors involved imparted
“more or less reality” to the knowledge that was produced. While the
environmental impact assessment, according to the Polish actors, pro-
duced “empirical”, “solid facts” about “the reality of fracking”, the envi-
ronmental risk assessment, according to them, merely generated
“scenarios” about “the phantasy of fracking”, which were in no way
grounded in empirical reality. In other words, in the view of the Polish
geologists and political actors, the empirical facts were “real” and risk
scenarios were “speech acts”. At the same time, the analysis clearly shows
that this distinction was constructed as part of the politics around shale
gas. The solidity and reality of empirical facts were brought into the
debate as arguments against riskification of shale gas and backed up by
the production of risk scenarios.
The chapter is organised as follows. In the next section, I outline the
methodology used to collect and analyse data for the two case studies. In
the section that follows, I give a brief introduction to the debates on shale
gas in Poland and Germany, based on media analysis carried out within
the research project on debates on energy security in these countries.1
Further on, I examine the Polish case more deeply to show how processes
of knowledge production intertwined with securitisation and de-­
riskification of shale gas. In the following part, I analyse the German case.
It shows politicisation and riskification of shale gas where the government
96  A. Lis

decided to institute a moratorium on fracking in Germany. I also examine

how the risk assessment approach played a crucial role in shaping the
German political debate and the policy process aimed at establishing a
long-term framework for governing the extraction of unconventional
hydrocarbons. These two parts are mainly based on document analysis
and interviews. In the last section, I provide a discussion and some con-
clusions about how knowledge production is involved in debates on the
security of energy issues.

2 Methodology
This chapter is based on empirical material gathered as part of two
projects (footnote 1). I reconstruct shale gas debates in Poland and in
Germany based mainly on media debates. The main written news out-
lets in Poland and in Germany were selected for this purpose,2 all arti-
cles on shale gas using key words “fracking”, “gaz z łupków”,
“Schiffergas” were collected and coded according to the securitisation
criteria: “object threatened”, “type of threat”, “counter-measures” and
“actor doing the securitization move”. Additionally, a category “de-
securitisation” was added as another possibility. This analysis is also
based on document analysis and expert interviews. In total, seven
interviews were carried out over two years between 2014 and 2016 in
Warsaw and in Berlin. I interviewed one person in the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs (Interview 1, Warsaw, May 2015), two people at the
Ministry of the Economy (Interview 4, Warsaw, May 2015) and three
in the Polish Geological Institute (Interview 2 and Interview 3,
Warsaw, September 2015). I also conducted interviews in Berlin with
an IGBCE expert (Interview 5, Berlin, June 2016) and two energy
experts in the Bundestag (Interview 6 and Interview 7, Berlin, May
2015. The interview material served as a valuable source of informa-
tion about the development of debates but it was also interpreted as
demonstrating how the approaches to shale gas development and
knowledge about its impacts on the environment were different in
Poland and in Germany.
 4  Politics and Knowledge Production: Between Securitisation...    97

3  hale Gas Debates in Poland

S
and in Germany: An Overview
Shale gas became a topic of public debate in Poland in 2011 after the
publication of a report entitled World Shale Gas Resources: An Initial
Assessment of 14 Regions Outside the United States by the US Energy
Information Agency (April 2011). The report assessed the Polish shale gas
resources to be the largest in Europe and the latest updates confirm this
potential.3 However, the first concessions for exploration activities were
issued as early as 2007. The word that most accurately sums up the atmo-
sphere around shale gas in Poland is “hope”. This hope was expressed by
the government officials of the time and it invoked images of economic
prosperity, huge budget revenues, money for a Norway-styled Sovereign
Wealth Fund, a Pension Fund and the security of energy supplies (based
on media analysis). But even though this vision was so overwhelmingly
positive, it soon became mixed with fear. The fear congealed in various
formulations of threats which came from disparate directions: mainly
from Russia, but also from the use of the technology for hydraulic frac-
turing or from shale gas opponents.
The year 2012 was abundant with different events that were formative
for the discourse and political decisions on shale gas in Poland. The peak for
exploration activities could be noted in that year with 24 drilling operations
completed. The year 2012 also saw the highest number of local protests in
Poland, in the North and South of the country alike. At the time, most
attention was devoted to local communities and their fears which resulted
in the launching of a dialogue programme called “Together about Shale
Gas”, which involved more than 10 communities in three different voivod-
ships in the Northern parts of Poland that were covered with shale gas
exploration licences. However, it was also in 2012 when one of the biggest
players in the shale gas game, ExxonMobil, withdrew from Poland. And
while the local protests and local fears about possible environmental degra-
dation became more visible, it was the move of the global oil & gas giant
that turned out to be more significant for the political decisions of the
Polish government. The Polish Prime Minister replaced the Minister of the
Environment and gave a clear message to his cabinet that a faster pace of
98  A. Lis

taxation legislation and easier licensing procedures was expected. Two

pieces of legislation were finally adopted by the Parliament in 2014 and in
2016—the Law on Special Taxation of Hydrocarbons and the amendment
of the Geological and Mining Law. However, they came into force at the
moment when the Polish shale gas project started to slow down, mainly due
to low oil and gas prices on global markets and the difficult geology of the
Polish shale rock—the rock contained a lot of clay that made it inefficient
to extract gas. As the drilling was going on, the Ministry of the Environment
commissioned the Polish Geological Institute (PGI) to carry out an empiri-
cal study on environmental impacts in seven different locations. In some
locations the exploration licences were held by Polish companies and in
others by foreign ones.
In Germany, the debate on shale gas was different. The promise of a
new resource was neither as great as in Poland4 nor as politically enticing
for the German government. Germany does not perceive relations with
Gazprom as threatening but rather sees that company as a reliable busi-
ness partner. Therefore, relations with the Russian Gazprom did not play
an important role in shaping the German hope for shale gas extraction.
Besides, German energy policy is currently mainly focused on its own
energy transition (Energiewende) and the phasing out of nuclear energy.
Shale gas is thus discussed as just another issue to be related to energy
transition and not as a potential game-changer. The German coalition
government placed a moratorium on the use of hydraulic fracturing
­technology in Germany in 2014, and from the very beginning, it focused
on environmental risks related to this technology. In October 2010, Der
Spiegel published an article where, after a short introduction about the
great potential of shale gas reserves worldwide, the authors discussed the
risks. The main risk discussed in the German media, according to our
analysis, was shale gas impact on climate change. The levels of CO2 emis-
sions were discussed in relation to different types of energy sources and
energy producing technologies. The printed media outlets that were ana-
lysed made no mention of Russia or Gazprom. However, much attention
was devoted to shale gas impacts on the environment and the landscape.
The questions asked in the media concerned local impacts that could
irreversibly change idyllic landscapes or contaminate the environment
with fracking and post-fracking fluids. In this debate, technology for
 4  Politics and Knowledge Production: Between Securitisation...    99

fracking, rather than the resource itself, was placed centre stage. Hydraulic
fracturing was represented as controversial and carrying unknown risks.
Next to environmental risks, the German media stressed economic
benefits related to shale gas development worldwide. It was mainly Der
Spiegel and Die Süddeutsche Zeitung that discussed various threats related
to a growing demand for gas and that saw shale gas as a chance for
improving Germany’s economic competitiveness. There was also a con-
siderable amount of space devoted to how the shale gas boom in America
impacted on local as well as global gas prices. While the media debate
revolved around the issues mentioned above, the political debate, from
quite early on (2010/2011), focused on the fundamental question of
whether fracking should be allowed or banned. As a moratorium was
placed on fracking in 2013, new legislation regulating fracking in
Germany started to be discussed. In April 2015, the coalition put for-
ward a draft law on the issue of shale gas and in June 2016, a law banning
frackng was finally approved—with a few exceptions for fracking for sci-
entific purpose. Also, the behaviour of companies operating in Germany
was different than in Poland. While Chevron’s activities in the South
Eastern parts of Poland mobilised a strong opposition to shale gas explo-
ration, in Germany ExxonMobil tried to engage the public in a discus-
sion about the risks of fracking. In April 2013, ExxonMobil Germany
organised an expert panel on fracking that worked for the whole year to
collect various types of evidence and scenarios in order to discuss them
with numerous stakeholders and then finally gather them together in a
publically available report. The Federal government, in the proposed
shale gas law, also planned to put together a panel of experts that would
discuss areas where more research on the environmental risks of fracking
was needed.

4  hale Gas in Poland: Hoping for Energy

S
Security and Collecting Facts
The shale gas issue became the responsibility of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs in an international context, as it was considered primarily an issue
of energy security. This was a strange political decision from the perspective
100  A. Lis

of the EU institutions, since other member states were represented by

Ministries of Energy, the Economy or the Environment, or by their coun-
try’s geological service. An official from the Ministry of Foreign affairs
explained that Poland’s energy situation was very particular as the issue of
energy security was of prime importance—as shown by the significance of
geopolitical relations with Russia and a strong dependence on Gazprom’s
gas supply.5 This clearly exemplifies a securitising move as the involvement
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was an extraordinary measure. The first
note about shale gas was written by a staff member in the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs in 2009. Led by Radosław Sikorski, the Ministry worked
towards popularising the view that shale gas development in the USA
could be replicated in Europe together with its positive consequences for
the economy and the security of supply.6 The Ministry also cooperated
closely with Polish and international companies operating in Poland and
was involved in various negotiation and lobbying activities in the EU until
the beginning of 2014 when the European Commission issued the
Communication on Exploration and Production of Hydrocarbons
(2014/70/EU).7 Cooperation between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
the Ministry of the Economy was strong. There was also an exchange of
information with the Ministry of the Environment which grants explora-
tion licences for shale gas.8
Quite early on, in 2010, the Ministry of the Environment, through
one of its agencies, the General Directorate for Environmental Protection
(DGEP), commissioned the first study in Poland to examine whether the
fracking companies abide by the rules and administrative procedures that
regulate mining activities. It was carried out by the Polish Geological
Institute (PGI). This study focused mostly on administrative rules and
did not measure the impacts of exploration on the environment.
The first empirical study on environmental impacts of shale gas extrac-
tion was also commissioned by the GDEP and was carried out by the
PGI at the site called Łebień. The report was published in March 2012
and it did not reveal any negative impacts of hydraulic fracturing on
water or soil (PGI 2012). However, the researchers from PGI indicated
in their conversations with the Ministry of Environment that the man-
agement of waste was likely to be the main challenge in the exploration
phase.9 This conclusion was not written down in the report, as according
 4  Politics and Knowledge Production: Between Securitisation...    101

to our interviewees, it was only a summary of research results and was not
supposed to include any recommendations.10 The geologists recalled that
before the public launching of the Łebień Report, the Ministry organised
a number of meetings to discuss how to get the message across to the
general public that shale gas exploration was safe.11 This is an interesting
point to reflect on in the context of securitisation and riskification. It
indicates that while the Polish government was eager to securitise the
issue of shale gas, it was very reluctant to riskify it. Different measures are
associated with each move and the Polish government saw riskification as
a precondition for introducing additional environmental measures—a
move to be avoided if shale gas was to be extracted cheaply and swiftly in
Poland. What we observe in this case is rather a process of de-riskification
of the shale gas issue in Poland through engaging in knowledge p ­ roduction
in order to give the governmental institutions the certainty that nothing
bad can happen when shale gas is produced.
The Łebień Report was translated into English and is available on the
PGI’s website in two languages. The PGI experts presented the results of
their study to the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Brussels in 2013 so the
other European geological services were aware of the existence of this
report. However, as the Polish geologists recall, none of the country rep-
resentatives showed any interest in the report beyond that meeting. No
questions came from German or Dutch colleagues. At the same time,
according to them, the Ministry did not make nearly enough use of the
report in political arenas—not in Poland, in international relations with
other European countries or with the EU institutions in Brussels. Some
Polish MEPs asked questions in the European Parliament inquiring why
the reports had not been used in the shale gas debate at the EU level.
However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did use some parts of the
research results, particularly on seismicity, in order to prove that there
were no seismic risks in Poland.12
In the summer of 2013, the PGI presented results from the studies
carried out in seven other locations. However, for security reasons, the
names of drilling sites were classified by a governmental security agency.
This can be seen as yet another securitising move. The PGI experts were
not able to obtain any clarification for this extraordinary measure, which
made it difficult for them to conduct their fieldwork. While collecting
102  A. Lis

soil and water samples in the studied locations, they were not able to
explain to the local people what they were doing and for what purpose.
This gave rise to even more distrust around their activities and people
started to suspect that the government was doing something to extract
shale gas in secret and against the wishes of its citizens.13 Five of the stud-
ied locations were declassified only at the end of 2015 before a conference
in Brussels took place, at which the reports were presented to the European
public. This de-securitising move was thus taken, not in front of the
Polish citizens or in relation to them, but in front of the European public.
It was the EU that the government found most important to present the
research findings to. In fact, as the PGI experts explained, it would make
little sense to discuss results from a local empirical study without giving
the names of the locations.
This time, the reports proved crucial for the work of the Ministry of
the Environment which “was taking the PGI reports everywhere it went
and was referring to their results in each and every discussion about shale
gas regulations”.14 One of the main PGI experts pointed out that the PGI
studies are of unique value in Europe, maybe even in the world, because
they show “what we really know about the impacts of shale gas explora-
tion”.15 In some of the locations, the impacts were measured against the
baseline study—that is a study carried out before any hydraulic fracturing
operations were authorised. No such study has ever been done in the
USA, which makes it difficult to actually measure the impact of hydraulic
fracturing on the environment there. The Polish studies also contributed
important data to the work of an expert Network on Unconventional
Hydrocarbons that was created by the European Commission in Brussels
in the second half of 2014. The data collected by PGI, and the analysis
carried out in these reports, were used in the final report of the Network.
In all these instances, we can see that the data collected and the analysis
carried out by the PGI were used to de-riskify the issue of shale gas,
mainly at the EU level. The Polish governmental officials connected the
strategy of securitisation—of taking extraordinary measures to protect
prospects for shale gas exploitation from additional hurdles of environ-
mental regulations at the EU level and from the interference of the hos-
tile citizens’ groups—with the de-riskification measure in order to show
that everything is absolutely fine when you drill and frack in Poland.
 4  Politics and Knowledge Production: Between Securitisation...    103

The Ministry of the Economy also used the PGI reports in its own
work. For this Ministry, as with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, issues of
energy security and market competitiveness were of prime importance.
However, here the discourse of energy security was less politicised and
more looked at from the market perspective. One could say that even
“security jargon” was less deployed by the Economy Ministry’s officials.
The interviewed staff members were of the opinion that the more gas that
is produced domestically and the more gas there is in general on the mar-
kets, the better it is for the security of energy supplies in Poland.16 One
can see that energy security is not defined here against any perceived
threats but rather as a function of a fluid market. At the same time, the
Ministry used the PGI reports to prevent any riskification. According to
the Ministry, these were important analyses that showed that shale gas
extraction was safe. Moreover, the value of the PGI reports was seen in
the fact that they were the only ones that were based on empirical mea-
surements. This made them “reliable and reflecting the reality”.17 The
other European reports, according to the Ministry’s experts, were based
on prognoses, on assumptions and risk assessments—they did not reveal
anything about the reality because no country other than Poland was
actually doing something in the ground and measuring the impacts. No
one was drilling and thus no one was able to measure the impacts of drill-
ing and hydraulic fracturing on the environment. According to the offi-
cials, all the fears about water pollution and fracking fluids leaking into
drinking water reservoirs were laid to rest in the PGI’s studies. “And we
have the scientific proofs for that, the only ones in Europe”.18 This argu-
mentation shows again, quite clearly, that de-riskification was backed up
by the PGI reports, by the facts that were produced there, and that it was
directed against any additional environmental measures that could come
from the EU or any hostile actions from environmental groups.
Another important moment that revealed the distinction the Polish
government made between measured facts and hypothesised risks, in
order to de-riskify shale gas exploration, came in 2014. At that time, the
government had just passed a regulation that raised the obligation to
carry out an environmental impacts assessment study (EIA) for boreholes
up to 5,000 metres deep. An EIA is required in the EU before any deep
drilling is carried out by a company. According to the European
104  A. Lis

Commission, a “deep” borehole is one that extends beyond 1,000 metres.

Not only does the EIA have to analyse the potential impacts of mining
activities in a given area, but the EIA report also has to be made available
to the general public for consultation before it is accepted by the public
administration. It is thus not only a risk assessment but also an exercise in
public consultation as it grants citizens the access to environmental infor-
mation. The PGI was consulted about this piece of legislation as well.
And even though a consensus was not reached among the PGI experts,
the official explanation for taking the 5,000 metres level as the borderline
below which an EIA is mandatory, maintained the judgement was
grounded in “facts”. One PGI expert explained that, back in socialist
times, companies drilled all over Poland. From those years, mainly the
1960s and 1970s, the PGI has a rich collection of documented drills
from over 16,000 locations. These drills are over 1,000 metres deep and,
based on this documentation, it is fairly well known what the Polish geol-
ogy is like. “We really do know what to expect down to 5,000 meters
underground. Beyond that level, however, we can expect some surprises,
we have to start theorizing about the geology beneath that level”.19
However, the European Commission did not accept this legislative deci-
sion taken by the Polish government. The Commission sued the Polish
government for raising the mandatory EIA for deep boreholes. The case
is currently in the European Court of Justice and no ruling has been
made so far (August 2017).

5  hale Gas in Germany: A Risk Assessment

S
Approach to the Environmental Impacts
of Fracking
At a time when it had still not been decided whether drilling for shale gas
would be allowed in Germany, ExxonMobil, one of the global oil & gas
companies interested in German shale gas, launched a consultation pro-
cess with stakeholders and experts in order to assess potential health and
environmental risks related to shale gas extraction. The process started in
April 2011 and ended with an extensive report published in April 2012.
 4  Politics and Knowledge Production: Between Securitisation...    105

The investigation revolved around water safety. First, a wide number of

questions were collected from citizens, municipalities and water compa-
nies and a review of the existing studies carried out. A study visit to the
USA was made in order to talk to the affected communities and the
competent authorities there. The work was carried out by the company’s
specialists and then reviewed by the German and international experts to
evaluate its robustness and scientific quality. From the very start,
ExxonMobil assigned itself a role in providing funding for the study and
in supplying data but it refrained from making any comments on the
final report. The panel’s scientific director was Dr. Dietrich Borchardt,
who works at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research—UFZ,
which is the largest environmental research institution in Germany, and
nearly 40 experts were involved in writing the report. On the report’s first
page, the authors admit that their research has revealed the existence of
both serious and minor risks of hydraulic fracturing (Ewen et al. 2012,
p. 3). The other important objective of the expert panel’s work was to
involve the public and to create conditions for a dialogue. At different
stages of the process, different stakeholders were asked to comment on
the methodology, results and questions. The analyses of the expert panel
focused in particular on worst-case scenarios:

i.e. events that are extremely unlikely to occur but which, given the right
confluence of unfortunate circumstances, could in fact occur – for example
continuous underground fault zones that neutralize the compression effect
of geological barriers; critical underground tectonic stress that could poten-
tially damage a hydrofracking well; accidents; technical failures; and human
error. (Ewen et al. 2012, p. 4)

The ExxonMobil expert panel exemplifies a riskifying move with regard

to the shale gas issue in the German context. It is an interesting case
when a private company, the industry, is initiating this move and is
eager to hypothesise about potential risks and worst-case scenarios with-
out having any empirical data to actually test these hypotheses. The
rationale for this approach was that “a technology should only be used if
you’re sure that you can get a handle on the worst scenarios to which
that technology may give rise; and to do that, you need to know these
106  A. Lis

scenarios backward and forward and understand them to the full” (Ewen
et al. 2012, p. 4). In other words, the assumption was that only when
one can be sure about the possibility of the most dreadful scenarios
occurring can a given technology be used. The process of generating
data was not based on conducting empirical measurements but on con-
structing models and on modelling hypothetical data and hypothetical
processes. In the reports, the experts also explained the limitations of
this methodological approach:

While general findings can be obtained through modeling, these results

require validation. Models are particularly useful in cases where quantita-
tive measurements are scarce, or where such measurements would be diffi-
cult to perform – for example for long term safety or very deep underground
areas. Models provide a basis for the formulation of general recommenda-
tions, but in certain cases show that the available information is too meager
to allow for the description of specific effects. Genuinely sound scientific
findings are only obtainable if measurements for a specific site are available
that would close the existing knowledge gap and demonstrate the validity
of a given simulation model. (Ewen et al. 2012, p. 20)

Every section of the report where results were presented had a separate
box entitled “the (possible) shape of things in 2030”, which hinted that
the thinking about shale gas extraction went way beyond the explora-
tion phase. The report offered options for hydrofracking risk manage-
ment, including monitoring, safety management, criteria for chemical
selection, liability and accountability and statutory considerations. The
recommendation section started with a statement that recommenda-
tions were conditional on a political decision to extract shale gas in
Germany but the report did not discuss whether such a decision was
likely. The recommendations involved excluding hydrofracking in
selected areas, taking a slow and careful approach using various moni-
toring techniques, social dialogue with stakeholder groups, regional
management, strengthening and improving the hydrofracking regula-
tions and more research and development (Ewen et al. 2012, pp. 55–62).
However, it was stated clearly that shale gas is seen as a viable option for
Germany by ExxonMobil, though no reference to energy security was
made.
 4  Politics and Knowledge Production: Between Securitisation...    107

The work of the expert panel was thus not about producing empirical
observations based on real-life situations in order to conclude whether a
technology can be safely used, but rather about producing hypothetical
scenarios and assessing the robustness of the existing regulations and
institutions to be able to deal with these worst-case situations. This con-
forms to the logic of riskification which demands special measures be
taken to increase the robustness of regulative frameworks and institutions
in order to safeguard environmental and public health. According to an
energy expert in the Bundestag, there was broad social and political con-
sensus that, despite the long history of fracking in Germany, should any
new knowledge about the risks of hydraulic fracturing come to light, new
regulations had to be put into place.20
For a short time, for less than a month at the beginning of 2013, the
new government of Angela Merkel planned legislation that would allow
hydraulic fracturing outside of wetland areas. However, the severe cri-
tique that came from the opposition, as well as the governing parties and
NGOs, made the chancellor change her mind and a moratorium on
fracking was put in place. One of the impulses for the revival of the dis-
cussion on shale gas in Germany in 2014 was the war in Ukraine. It
might have been the only moment in the German debate when concerns
about energy security were raised in relation to shale gas.21 However, con-
trary to the Polish case where I specified securitising moves that involved
extraordinary political measures, in this instance, we can rather speak of
the prevalence of security jargon. No unusual measures were proposed,
nor introduced in Germany under the circumstances of the Ukrainian
war. In general, according to our interviewee from the Bundestag, it was
always very unlikely that shale gas was going to be produced on commer-
cial scale in Germany. The simple reason was that German policymakers
do not seem to see much need for this gas and it is not perceived as
important for Germany’s energy security. It was also known that various
fracturing technologies for unconventional gas have already been used in
Germany to exploit tight gas.22
The work on the shale gas legislation started soon after the moratorium
was passed. The debate divided the political scene in Germany over various
topics. There was, however, a general feeling that the conditions for passing
the regulation were very difficult as it was about regulating something that
108  A. Lis

the majority of the society did not want at all.23 Heavy lobbying took place
by the German oil & gas producers associated in WEG (Association of
German Oil and Gas Producers) who were against any strict environmen-
tal and safety standards appearing in the shale gas law.24 The main issues of
debate around the proposed legislation concerned the safety of drinking
water reservoirs and the division of competence between the federal gov-
ernment and the Land government. The main stakeholder concerned with
drinking water safety was the German environmental NGO, NABU
(Naturschutzbund Deutschland). Demands to guarantee that there were
no risks, especially to the drinking water, were also made by trade unions,
for example, IGBCE25 and also the SPD.26 Several Lands introduced their
own moratoriums on using hydraulic fracturing despite the fact that if the
federal law came into effect, it would override the regional bans. Therefore,
the Lands were lobbying for the opt-out clause to be included in the law,
in case they stood against the federal government’s decision. However,
since mining licences are issued by Land governments, a Land can prevent
shale gas exploration from happening on its territory anyway. Though not
bereft of controversies, heated debates and political bargaining, the general
political move made by the German political parties was to riskify the shale
gas issue. With the legislation, riskification went beyond mere jargon, and
involved crafting a new institutional order for protecting the environment
and the people.
Another important point in the debate on shale gas legislation in the
Parliament concerned the question of whether the Parliament itself
should be responsible for demanding more scientific research on shale
gas or whether a separate expert body should be created for this purpose.
The worry concerned the possibility that the scientific committee might
overrule Lands’ decisions on permitting or disallowing future fracking
operations. The debate centred on the issue of how much input Parliament
and Land governments should have in such decisions. The conclusion
arrived at was that there should be a commission of experts established
and that the Parliament is not an authority in scientific matters related to
shale gas extraction. The commission would comprise the Umweltamt
experts, WEG representatives and other established professionals from
environmental institutions and research centres. This only strengthened
 4  Politics and Knowledge Production: Between Securitisation...    109

the riskification of shale gas, as a special measure/body was established in

order to evaluate potential risks and the knowledge about them.
In June 2016, the law was finally passed. The law banned any produc-
tion of shale gas and oil. In the first draft, hydraulic fracturing at levels
deeper than 3,000 metres was allowed. In the finished piece of legislation,
even this was banned. Four test drills for using hydraulic fracturing are
planned, however. They will study the environmental impacts of fracking
and permission for drilling will be given by the Bundesland in the Land
where this operation is supposed to take place. Moreover, experts from
public authorities and research institutions will monitor the test sites and
provide annual reports to the German Bundestag. In 2021, the Bundestag
will reassess whether the ban on unconventional hydraulic fracturing
should continue. To ensure transparency, the reports of the expert com-
mission will be published online.

6 Discussion and Conclusion
The shale gas issue seems to have brought to light some big differences
between Poland’s and Germany’s approaches to gas supply as well as to
their attitudes towards techno-scientific development more generally.
This can be clearly shown through the concepts of securitisation, security
jargon, riskification and their opposites. While for the Polish govern-
ment, prospects of domestic shale gas production were immediately
inscribed into the discourse of energy security and granted high priority,
for the German government, shale gas was not seen as an important con-
tributor to the security of energy supply. Thus, while the Polish debate
revolved around the issues of energy security and economic prospects, in
Germany it very quickly honed in on environmental risks. However,
what one could see through this analysis was that Polish and German
shale gas politics was not merely about the debate and issue framing; it
also involved taking measures to protect particular objects against per-
ceived threats. In Poland, the government chose to protect the prospects
for shale gas exploration, the hope, the dream, the future security of
energy supplies, against potential enemies. These enemies—the identified
110  A. Lis

threats—were the environmental regulations that could come from the

European Commission and the protest actions of particular citizen
groups, such as environmental NGOs and anti-fracking community
groups.
Interestingly, even though the media discourse tended to frame Russia
and Gazprom as threatening shale gas extraction, no extraordinary mea-
sures were taken up in order to protect Polish interests against the Russian
threat. In this case, we can speak of security jargon—the Russian threat
was potential and hard to substantiate and pin down to particular actors,
events or processes. On the other hand, in this security jargon, through
speech acts, everything could become a Russian conspiracy: environmen-
tal NGOs, community protests, European Commission legislation.
Simultaneously, the government strived hard to de-riskify the shale gas
issue. Environmental and health safety that could be proven and empiri-
cally measured was an important part of the strategy to head off any
additional environmental legislation. In order to achieve this, the govern-
ment needed “hard facts” and the PGI was the institution to produce
them.
In Germany, on the other hand, one could observe how the govern-
ment and the companies chose to politicise and riskify the issue. The
ExxonMobil expert panel showcased the right approach to environmen-
tal risk assessment for shale gas and to public engagement in technology
assessment for the whole EU. Instead of shielding the debate on shale gas
from the public, as Polish government did (by, for example, classifying
information on sampling locations), the German business and political
actors opened the debate to the public. At the same time, the acknowl-
edgement of the existence of risks was not limited to a political state-
ment. It was also supported by studies, by building worse-case scenarios
and by analysing the robustness of the German regulatory and institu-
tional systems.
What this analysis has shown is thus not only two different directions
in hydrocarbon politics (unconventional) in Poland and Germany but
also that each country’s policy choice—to explore or to ban—was under-
pinned by different types of knowledge production and different epis-
temic regimes (Jasanoff 2005) that determine the kind of knowledge that
will be perceived as viable and valuable for the State’s political choices.
 4  Politics and Knowledge Production: Between Securitisation...    111

German debates on techno-scientific development very often focused on

risks, not only on the purely technical risks but also on more complex
socio-technical risks. For example, Chancellor Merkel established an eth-
ical committee to discuss the risks of the German energy transition—
Energiewende. The committee comprised trade union representatives,
philosophers, representatives of the Protestant Church, social scientists
and only two people connected to business. The main objective of this
committee was to discuss whether any risks, beyond the technical ones,
exist and, if so, is German society willing to take them? At the same time,
as my interviewee, who was a part of this committee, pointed out, any
outcome of such a debate cannot be an absolute decision. It is only the
result of a debate within a given society and it cannot be extended to
other societies. For example, French society might prefer nuclear power
(Interview 3, Berlin, June 2016). No such committee, or even a tempo-
rary panel on the socio-technical risks of techno-scientific projects, has
ever been established in Poland. The notions of risk and ethics are absent,
or at best marginal, in the Polish debates on techno-science (Mucha
2009). Also, the need for more research that was identified by some of my
interviewees did not actually point to measuring the environmental
impacts in particular localities but was rather about studying whether it
is possible to exclude any risks. The ethical dilemma is a different ques-
tion that implies a different perspective and methodology for scientific
inquiry than the ones presented in Poland. While the Polish governmen-
tal and scientific institutions focused their efforts on collecting evidence
from drilling sites, their German counterparts wanted to analyse whether
the risks can be managed within the existing legal systems.
Another substantial difference in the approaches to shale gas develop-
ment in Poland and Germany could be seen in the way the two
­governments regarded the role of the public. While the Polish govern-
ment decided to classify the names of the drilling sites at which the PGI
scientists carried out their measurements, in Germany the debate was
open to the public. The research sites in Poland were classified for security
reasons and, for example, the ExxonMobil expert panel was open to
interventions and contributions from the public and stakeholders. Also
in the law passed by the Bundestag, future reports on environmental
impacts were supposed to be open to public and freely accessible on the
112  A. Lis

internet. This shows that securitisation of shale gas in Poland was imple-
mented in opposition to possible threats coming from Polish citizens,
different stakeholder groups and communities. The state saw these actors
as threatening shale gas development in Poland, which was considered a
security issue at the highest level of the state. This indicates the impor-
tance of further reflection about the level of trust Polish state institutions
have towards their country’s citizens in areas such as energy policy.

Notes
1. One project, titled “Towards a common European energy policy?
Debates on energy security in Poland and in Germany”, was financed by
the Polish-German Science Foundation and the other, titled “Shale gas
as a new challenge for Europe: Re-thinking the role of expertise in
European integration processes”, was financed by the Polish National
Science Centre, project number UMO-2013/11/D/HS6/04715. I
would like to thank all the interviewees for offering their time and
expertise.
2. In Poland: Gazeta Wyborcza (daily), Rzeczpospolita (daily), Polityka
(weekly) and Wirtualny Nowy Przemysł (business monthly); in Germany:
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (daily), Süddeutsche Zeitung (daily), Der
Spiegel (weekly), Die Zeit (weekly).
3. According to the latest data (May 2013), there is 145.8 trillion cubic feet
of unproved technically recoverable wet shale gas https://www.eia.gov/
analysis/studies/worldshalegas/
4. According to the latest data (May 2013), there are 17 trillion cubic feet
of unproved technically recoverable wet shale gas https://www.eia.gov/
analysis/studies/worldshalegas/
5. Interview 1, expert in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Warsaw, May
2015.
6. Interview 1, expert in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Warsaw, May
2015.
7. Interview 1, expert in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Warsaw, May
2015.
8. Interview 1, expert in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Warsaw, May
2015.
 4  Politics and Knowledge Production: Between Securitisation...    113

9. Interview 2, expert in the Polish Geological Institute, Warsaw, September

2015.
10. Interview 2, expert in the Polish Geological Institute, Warsaw September
2015.
11. Interview 2, expert in the Polish Geological Institute, Warsaw, September
2015.
12. Interview 1, expert in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Warsaw, May
2015.
13. Interview 3, expert in the Polish Geological Institute, Warsaw, September
2015.
14. Interview 3, expert in the Polish Geological Institute, Warsaw, September
2015.
15. Interview 3, expert in the Polish Geological Institute, Warsaw, September
2015.
16. Interview 4, experts in the Ministry of the Economy, Warsaw, May 2015.
17. Interview 4, experts in the Ministry of the Economy, Warsaw, May 2015.
18. Interview 4, experts in the Ministry of the Economy, Warsaw, May 2015.
19. Interview 3, expert in the Polish Geological Institute, Warsaw, September
2015.
20. Interview 5, energy expert at IGBCE, Berlin, June 2016.
21. Interview 7, energy expert in the Bundestag, Berlin, May 2015.
22. Interview 6, energy expert in the Bundestag Berlin, May 2015.
23. Interview 6, energy expert in the Bundestag, Berlin, May 2015.
24. Interview 6, energy expert in the Bundestag, Berlin, May 2015.
25. Interview 5, energy expert at IGBCE, Berlin, June 2016.
26. Interview 7, energy expert in the Bundestag, Berlin, May 2015.

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Cotton, Matthew, Imogen Rattle, and James Van Alstine. 2014. Shale Gas
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 5
Energy Security and Energy Transition:
Securitisation in the Electricity Sector
Kacper Szulecki and Julia Kusznir

1 Introduction
Ageing infrastructure, technological innovation as well as the need to
tame energy sector carbon dioxide emissions to protect the climate—all
these are pushing national energy systems towards some kind of a transi-
tion. In the early twenty-first century, “energy transition” or “transforma-
tion” has become shorthand for increased penetration of renewable

This publication has been prepared as part of the research project “Towards a common European
energy policy? Energy security debates in Poland and Germany,” financially supported by the
German-Polish Science Foundation. The authors would like to express their gratitude to Karol
Dobosz and Bartosz Gruszka for their assistance with interviews, as well as Julia Szulecka for her
help with a gap-filling media analysis. We would also like to thank Aleh Cherp for his helpful
feedback.

K. Szulecki (*)
University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
J. Kusznir
Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany

© The Author(s) 2018 117

K. Szulecki (ed.), Energy Security in Europe, Energy, Climate and the Environment,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1_5
118  K. Szulecki and J. Kusznir

energy sources, very often dispersed, and contrasted with the centralised
fossil-based systems of the past. What remains somewhat ­under-­researched
are the security implications of that shift (Månsson 2016; Nie and Yang
2016).
This chapter provides a comparative empirical analysis of security-­
related debates in two neighbouring countries—Germany and Poland.
The theme of energy transition becomes central because we focus our
attention on key elements of that shift: renewable energy as well as grids
and nuclear. “New” renewables are perceived as the technology of the
future, on which decarbonised systems will be based (Szulecki 2015),
while cross-border interconnectors are absolutely vital for regional energy
governance and using geographic synergies to maximise the benefits of
renewable-based generation. However, they are also a particularly politi-
cally sensitive type of electricity infrastructure (Puka and Szulecki 2014b).
On the other hand, nuclear is in many contexts described as their main
low-carbon competitor, but raises other important environmental
concerns.
What unites these issue areas is that they are all elements of the electric
power system.1 Energy security studies have usually remained disinter-
ested in electricity, which is somewhat surprising, given that the power
sector is arguably the most vital energy system in modern societies. The
ultimate threat to the system—a blackout, that is a sudden power outage
covering a city, a region or possibly an entire national electric system—
may have various negative effects for core services, including healthcare,
transport, heating/cooling, and so on.
The 1977 New  York blackout completely paralysed this megacity,
necessitated the evacuation of the subway, blocked road tunnels (due to
the lack of ventilation) and cut communication, also for the fire depart-
ment and the police, which resulted in several fires and an eruption of
lawlessness, including riots and mass looting. The 2003 Northeast black-
out had broader repercussions, covering several US states as well as the
Canadian province of Ontario. With the vital electricity system down,
the spontaneous switch to candles as a source of light during the night is
reported to have caused some 3000 fires, while the power outage itself
contributed to doubling the usual number of emergency calls and a dozen
directly related fatalities. In November 2006, a seemingly routine event
 5  Energy Security and Energy Transition: Securitisation...    119

in Lower Saxony—the passage of a cruise ship under a high-voltage trans-

mission line, which had to be switched off for that purpose, caused chaos
throughout Western Europe leaving millions of people without power
(Kemfert 2013). In a more international context, closer to the usual
interests of Security Studies, the Crimea blackout of November 2015
caused a complete power cut from mainland Ukraine to the Russian-­
annexed peninsula—resulting in claims that electricity has been used as
an “energy weapon” (Bråten 2017).
The uniqueness of system-wide power outages is in their sudden char-
acter—leaving the population largely unprepared—and the crosscutting,
all-encompassing nature of electricity in modern (post)industrial societ-
ies. In some situations, faced with a power outage, people have no alter-
native sources of energy and have to cease economic activity, resign from
mobility and do without important services. It is therefore quite clear
that a power outage is a security problem, affecting not just particular
populations, but also important values (compare: Cherp and Jewell
2014). Due to its ability to sustain vital services closely associated with
important human values, the power system might be the most important
one to protect in many modern developed states.
How is security discussed in relation to the power sector in the context
of an ongoing (or pending) energy transition? Which elements of the
electricity sector are securitised, why and by whom? What is the interplay
of risk and security discourses in the complex technological discussion,
for example, relating to distributed renewables and nuclear? We look at
Germany and Poland to shed light on these issues. This chapter does not
have the ambition to be comprehensive in discussing the problem of elec-
tric power security and securitisation. It does, however, signal some
observations which can be used in future studies.
Applying the theoretical framework drawing on the Copenhagen
School’s securitisation model (as laid out in Chap. 2), we analysed the
way security concerns are articulated in each of these closely connected
but nonetheless separate issue areas. Our evidence comes from interviews
and a broad media research, as well as a desktop analysis of secondary
sources. Forty-seven semi-structured interviews were conducted with
state representatives, including the members of the Polish Sejm, the
German Bundestag and the Ministries of Economy and Foreign Affairs,
120  K. Szulecki and J. Kusznir

energy companies, energy experts and environmental NGOs in Warsaw

and Berlin between February 2015 and January 2016. The goal of the
interviews was to probe relevant policymakers and experts on their per-
spectives on energy security, and tracing elements of securitised discourses
related to the energy sub-sectors as well as the suspected acceptability of
securitising moves. This provided some additional depth to the board
media analysis, which covered 3236 hits in over 1000 articles published
by 9 major newspapers in Germany and Poland. Country experts coded
these hits for the elements of the securitisation model present (e.g. threat,
referent object, measures proposed) allowing for comparison and survey-
ing the general “public debate” on security in these issue areas.
Drawing on these two data-gathering methods, we discovered that
energy “securitisation” seems to be a mechanism pulling in quite different
directions in Germany and Poland (and in these three areas). We find
that in Poland, a link between energy policy and national (in)security
makes energy policy debates regarding the power sector and energy tran-
sition unique. Discussions around renewables not only focus on pro-­
security arguments and systemic risks—as is the case in Germany—but
also contain a national security thread related to notions of energy autar-
chy as well as economic sovereignty undermined by imported technolo-
gies, materials and know-how, and additionally cross-border energy
exchange. Debates around nuclear resemble those about shale gas (as
described by Lis (Chap. 4) in this volume), where German riskification of
nuclear reactor operation is met in Poland with arguments about energy
independence and national security.

2  ackground: Polish and German

B
Electricity Sectors
For a long time, Poland and Germany followed a similar path of develop-
ment in the area of energy, both benefiting from rich domestic coal
endowments. While in the 1950s and 1960s both Polish and German
scientists and engineers experimented with nuclear reactors, it was only
the German Democratic Republic (GDR - East Germany) that moved to
 5  Energy Security and Energy Transition: Securitisation...    121

the phase of large-scale industrial civilian use of atomic power (with the
Rheinsberg Nuclear Power Plant). The Federal Republic of Germany
(FRG - West Germany) soon followed suit, and after the reunification,
only Western reactors were kept operational, seen as technologically more
advanced and reliable.
At the beginning of the 1990s, Germany generated over 68% of
electricity from fossil fuels, mainly lignite, and further 28% from
nuclear power plants, adding up to 96%. In Poland, 98% of the power
was generated in coal-fired power plants  (IEA 2013,  2016). In both
cases the role of renewable energy sources (RES) was minimal, and so
the systems—even if based on different generation technologies—were
governed in a similar way: centralised and founded on large, industrial
power plants.
However, over the following two decades the share of electricity gen-
eration from renewable sources has increased in both countries. As for
2015, it was up top 14% in Poland (IEA 2017a) and 31% in Germany
while the IEA average equalled 24% (IEA 2017b). Merely focusing on
an increased share of energy from renewable sources in the power mix
does not show the full picture as the kinds of renewable energies devel-
oped in each of these countries and their impact on the energy sector
was very different. In Germany, the increase in the RES production
resulted mainly from the development of wind and solar  photovol-
taic (PV) energy, which led to the development of a brand new sector of
the economy (around wind and PV manufacturing and installation),
with several hundred thousand new jobs and an annual turnover of
almost 17 billion euro (AEE 2017). In the case of Poland, over a half of
the energy acquired from formally renewable sources came either from
biomass co-firing in coal-fired power plants, or from large hydroelectric
plants built before the 1990s (IEA 2016: 97), leaving “new renewables”
as only an addition. Onshore wind energy has seen some significant
growth, but remains at the level of 11 TWh or 7% of total electricity
generation (IEA 2016: 97).
These differences can be seen as both the result and an additional fac-
tor causing the divergence in energy security perceptions. In the Polish
political discourse, the idea of coal as the country’s “black gold” and the
foundation of energy interdependence is quite prominent (Sutowski
122  K. Szulecki and J. Kusznir

2015). It is not unfounded, as Poland has one of the lowest levels of

import dependence in Europe. In 2013, it imported 25.8% of energy
resources (EU average—53%). Germany in turn has been used to energy
imports for many years and prefers to use its geographical centrality to
maintain the role of an energy hub, which builds its energy security on
exchange, interdependence, and abundance.
As a result, Polish energy policy has for years been constructed on the
need to safeguard coal and the system in which it plays a crucial role. In
that centralised paradigm, the construction of a nuclear power plant has
been seen as both an element of energy diversification and a strategy for
decarbonisation which does not interfere with the way the system is
organised and governed (centrally and with large, stable, conventional
baseload). Germany’s 2011 Atomausstieg—the decision to phase out
nuclear by 2022—stands in stark contrast to Poland’s declared nuclear
ambitions.
Distributed renewable energy generation is seen as a radically different
kind of energy source, and meets important opposition. Germany’s ongo-
ing Energiewende—with its visible successes in terms of the scale of wind
and PV installation deployment, but also important questions about
costs, system stability and the impact on the political economy of the
energy sector (e.g. the large financial losses of the incumbent utilities)—is
a double lesson, showing what can be achieved but also what decision-­
makers and stakeholders might want to avoid (Ancygier and Szulecki
2014).
Finally, both Germany and Poland experience problems with the exist-
ing electricity infrastructure (Puka and Szulecki 2014a). In Poland, the
transmission and distribution grids are in poor condition, undercapital-
ised and in many regions too scarce to serve the population and the indus-
try. In Germany, the decades of separation between the West and the East
are still visible, as the few existing links between the former GDR and
FGR resemble interconnectors between separate national systems. This
becomes a growing problem in the context of expanding renewable
deployment—often in areas of low population density and poorer power
infrastructure. Combined with a trading system that does not reflect
actual power flow possibilities—having not only Brandenburg and Bavaria
in the same bidding zone, but also Badenia and Austria—this results in
 5  Energy Security and Energy Transition: Securitisation...    123

frequent uncontrolled electricity “loop flows” where German power moves

from North-East to the South through the Polish grid (Ibidem).
The following sections try to separate energy security debates in two
sub-sectors of the power system. First are renewables—which are per-
ceived quite differently in the two neighbouring countries, and then the
debates about nuclear energy and its possible future role, which is a real
bone of contention between Poland and Germany.

3 Renewables: Threat or Security Solution?

There is a very deep contrast between the way renewable energy is por-
trayed in Poland and Germany. The German media discussions of energy
issues are quite extensive—it is probably safe to say that they go beyond
the usual level of public interest in such technical issues in Europe. In our
media analysis of key outlets between 2006 and 2014, we identified 1457
instances in which energy security in the power sector was discussed. A
small number of these has included securitising moves or security jargon,
and identified threats. The two threats mentioned most often were: cli-
mate change/CO2 emissions (29) and renewable intermittency (29).
These two threats are linked with two distinct sets of referent objects.
It is clear that climate change is a threat for both society and the environ-
ment. The intermittency of renewables (here meaning wind and solar),
on the other hand, is an objective characteristic of that energy source,
questioning the reliability of energy supply for the society and economy.
Intermittency is of course an issue both as the cause of potential energy
shortages (when “the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine”),
but also of energy surplus. In June 2014, a hot and sunny summer put
significant pressure on European power systems, when some conven-
tional plants (coal and nuclear) had to be taken offline due to high tem-
peratures and lack of water, while at the same time renewables increased
their share.

Electricity grid operators speak of a “special challenge”… due to the holi-

days the consumption of electricity is likely to fall to the lowest value of the
year. At the same time, because of the bright sunshine, the solar systems
124  K. Szulecki and J. Kusznir

press almost all their power into the grid … No one can speak of blackout
risks. But the electricity grid operators are preparing themselves with a
series of precautions for the exceptional situation which is now recurring
annually. “Such a weather situation is a challenge for the network opera-
tors,” said a spokeswoman for Tennet. (Wetzel 2014)

Overall, however, renewables are seen as a solution to energy security

challenges more than their source. All our interviewees saw them as a
means to improve the German energy security significantly and therefore
very important. The rationality was the role of renewables in reducing the
use of conventional sources and more importantly, the German depen-
dency on imports of fossil fuels. Despite the relatively high investment
costs, the fact that they generate no additional fuel costs was pointed out,
together with a justification focussing on economic innovation and job
creation.
The decentralisation of the energy system was portrayed as an asset,
adding to its resilience—and while intermittency is an important issue,
our respondents noted that there was no renewable-related blackout so
far, and that the system is stable despite increasing renewable penetration.
“In the entire history of the Energiewende, there was not a single major
blackout. The networks work, the necessary balancing also works. … and
it doesn’t look as if there is now a problem in the near future, but rather
that Germany is pushing ahead with innovations.”2
This is not to say that renewables are presented as unproblematic. A
major issue is the lack of sufficient energy storage—and the expansion of
flexible pumped-storage hydro plants, for example, in the Alps, creates a
set of economic and environmental problems of its own (Frank 2006).
Another issue is problems with transmission—including “loop flows”
through neighbouring countries’ power systems. These issues are sig-
nalled both by the interlocutors and numerous newspaper articles (29
discussing grid weakness and 23 mentioning negative impacts on
neighbours).
What is important is that renewables and the energy transition towards
a renewable-based system is not securitised. The issue is certainly high on
the political agenda, and technical arguments meet societal and economic
questions. Importantly, costs and energy prices are raised as a problem to
 5  Energy Security and Energy Transition: Securitisation...    125

be addressed, with German industrial competitiveness at stake. These

issues get more attention than technical vulnerabilities (111 mentions of
market-related threats). As a representative of German Trade Union
Confederation noted, the electricity prices are high for the German
industry, and they “can’t grow more, not much more for long.”
Consequently, it has a negative impact on the competitiveness of the
German industry.3
The external European environment is presented as an important ele-
ment of the ongoing energy transition—a means of achieving further
energy security and reducing vulnerabilities, rather than a source of
threats. The German respondents evaluated the current EU legal frame-
work as “fairly good” or “neither good nor bad,” praising the efforts
towards policy harmonisation and Europe-wide decarbonisation com-
mitments, but also suggesting that further compromise regarding the
promotion of renewable energy between the various interests, which dif-
fer in Europe, must be found, so that the German Energiewende could
become a European Energiewende. “The energy transition will only be a
success if it is organized Europe-wide”—claimed The Federation of
German Industries (BDI) in its statement on planned EU “winter pack-
age” (BDI 2016). “With the rapid expansion of renewable energies in
Germany, the neighbouring countries are increasingly forced to think
about their own energy markets. And the closer the European electricity
market grows together, the more they will see that it is expensive to invest
in conventional energy sources.”4
In arguments for expanding the energy transition beyond Germany’s
borders, ideas resonating both with a vision of a Europe-wide market and
energy solidarity built on an understanding of the neighbours’ security
concerns can be seen:

[A] European energy supply would benefit the energy security of Germany
and the entire EU. The mix of locally produced electricity and increased
energy efficiency makes a country more independent of imports and inter-
national price shifts. Nowhere can the consequences of energy insecurity be
better observed than in Europe: the Ukraine crisis has reminded the
Europeans painfully how the EU today covers around a third of its gas
needs. If the EU is to tackle energy needs as a step towards a European
126  K. Szulecki and J. Kusznir

energy community to achieve a better negotiating position with Russia and

an integrated energy infrastructure within Europe, it should recognize the
crisis as an opportunity and a vision for sustainable energy policy.5

The Polish discussions of energy security in relation to renewables are

quite different. The media debate is visibly narrower (328 texts overall),
and while “climate policy” is also mentioned as the key threat (27 times),
it is seen in a very different light. It is not so much climate change and
emissions per se, rather EU climate policy which constrains Poland’s
energy choices and puts additional economic pressure on the sector (par-
ticularly the coal-fired plants). Consequently, the EU is second on the list
of threats (10), presented as the source of damaging and ostensibly mis-
guided legislation:

One of the most common and most often reproduced mistakes is the equa-
tion of sustainable energy with the division between ‘dirty’ energy sources –
most often fossil fuels are mentioned here  – and ‘clean’  – usually those
based on wind and sun are pointed out. This dichotomy is absolutely falla-
cious from the point of view of sustainable energy, but it is used by various
lobbies, with the environmentalist lobby at the forefront. The sad conse-
quence is the inscription of this false division into the energy and climate
debates taking place on the EU fore as well as in other international orga-
nizations. (Mayer 2014)

Much of the discussion focusses on costs and potential economic losses

apparently inevitable when a transition from coal to renewables is con-
ducted. The policymakers interviewed were unanimous in their view that
at the country’s current stage of development, an energy mix based on
80–100% renewables is not possible (though the EU framework pro-
poses that level of RE capacity only in 2050), and pointed out that Poland
is meeting its obligations with almost 12% of renewable electricity and
good chances of reaching the 15% target in 2020. Renewable technolo-
gies are perceived as still very expensive and the Polish society is not ready
yet to pay higher bills for electricity.6
A core problem from the perspective of the central government and
legislators is the need to safeguard and only gradually restructure the large
 5  Energy Security and Energy Transition: Securitisation...    127

domestic coal sector. Over 100,000 people are employed in the mining
and coal power sector, the former concentrated mostly in Upper Silesia.
Miner interest groups and unions are perceived to be an important politi-
cal power, opting for the status quo or very conservative energy-sector
reforms (Sutowski 2015).
While the interviewees agreed that RES can play a positive role in
Poland’s energy security, there was also a list of important drawbacks and
disclaimers listed by the politicians. The role of renewables is to be con-
ditional, among other things, on the generation costs, the technology and
whether they are able to fit into the model of the country’s economic and
business development. Germany was pointed out as an example of dis-
ruptive and hasty energy transition which generates not only high costs
but also adverse effects. These include market failures and undermining
broader energy security as large-scale baseload generation and utilities
would be losing their market shares and profits. Arguments were also
heard that some renewable energy technologies are not environmentally
friendly. They can have negative effects, when it comes to ultrasounds
and “they can kill birds.”7 Apart from this, the Polish power network has
not been upgraded due to lack of investment and is not able to transmit
the additional volume of power generated from renewables on a large
scale.
The problem of intermittency, which is also raised in the Polish con-
text, is countered by RES supporters with data and examples of other
systems. Also the argument about grid weakness is turned on its head,
turning renewables into an impulse for modernisation. “In my view the
impact [or RES] can only be positive … They increase the number of
sources in the system, forcing its expansion, reconstruction of old grids,
construction of new nodal points. Renewable energy requires a change
and revolution in the perception of the entire system.”8
It comes as no surprise that a majority of the respondents see EU
renewable energy regulation as “neither good nor bad” or “poor.”
Although the EU grants its Member States considerable freedom in
deciding how to fulfil their obligations, the interviewees expressed the
wish that the EU developed strategies that match the strategic interests of
the Member States better. It has also been pointed out that EU legislation
128  K. Szulecki and J. Kusznir

does not divide renewable sources into stable and unstable or more or less
ecologically harmful.
Perhaps the most important argument, however, merges economic,
legal and foreign policy arguments with elements of security jargon. The
issue of “forced internationalisation” relates to cross-border electricity
trade as well as renewable energy investment. Expansion of new renew-
able energy source, especially wind and solar PV, is portrayed as a new
form of energy dependence, this time on technology, knowhow and
materials (e.g. rare earth minerals).

A negative vision is dominating in the public debate. RES are associated

with high costs, uncertainty regarding stability, the lack of adequate exper-
tise and the lack of technology, concerns regarding the entry of foreign
companies in the Polish market. And so  – generally disadvantages. The
media and politicians emphasize the negative impacts. I don’t see anything
positive.9

It is argued that EU renewable policy, pushing for rapid RES expansion,

is playing into the interests of certain states (i.e. Germany, Denmark,
Spain) at the cost of those that have not developed domestic production
sectors, and that the whole of Europe is becoming increasingly d ­ ependent
on mineral imports from China and South East-Asia (Kwiatkowska-­
Drożdż 2011).
But these national security arguments against increased renewable
deployment are not the only ones which display traces of securitisation.
Interestingly, supporters of renewable energy have been using the lan-
guage of energy security—including securitising moves mimicking those
used by mainstream politicians in debates around natural gas (see
Heinrich (Chap. 3) in this volume). “The ‘energy union’ which Poland
proposed will be a step in the right direction, if it does not limit itself to
the promotion of coal and nuclear. Only renewable energy will guarantee
resilience against another event of energy blackmail on the part of
Russia”—claimed the director of Greenpeace Poland, Maciej Muskat
(Majszyk 2014). In an open letter to the then parliamentary opposition
chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski, under the headline “RES saving from
Russia,” the leaders of Poland’s Greens Adam Ostolski and Olga
 5  Energy Security and Energy Transition: Securitisation...    129

Mielnikiewicz noted that by 2030 “renewables … could supply even up

to 45% of Poland’s primary energy needs. In that scenario there would
still be place for Polish coal, but would squeeze the space for coal and gas
imports from Russia” (2014).
These very strategic securitisation attempts, casting the Polish society
as the referent object, threatened by Russia, propose renewables as extra-­
ordinary measures—disrupting the energy sector’s status quo and neces-
sitating deep and broad reform, but promising to provide security.
Concrete examples of that are already given:

In 2008 we had a so-called blackout in Western Pomerania. There were

power shortages lasting even 6–7 days. Thanks to the fact that there were
two large wind farms on the island of Wolin, the port in Świnoujście could
resume operation. Despite the limited capacity, having it located in strate-
gically important places, we can already see the positive effect on national
energy security.10

It is visible that the environmentalists and RES supporters are borrowing

the well-recognised setup with Russian existential threat for Poland—an
idea established and developed by conservative politicians and gaining
prominence after 2006 (Szulecki 2016). What varies is the specific delimi-
tation of the referent object—which in conservative securitising speech
acts is usually the state (“a political subject behaving in a sovereign fashion,”
see: Naimski 2015: 170), the energy system (understood mostly as an insti-
tutional and economic network of incumbents) or more pompously the
nation. In environmentalist arguments, it is the society and energy consumers
(and prosumers) who are to be protected. This shift allows for a different
set of (extra-ordinary) means to be proposed, and backed with evidence on
systemic vulnerabilities and the options for increasing resilience.
Despite their willingness and ability to talk national security, the pro-­
renewable environmentalists can also become the object of securitisation,
cast as a threat or at least an instrument in the hands of foreign power.
Since the environmentalist agenda is rarely limited to renewables, “greens”
suffer from collateral damage from other issues, such as anti-nuclear or
anti-shale protests. A prominent politician and former MEP, Paweł
Piskorski, spoke openly of a “Russian-environmentalist anti-shale alli-
130  K. Szulecki and J. Kusznir

ance” (Piskorski 2014). On the other hand, in the renewable sector there
are strong implications of working “in the interest of the German state,”
particularly focused on Polish branches of German foundations, like the
Green Heinrich Böll Foundation.

[We] have always followed the activity of German political foundations

with interest. An example is the recent activation of the Böll Foundation,
linked to the Greens, on the Energiewende … The Böll Foundation existed
in Poland before, but hardly anyone knew about it. It started to become
visible on that occasion … And there we have a vast number of confer-
ences, meetings, panels in our country, we have help for our domestic
Greens – in what form, we do not analyse that in detail. [We have] news-
paper articles and meetings with the inhabitants of Pomerania, where the
Polish nuclear power plant is set to be built. [At one meeting] I expressed
my surprise at the fact that I was supposed to express the internal Polish
point of view in the presence of representatives of German foundations. I
respect their work, but you cannot expect to discuss the strategy of the
Polish state with employees of German institutions present … Some Polish
participants were not able to understand that employees of German
­foundations work for the German state … and we should first discuss
things among ourselves.11

This line of thinking is a good illustration of a mechanism which Guzzini

calls a “vicious circle of essentialisation” (2013: 5 and 251). In the context
of a particular security imaginary, all foreign policy interaction begins to
be interpreted in a certain light, in which roles are pre-defined by the
expectations derived from geopolitically essentialised imaginary. This
mechanisms can act together and towards securitisation, even if no spe-
cific security speech act is detectable (compare the discussion in Chap. 6).
The same mechanism is visible in relations with Russia, and also under-
lines an important difference in energy security perceptions between
Germany and Poland. As one Polish energy expert put it: “where the
Germans don’t see any problems, we see only problems.”12 This mecha-
nism corresponds with a more statist stance on energy policy, as con-
trasted with a more market-focused approach (see Szulecki and Westphal
(Chap. 7) in this volume). We found that thinking in statist terms was at
times combined with expressions of acceptability for securitising moves.
 5  Energy Security and Energy Transition: Securitisation...    131

“Energy security,” one civil servant claimed, “means securing enough

energy to provide for the functioning of the economy, the society and
state institutions.” Importantly, however, being positioned in a clearly
market-focussed setting does not mean that acceptability for securitisa-
tion and self-fulfilling geopolitics does not occur. “We are in the middle
of hard negotiations with the German side and this is about national
security”—said the director of the Warsaw Energy Exchange, refusing to
give a scheduled interview to one of the authors due to the latter’s affilia-
tion with a German university.
On the other hand, very strong attempts at de-securitisation can also
come from the neighbouring state administrative institution. This is
something visible in a separate issue area emerging in relation to ­renewable
energy expansion is the problem of uncontrolled transfers of electricity—
so-called loop flows. Though Polish journalists and experts often accuse
the German side of not paying adequate attention to the problem, the
debate on interconnectors and transmission grids is in fact much more
prominent in the German than in the Polish media. Of the 1457 German
media articles referring to the electricity system which were analysed in
our project, 81 mentioned different kind of technical threats to the sys-
tem, mostly inadequate grid, possibility of blackouts and problems
inflicted on neighbouring systems. Much of this is blamed on the
“unmanageable” renewables (at least by the conservative media) (e.g.
Drieschner 2013).
The solution most often given is the simple “negative” one—separate
the two energy systems. Since it is impossible to cut the connection,
phase shifters were installed on the two German-Polish links, under pres-
sure from the Polish transmission system operator. That kind of negative
solution seems to be favoured by politicians far away from the technical
complexity of the power system. The closer we move to actual technical
expertise, the more de-securitised the discourse and the more “positive”
solutions are preferred. “Positive” solutions would include expanding
transmission infrastructure on both sides of the border and adding new
interconnectors. “In an ideal market model, interconnectors serve two
functions—stabilizing national energy systems in case of a technical fail-
ure, and optimizing the use of energy from different sources and direc-
tions”—explained an expert from the Polish Foreign Ministry.13
132  K. Szulecki and J. Kusznir

“Electricity grids are a complex organism, you have to make sure that it
is stable … the larger the network the larger the risk of a system-wide
failure, but then again, it allows for greater flexibility. Interconnectors
increase grid stability”—pointed out a German diplomat.14 The discus-
sions with engineers employed in institutions like the national energy
regulators, transmission system operators of energy and economy minis-
tries moves the discourse beyond de-securitisation, into fully ­depoliticised
realm. “We would not call it threats. Perhaps—challenges”—said a repre-
sentative of the Polish regulator—“on the level of regulators our meetings
[with the German counterparts] have a purely technical and legal charac-
ter, executive. We do not take part in political discussions.”15 The repre-
sentatives of the North-East German transmission system operator,
50Hertz, echoed that desecuritised, technical attitude:

Loop flows cannot be avoided in such a meshed electricity network, which

we have here in Central and Eastern Europe … This is why it is important
to be able to control these loop flows as much as possible. And we are cur-
rently working with our colleagues in Poland to ensure that we are in a
better position to manage these flows without compromising energy secu-
rity or grid safety … We have started to discuss with the Poles in 2012 how
to deal with it and have decided that we must be able to control the flow of
electricity as quickly as possible … We are currently considering how best
to deal with this issue in order to create safe operation and, on the other
hand, to allow the export of electricity to Poland.16

Expansion of interconnectors is, however, difficult for economic and

political reasons, as increased trade would push out the more expensive
sources from the market (cf. Puka and Szulecki 2014a). These used to be
German, but in recent years wholesale energy prices in Poland were con-
sistently higher than those to the west of the Oder.

4 Nuclear Energy: Risk Factor or Stabiliser?

Energy security debates in the nuclear sector conflate discussions of two
separate issues—safety and security. In both Polish and German languages,
the two are expressed by a single word (bezpieczeństwo and Sicherheit,
 5  Energy Security and Energy Transition: Securitisation...    133

respectively). This linguistic note is important insofar as the different

challenges and governance areas of (reactor) safety and (national energy)
security can easily blend into one, when expressed in the same, unifying
concept. That is why the question of threats in the context of nuclear
energy can turn out to be somewhat problematic.
Poland and Germany’s domestic discussions are again quite far apart.
Gradual nuclear phase-out in Germany was on the table since the 1980s,
and the decision to phase out all nuclear by 2020–2022 was taken already
in 2002 by the Red-Green coalition government. It was then watered
down by the conservative Merkel government, but in 2011, in the after-
math of the Fukushima Daiichi accident, the earlier decision to “step-out
of nuclear” (Atomausstieg) was re-confirmed (Cherp et  al. 2017). In
Poland, plans of building a nuclear power plant took concrete shape in
the late 1970s, and in the 1980s construction began at Żarnowiec near
Gdańsk, but was halted in 1990 and a moratorium on nuclear energy was
introduced after years of grassroots societal protest on-site and across the
country (Szulecki et  al. 2015). The idea of building an NPP returned
after 2005 and after 2009 the Polish Nuclear Program was launched,
aimed at constructing two reactors by the mid-2020s, possibly again near
Żarnowiec.
In consequence, national debates on nuclear energy security have very
different departure points. In Germany, concerns over reactor safety mix
with doubts whether nuclear phase-out can be conducted without having
an impact on wider national energy security and whether the environ-
mental security and climate mitigation efforts will not be compromised
by a move to hard coal and lignite baseload generation. In Poland, reactor
safety and nuclear waste are both hypothetical issues, whereas the ratio-
nality of constructing the first nuclear power plant is positioned between
energy independence, modernisation, and economic viability.
“Energy security is the key element of national economic security”—
Donald Tusk claimed in his inaugural exposé as Poland’s Prime Minister in
2007. Soon the nuclear project was framed as a strategic investment and a
crucial solution to the country’s energy security problems. This was con-
firmed by Poland’s Energy Strategy 2030, a roadmap document prepared by
Tusk’s government in 2009, where “Diversifying the structure of energy pro-
duction by introducing nuclear energy” constituted one of the chapters.
134  K. Szulecki and J. Kusznir

Importantly, the referent object of all rhetorical action (not just secu-
rity speech acts) in the pro-nuclear discourse was not so much the society,
nation or state but modernity, or Polish identity as a modern state. This
idea drew on a popular twentieth-century notion that nuclear energy is
the highest achievement of the techno-industrial society, and thus a sign
of progress and keeping up with the modern world (see the notion of
“atomic hype” in the German context, Morris and Jungjohann 2016:
302–7). With a new referent object came new threats. In a risk/safety-­
oriented anti-nuclear discourse, threats are numerous and come from dif-
ferent domains. In the governmental pro-nuclear discourse, the core
threat is the people—either anti-nuclear organisations or the sceptical
society. Of the 221 coded newspaper articles, this is mentioned 20 times,
much more often than any other threat. Internationally, the potential
threat is, again, Germany—due to its recognised anti-nuclear consensus
and the Atomausstieg decision. Indeed, German citizens sent thousands of
letters protesting Poland’s nuclear plans, and the federal government con-
sistently demanded transnational consultations, citing the Aarhus
Convention as the legal justification. “We took this as something of an
interference in our internal affairs”—a civil servant from the Polish
Ministry of the Economy said.17
It must be noted, however, that German societal and political weari-
ness towards neighbouring countries’ nuclear projects is surely not lim-
ited to Poland. In 2016 alone concerns were expressed regarding Britain’s
small-nuclear reactors, and the possibility of an economic race to the
bottom in security standards in these “atomic dwarves” (Seidler and
Schultz 2016); the Belgian Tihange 2 NPP near German borders (Spiegel
Online 2016b); and the French Fessenheim plant, in the case of which it
was the Minister president of Rhineland-Palatinate sending an open let-
ter to the French President Hollande asking for the plant to be shut down
(Spiegel Online 2016a).
In the Polish media, nuclear energy is also presented as an answer to
the country’s energy dependence problems—often in relation to Russia
(though gas and nuclear are not necessarily substitutes in the Polish
energy mix). The fact that nuclear fuel would also have to be imported is
of lesser importance, since “in case of uranium we have many import
directions, and among these ones that are secure, from countries which
 5  Energy Security and Energy Transition: Securitisation...    135

are fellow members of the same defensive and economic alliances …

there is a certain atmosphere in the society, linked to the perception of
the foreign policy situation around our eastern borders, seeing a threat
from that side. This explains the rising support for nuclear energy.”18
The two key problems mentioned in the media discussions are low
societal acceptance of nuclear energy (20 quotes) and mounting invest-
ment costs (25). The Polish government initiated a wide media campaign
which was meant to persuade the relevant societal groups (local commu-
nities and parts of the undecided populace) to support the project and
accept the national security and modernisation rationality (Stankiewicz
2013). It is therefore a rather peculiar situation, in which securitisation
occurs around the nuclear project, where the future nuclear plant is the
referent object to be protected, while societal actors—local communities,
environmental NGOs or the general uninformed public—become the
threats. On the other hand, external threats, such as terrorism, are dis-
missed by nuclear energy experts as exaggerated.
Achieving the goal—constructing Poland’s first nuclear power plant—
requires a number of measures going beyond the usual practice of liberal
democratic politics. In 2012, Tusk nominated his long-term colleague,
Aleksander Grad, for the post of director in PGE’s daughter companies
PGE Nuclear Energy and PGE Nuclear Plant 1. Moving an active politi-
cian to a (partly) private business company created a peculiar personal
public-private union, and the PM justified it by saying that the “state’s
engagement and strict political oversight on nuclear energy development
is absolutely necessary” (Tusk 2012). To the growing concerns about the
project’s economic viability, the Prime Minister replied: “building secu-
rity has to come at a cost and the role of the state is to design market regu-
lation that will minimize economic risks” (Forbes 2013).
But more far-reaching exceptional measures were to be taken against
the project’s potential political opponents. In a strategic document about
the project public communication and PR,19 the relevant audiences were
divided into “friends” and “enemies,” an example of explicit Schmittean
securitised language. A dialogue with “the enemies” is impossible, states
the report, since they have “contradictory interests and goals.” The only
actions that can be taken are “communicative security” for governmental
information campaigns and the “complete elimination” of “enemy” com-
136  K. Szulecki and J. Kusznir

muniques. The recipe for public debate presented in the document is that
“absolutely crucial is to take actions that will eliminate or tame the influ-
ence of enemies on the communicative sphere and will use our friends for
information support and pushing through the positions that we want to
see”  (p. 20). Particularly dangerous “enemies” include environmental
organisations, as well as scientists and journalists sceptical towards the
nuclear project, but having expert authority and good media contacts.
Open debates are to be avoided, because they can “give platform to ardent
nuclear-sceptics” (p. 64). 
If this was not enough, the government also reformed the Nuclear Law
in 2012, giving new powers to the Agency of Internal Security, which
include the possibility of monitoring (e.g. spying on) potential oppo-
nents of the nuclear project, to “protect” it (Czarkowski 2012). If the
director of the Agency interprets an individual’s or organisation’s actions
as a potential threat to the project, defined as a “crisis situation” which
may have terrorist consequences, such measures are justified—calling
into question the possibility of any organised protest against the nuclear
plant’s construction.
Societal mobilisation was indeed considerable, and a “social referen-
dum,” held in 2012 at Mielno, one of the localities earmarked for the
construction of a power plant, saw 94% vote against the plant (with a
57% turnout). This result, the experience of earlier nuclear hopes and the
general feeling of unpredictability of social moods leads to the notion
that “societal participation should not be mythologized.”20
As a representative of the then Dept. of Nuclear Energy in the Economy
Ministry claimed: “a country on the economic rise, especially one like
Poland, cannot afford a relatively expensive investment only because of
whims. There are really serious reasons behind it. One of these reasons is
our conception of energy security, the need to diversify [sources], as well
as the structure of energy production in the power system.”21 The proj-
ect’s rationality and the adequacy of governmental involvement is, how-
ever, questioned—“One sometimes wonders whether this program is
really thought through by the government,” as a lawyer working on
nuclear legislation noted (Łakoma 2011). Project delays and economic
security from societal and national perspectives are cited as important
concerns. “The most fundamental risk is political. The risk of stopping
 5  Energy Security and Energy Transition: Securitisation...    137

the nuclear project at a very advanced stage, the way we’ve seen it in
Żarnowiec [in 1990], where large sums of money was spent and the local
population was left disappointed.”22
In Germany, the nuclear discussion is much more politicised—and
this is reflected in the scale and heat of the media debate (our analysis
featured 1230 articles). In media discussions of energy security in relation
to the nuclear sector, the main challenge with which the Germany’s
energy policy has to cope with is also import dependence (which is actu-
ally higher than Poland’s—mentioned 44 times) but also, importantly,
climate change (41 references). Nuclear energy in this framing becomes
part of the problem, not a solution—introducing security issues of its
own, linked to reactor safety (50 mentions) and nuclear waste manage-
ment (19). Nuclear phase-out in turn raises concerns about costs (27),
potentially rising electricity prices (22), and renewable energy sources
volatility (14), compromising the energy system stability (6).
While Germany (East and West) began its nuclear energy adventure
during the European “atomic hype” years, it also quickly developed a
strong domestic opposition movement (Morris and Jungjohann 2016:
303–5). It had dual roots—one was environmental and emphasised the
risks of accidents and problems with used nuclear fuel storage. The
other—coming from the peace movement—argued that nuclear energy
is inherently connected with nuclear weapons. According to that line of
thinking, “nuclear physicists needed to believe in the blessings of peace-
ful atoms to protect their elite status, let the world see them as hench-
men of death” (Radkau and Hahn quoted in Morris and Jungjohann
2016: 303).
The Three Mile Island accident in 1979, the Chernobyl catastrophe in
1986 and finally the incident at Fukushima Daiichi all had impacts on
the public perception of nuclear and gradually undermined the future of
this sector in Germany. Already in 1974 societal protests against new
plants and the occupation of building sites turned violent, with the pro-
testers portrayed as “anarchists and leftist extremists” by the authorities.
The campaigns, however, proved successful, and the Green Party which
emerged as the institutionalised political force building on earlier dis-
persed environmental and peace dissent, made it to the Bundestag, bring-
ing nuclear phase-out onto the political agenda for good.
138  K. Szulecki and J. Kusznir

The decision taken in 2011 to shut down all nuclear, reversing earlier
policy of the Merkel government which planned to water down the
phase-out, came as something of a shock for the established players on
the energy market. This rapid energy transition, dubbed Blitzwende, was
discussed in terms of risks if not threats to national energy security. A
journalist claimed that “behind closed doors, power sector experts were
not talking about whether a blackout would happen, but when – on a hot
day in June, or when power consumption peaks in the winter?” (Matthias
Inken in Morris and Jungjohann 2016: 342).

In a world that is increasingly dependent on energy, the threat of blackouts

is a serious one – a horror scenario. If you can blame your opponent for it,
it is a convenient, powerful weapon in the controversy about electricity.
Those who opt for the wrong form of energy, the opponents shout, will be
threatened by total blackouts. (Kemfert 2013: 68)

It soon turned out that what Germany had to cope with was energy over-
supply, not shortage. Power exports rose year by year since 2011, reaching
record levels already in 2013 (Fraunhofer 2016).
The notion of nuclear risk and a deeply engraved scepticism is certainly
widespread in Germany. In 2016, the mayor of Aachen was lauded by the
city’s inhabitants when he claimed that “when safety (Sicherheit) is at
stake, there can be no taboos” and the town’s stock of iodine and radiation-­
protective equipment was upgraded (Dohmen 2016). Similarly to the
German shale debate, which Chap. 4 has extensively discussed, nuclear is
deeply riskified, with worst-case-scenario risk assessment models as base
for policy decisions on the future of nuclear:

[Some] researchers are convinced that the secrecy and lack of transparency
[Geheimniskrämerei] in the nuclear industry and the supervisory authori-
ties lead to an excessive reliance on the safety of nuclear power plants
because there is no overview of what goes wrong. This perception influ-
ences not least political decisions. Wheatley comes to a completely differ-
ent conclusion: “The risk level of the nuclear energy according to our
analysis is extremely high” … In order to be able to estimate the size of the
explosion risk in nuclear power stations, experts need data. But there is not
enough of it. In addition, experts are arguing about the method of risk
 5  Energy Security and Energy Transition: Securitisation...    139

analysis … At least at the Cologne Society for Plant and Reactor Safety
(GRS) the probabilistic safety analysis is seen critically. After the worst-case
scenario nuclear accident [super-GAU] in Fukushima, GRS researchers had
looked at what had actually gone wrong with the PSA [Probabilistic Safety
Assessment] for Fukushima. In their study of 2015, they conclude that
“the existing PSAs for nuclear power plants do not take into account rare
events and their interaction.” (Schäfer 2016)

But the discussion does not end with probabilistic scenarios. The German
media and the public are following closely all stories about nuclear reac-
tor safety and various incidents. Such stories focus on actual “human
factor” risks and security breaches—a virus which infected the software at
a Bavarian NPP, even though it is offline (brought on a USB-stick)
(Spiegel Online 2016d) and fake safety tests conducted at Philippsburg
NPP in Baden (Spiegel Online 2016c). In this way, the opposition to
nuclear is created and sustained though a combination of probability-­
based riskification and tangible examples of concrete, numerous and
often occurring incidents where usually human sloppiness and laziness is
the risk factor. This stands in stark contrast with the way the Polish
authorities try to steer the nuclear discussion (again, similarly to the one
on shale gas) by pointing out the ideal levels of reactor safety, reinforced
with arguments of national energy security.
The two national perspectives—or at least the mean positions that can
be derived from the wider debates—are difficult to reconcile. In Germany,
anti-nuclear sentiments are strong and the political consensus over either
gradual or rapid phase-out is very wide. Although Germany and Poland
could be strong partners in Europe, Polish plans for the construction of a
nuclear plant are a “red cape” for many in Germany,23 finding little under-
standing among most politicians and experts there. Combined with the
reputation as a veto player in negotiations on climate policy at the European
level, cooperation turns out to be much more difficult in practice.

As a German, one has no understanding for Poland’s nuclear power plans.

And as far as electric power projects are concerned, the discussion is becom-
ing locked-in, so phase shifters, in order to prevent loop-flows, and so on.
I feel that is counterproductive, not worth supporting, I see little construc-
tive cooperation.24
140  K. Szulecki and J. Kusznir

Lack of understanding works both ways. What in Germany is perceived

as a rational move to reduce unnecessary risks and remodel the energy
system and the economy seems anything but rational from a Polish per-
spective. “I think in Poland we have a society which is reasonably rational,
while what we see in Germany is, to me, an aberration in logics. There is
no place for discussion, and in a democratic state there should always be
place for a discussion. There having opposite views is equated with back-
wardness”—claimed a Polish ministerial energy expert who in 2013 took
part in a German-Polish discussion on nuclear energy policy in Berlin.

5 Conclusions
In this chapter, we looked at extensive empirical data on how energy
security is discussed in Germany and Poland within the electricity sector.
The main points are summarised in Table  5.1. In Poland, discussions
around renewables not only focus on pro-security arguments and sys-
temic risks—as is the case in Germany—but also contain a national secu-
rity thread related to notions of energy autarchy as well as economic
sovereignty undermined by imported technologies and materials. While
our interview respondents acknowledged the benefits of renewables for
national energy security, counter-arguments (economic, environmental,
governance related, or based on the security and stability of the current
energy system and grid) visibly outbalanced these merely potential ben-
efits. Importantly, renewables were framed as a threat for the electricity
system, and the transmission system operator as well as some technical
energy experts, were instrumental in this kind of riskification.
Table 5.1. illustrates the relationship between “objective” challenges
emerging from the systemic context of the power sector (corresponding
to the way Cherp and Jewell (2014) conceptualise a system’s vulnerabili-
ties—as a function of the exposure to risks and the level of resilience) and
contrasted with what is actually discussed as a “threat” or “challenge” in
the public and policy debates. The German debate, less securitised, seems
to be closer to the “objective” systemic vulnerabilities, whereas in Poland
the major vulnerability—weak and inadequate grid—remains a
non-issue.
 5  Energy Security and Energy Transition: Securitisation...    141

Table 5.1  Comparing objective systemic context, threats discussed and referent
objects across the two cases and sub-sectors (own elaboration, with input from
Aleh Cherp)
Main threats
Sub-sector Country Systemic context discussed Referent objects
Renewables Germany Rapidly expanding Climate Consumers,
system based on change, economy,
domestic variability, environment,
manufacturing, costs, grid power system
technological adequacy
leadership and
distributed
ownership and
backed by
numerous and
strong
interconnections to
European markets
Poland Smaller system based Variability, Coal-based
on foreign foreign system, state,
technologies, technology, economy
weaker and costs, (competiveness)
decapitalised grid competition
and few with
international conventional
interconnectors energy
Nuclear Germany Accelerated phase- Nuclear safety, Society, power
out of ageing lack of system
nuclear power flexibility,
plants in a diverse blackouts
system with readily due to
available removed
substitutes in form baseload
of coal and capacity
renewables
Poland Prospects of Lack of societal Power system,
constructing new acceptance, state
power plants in a possibility of
low-diversity project
system relying failure
excessively on
domestic coal,
historical
experience with a
failed nuclear
project in 1990
142  K. Szulecki and J. Kusznir

A very interesting instrumental use of securitisation and security jar-

gon is visible among pro-renewable environmental activist in both coun-
tries. Polish NGOs and “green-minded” experts mimic the securitising
moves known from the gas sector to portray renewables as a solution—
albeit an “extra-ordinary measure” from the point of view of the incum-
bents and the worn-out grid—to the country’s national security problems.
Importantly, these are not problems understood as systemic vulnerabili-
ties, but rather the perceived threats (most significantly—the dependence
on Russian natural gas imports). German NGOs, though they do not
have to use such arguments “at home,” can also use security jargon to
justify a Europe-wide energy transition towards renewables. We have also
discussed how societal actors engaging in national debates as parts of
transnational networks can be an object of securitisation, framed as a
threat for national security.
Debates around nuclear resemble those around shale gas, where
German riskification of nuclear reactor operation is met in Poland with
arguments about energy independence and national security. The German
discussions of nuclear are deeply riskified and probabilistic scientific
arguments are blended with real-life examples of the unpredictability of
the “human factor” in causing potentially serious nuclear accidents.
Unlike in shale, Polish nuclear visions generate much stronger domestic
opposition and securitising attempts are weaker. In the nuclear sector, we
have seen the strongest example of a successful and full securitising move,
with the announcement of the nuclear project as a national security issue,
followed by proposed and implemented extra-ordinary measures, relating
to political practice (blurring politics and business competences), legisla-
tion, and special competences given to the security services.
Our analysis has also shown that, especially in the Polish case, politicians
are more prone to use and accept security jargon, while technical experts in
energy are most active in de-securitisation, even of such serious and prob-
lematic issues as “loop-flows.” The more international the energy issue, the
more likely it is to see spill-overs from foreign policy and securitising moves
drawing on a broader “security imaginary”—also a factor of what we have,
following Guzzini, called a “vicious circle of essentialisation.”
Political decisions following securitisation moves (and so, extra-­
ordinary measures) can embed securitised logics into the operational
 5  Energy Security and Energy Transition: Securitisation...    143

practices of the energy sector. For instance, following an increased prolif-

eration of security jargon in the energy security debate linked to natural
gas, the Polish government since 2016 has managed to change the stat-
utes of the four major (and partly state-owned) energy companies, intro-
ducing a point saying that they constitute an “instrument of national
energy security.” This change implied that they would no longer be sub-
jected to economic, market-logic but might be forced to follow decisions
made according to the “national energy security” interest, left undefined.
That securitising move led to changes in the statutes of three of the four
companies, but when the issue became more public and de-securitising
counter-moves mounted, the move was not accepted by the board of the
last company, Tauron (BiznesAlert 2017).
With nuclear energy removed from the agenda (or at least given a
lower priority) by the new Polish government in 2015, the main bone of
contention between the neighbouring countries was, seemingly,
removed (though the nuclear option was put back on the table in mid-­
2017). What remains a shared problem from the perspective of energy
transition and environmental security (relating especially to air quality,
but also water resources and climate change) is the role of coal, particu-
larly lignite, in the energy mixes of both Poland and Germany. In many
ways, the perception of coal as a means of stabilising the system and
assuring national energy security is shared, and what differs is the mid- or
longer-term perspective in which that is to be maintained:

We are building a completely new electricity market, which makes the

Energiewende irreversible. It is probably the most important decision of this
legislative period in energy policy. But renewable energy is also a challenge
to security of supply because of its dependence on the weather. We there-
fore also need a reserve at conventional power plants to ensure that there is
never a supply shortage. In the transition period, in which we want to gain
experience, we use brown coal power plants, which are available for this
reserve. They would then be shut down.25

This is a problem that does not seem to go away—and if divergent energy

security perceptions moved closer and became more holistic in both
Berlin and Warsaw, some needed cooperation in that area would be pos-
sible (Gawlikowska-Fyk et al. 2017).
144  K. Szulecki and J. Kusznir

Notes
1. Henceforth we use “electricity” or “power” as synonyms.
2. Interview with an energy expert, GermanWatch, conducted by Bartosz
Gruszka, Berlin, 29 May 2015.
3. Interview with a representative of the German Trade Union
Confederation, conducted by Julia Kusznir, Berlin, 27 May 2015.
4. Interview with an energy expert at WWF, conducted by Julia Kusznir,
Berlin, 28 May 201.
5. Rebecca Bertram, the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s expert on ‚European
Energiewende, “Warum Deutschland eine europäische Energiewende
braucht,” https://www.boell.de/de/2017/02/20/warum-deutschland-eine-
europaeische-energiewende-braucht
6. Interview with an energy expert at BiznesAlert, conducted by Julia
Kusznir, Warsaw, 15 May 2015.
7. Interview with a former Member of the European Parliament, conducted
by Julia Kusznir, Warsaw, 14 May 2015.
8. Interview with the president of the Polish Wind Energy Association,
conducted by Karol Dobosz, Warsaw, 20 May 2015.
9. Interview with an energy utilities employee, conducted by Julia Kusznir,
Warsaw, 11 May 2015.
10. Interview with the president of the Polish Wind Energy Association,
conducted by Karol Dobosz, Warsaw, 20 May 2015.
11. Interview with Anna Kwiatkowska-Drożdż, leader of the Germany and
Northern Europe Team at the Center for Eastern Studies (OSW), a
think-tank supervised by the Chancellery of the Prime Minister.
Interview conducted by Łukasz Warzecha, “Dusza rosyjska i niemiecka,”
Rzeczpospolita, 12 February 2016.
12. Interview with an energy expert at BiznesAlert, Warsaw, conducted by
Julia Kusznir, 13 May 2015.
13. Interview with the representatives of the European and Regional Energy
Policy Office and the EU Economy Department at the Polish Foreign
Ministry, conducted by Karol Dobosz, Warsaw, 10 July 2015.
14. Interview with an expert on economic affairs, Embassy of the Federal
Republic of Germany, conducted by Karol Dobosz, Warsaw, 7 July
2015.
15. Interview with two experts, Energy Regulation Bureau, conducted by
Karol Dobosz, Warsaw, 8 July 2015.
 5  Energy Security and Energy Transition: Securitisation...    145

16. Interview with two employees of 50Hertz, by Julia Kusznir, Berlin, 27

January 2016.
17. Interview with two Energy Department experts, conducted by Karol
Dobosz, Warsaw, 3 July 2015.
18. Ibidem.
19. Biuletyn Informacji Publicznej Ministerstwa Gospodarki,  2009,
Koncepcja kampanii informacyjnej dotyczącej energetyki jądrowej:
Bezpieczeństwo, które się opłaca.
20. Interview with two Energy Department experts, conducted by Karol
Dobosz, Warsaw, 3 July 2015.
21. Ibidem.
22. Ibidem.
23. Interview with an energy expert, GermanWatch, conducted by Bartosz
Gruszka, Berlin, 29 May 2015.
24. Interview with an energy expert at the Renewable Energy Agency
(Agentur für erneuerbare Energien), conducted by Bartosz Gruszka,
Berlin, 26 May 2015.
25. Sigmar Gabriel, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy,
interview in Westdeutschen Allgemeinen Zeitung, “Wir schaffen die
Energiewende” 3 September 2015.

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 6
Energy Securitisation: Avenues
for Future Research
Andrew Judge, Tomas Maltby, and Kacper Szulecki

1 Introduction
What are the implications of linking “energy” and “security”? The preced-
ing chapters have all sought to examine the interaction between these two
seemingly distinctive realms. They have done so in a variety of productive
ways that demonstrate both the potential of utilising securitisation the-
ory for analysing what happens when energy is constructed as a security
issue and the limitations of the canonical Copenhagen School framework
when it is applied to energy issues. One of the key insights, originally

A. Judge (*)
School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
T. Maltby
Department of Political Economy, King’s College London, London, UK
K. Szulecki
Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

© The Author(s) 2018 149

K. Szulecki (ed.), Energy Security in Europe, Energy, Climate and the Environment,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1_6
150  A. Judge et al.

argued in Chap. 2 and developed empirically in Chaps. 3, 4 and 5, is that

the use of the term “energy security” is not synonymous with “energy
securitisation”, at least in how the latter term is conventionally under-
stood. This suggests that if the promise of energy securitisation research
is to be fulfilled, it is necessary to have a clearer sense of where further
research in this area should focus.
This chapter suggests areas where researchers interested in the social
construction of energy as a security issue may want to focus their atten-
tion. It does so through both an examination of what Securitisation
Studies could learn from the study of energy issues (not least the chapters
in this volume) and what insights could be drawn from theoretical devel-
opments within Securitisation Studies for the study of energy security.
This chapter is structured into three sections. The first provides a brief
overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the Copenhagen School
framework when it is applied to energy issues, drawing on some of the
key insights from the preceding chapters and critiques from across the
broader field of Securitisation Studies. The second section outlines two
possible avenues for future research that focus on the discursive construc-
tion of energy security—an examination of whether energy is a distinct
“sector” of security and whether there are alternative logics of security
that depart from the Copenhagen School understanding of securitisa-
tion. The third and final section adopts a different approach, focusing on
the process of securitisation and outlining some of the insights that can
be drawn from so-called “sociological” understandings of securitisation.

2  nergy Security and the Copenhagen

E
School: Strengths and Limitations
As demonstrated in Chaps. 3, 4 and 5, the Copenhagen School frame-
work has some important strengths. It has proven to be particularly use-
ful in situations in which actors connect aspects of energy policy to issues
of national (military) security. This stems primarily from the central idea
of the Copenhagen School—that the concept of security “means” some-
thing distinctive which can be examined in a variety of situations:
 6  Energy Securitisation: Avenues for Future Research    151

The answer to what makes something an international security issue can be

found in the traditional military-political understanding of security. In this
context, security is about survival. It is when an issue is presented as posing
an existential threat to a designated referent object […] The special nature
of security threats justifies the use of extra-ordinary measures to handle
them. (Buzan et al. 1998: 21)

This is, in short, a classic Realist understanding of security based on a

traditional conception of national (military) security. While the
Copenhagen School is clear that the “essential quality of existence will
vary greatly across different sectors and levels of analysis [and] therefore,
so will the nature of existential threats”, it nonetheless considers security
to have a distinct meaning (Buzan et al. 1998: 21–22). This definitional
clarity has a clear methodological advantage—it provides analysts with an
explicit standard to compare the discourse of potential securitising actors
against (Williams 2011).
Based on this definition, energy researchers have a powerful tool for
distinguishing “energy security” as a relatively neutral policy goal, from
“energy security” as a rally-around-the-flag performative, meant to mobil-
ise an audience and transcend regular political practice. This distinction
between the word “security” and what the Copenhagen School refers to
as the “grammar” or “logic” of security is clear in the analogy drawn by
Poland’s defence minister Radosław Sikorski between the Nord Stream
pipeline deal and the Hitler-Stalin pact (see chapters by both Heinrich
(Chap. 3) and Siddi (Chap. 10) in this volume).
It is also important to recognise that the Copenhagen School, with its
roots in the experience of the Cold War peace movement, combines this
methodological tool with a normative vantage point in its assertion that
transforming something into a security issue has the political conse-
quence of removing an issue from normal democratic politics (Buzan
et al. 1998: 29). It therefore constitutes a powerful tool for critical energy
security studies. If we consider that “extra-ordinary measures” and “excep-
tional politics” tend to mean the removal of energy issues from public
oversight, a number of critical questions come to mind. Who does, and
who should, exercise power in governing the energy sector? To what
extent is securitisation and expert insulation of energy security
152  A. Judge et al.

­ emocratically acceptable? Moreover, cui bono? And what is there to be

d
gained by making something—a gas pipeline, for example—a security
issue to be addressed by extra-ordinary measures (Karyotis and Skleparis
2013)?
Emphasising the national/military logic of security and examining
these fundamentally political concerns have a further benefit—as a useful
means of integrating energy into Security Studies. As argued in various
chapters in this volume, energy security has proven challenging for many
International Relations and Security Studies researchers to grasp and
understand. One of the clear advantages of the Copenhagen School
framework is that it offers a way for these fields to engage with energy
issues in a more nuanced way than the traditional “strategic resources”
and “oil wars” literatures. This is important because these literatures have
very little to say about the relative importance of different vital energy
systems, and are incapable of understanding the construction of security
vulnerabilities in ways other than those articulated by policymakers.
Instead, the Copenhagen School framework offers a means of problema-
tising individual energy policy decisions and, indeed, denaturalising
whole energy policy paradigms. This is something which is developed in
the second part of this volume, particularly by Szulecki and Westphal
(Chap. 7), Kustova (Chap. 8) and Landry (Chap. 11), where the authors
draw on securitisation and other Critical Security Studies’ concepts to
look beyond the established “facts” of energy policy and taken for granted
assumptions about the factors that shape energy security.
There are, however, important limitations to the Copenhagen School
that must be acknowledged. Even if we can praise the methodological
clarity and critical edge that the framework brings to energy issues, the
model can be very rigid and constraining. The fact that the authors of the
preceding chapters had to adjust the framework, loosening it in some
places and operationalising it more strictly elsewhere, shows just how
constraining this approach can be when applied to energy issues. Similar
problems have been found when the framework has been utilised in other
non-traditional areas of security. There are three questions in particular
which help to demonstrate this core limitation.
First, what counts as a securitising move? Does this have to be an
explicit security utterance? Does the threat need to be existential and
 6  Energy Securitisation: Avenues for Future Research    153

undermining the physical survival of a referent object? Such ambiguities

are clear in the above example of Sikorski’s speech about the Nord Stream
pipeline. In that particular speech, it is notable that the word “security” is
not used, nor is there a direct claim about the Nord Stream pipeline deal
constituting an “existential threat” to Poland’s survival. Yet the link
between energy and national/military security is clear. Moreover, there
are numerous other examples from the same time period where Polish
government officials claimed that energy was a “weapon” that constituted
a “threat” to national security (Judge and Maltby 2017: 195–197). Is this
a case of concept stretching, or does any utterance of security have the
potential to securitise an issue, regardless of whether or not it follows the
Copenhagen School’s logic of security (Huysmans 2002)?
Second, does securitisation only occur if extra-ordinary measures are
subsequently enacted? In Chap. 2, Heinrich and Szulecki proposed a dis-
tinction between security jargon and securitisation proper, the former
merely referring to threats to the referent objects but not proposing con-
crete measures at all—either extra-ordinary or “normal”. The empirical
chapters, especially by Heinrich as well as Szulecki and Kusznir, have
shown how problematic that distinction can be in practice, especially
since framing security and identifying threats can influence the broader
discursive and political context in which energy policy decisions are
taken. Within the poststructuralist approach of the Copenhagen School,
it becomes very difficult to justify a distinction between security jargon
and securitisation proper, because the implicit causal link between a secu-
ritising move and audience acceptance of extra-ordinary measures is not
sustainable. On the other hand, the way an increasingly securitised politi-
cal debate remoulds actors’ identities and perceptions becomes para-
mount—blurring the conceptual distinction proposed by Heinrich and
Szulecki.
Third, what counts as extra-ordinary? Can this be decided a priori, or
is it dependent on the particular situation in which actors find them-
selves? In this volume, extra-ordinary measures were categorised based on
three types of action: (1) breaking norms (which are explicit or implicit
prescriptions about “how things are done”), (2) shifting competences and
power towards the executive or a specialised agency and (3) withholding
or limiting information. Any one or a combination of these can be seen
154  A. Judge et al.

as “extra-ordinary measures” if they are legitimised by reference to secu-

rity; however this might not cover the full range of measures that go
beyond the bounds of “normal politics”.

3 Sectors and Logics of Energy Security

This overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the Copenhagen School
suggests that although the framework can be useful for examining con-
structions of energy security, it will often be necessary to go beyond a
strict and rigid application of its core concepts. In particular, it is worth
considering whether the Copenhagen School’s core logic of security is the
most appropriate means of conceptualising securitisation. In this section,
we focus on two possible ways of examining the development of (energy)
security discourses that build on, but also deviate from, the Copenhagen
School—sectors of security and logics of security.

3.1 Sectors of Security

Sectors are an important element of the Copenhagen School, yet they

have received remarkably little attention within Securitisation Studies as
a whole.1 This is surprising because the majority of Security: A New
Framework for Analysis is devoted to an examination of how securitisation
plays out within five distinct sectors—military, economic, political, envi-
ronmental and societal. These sectors are conceptualised as “lenses or dis-
courses rather than objectively existing phenomena […] defined by
particular constitutions of referent objects and types of threats as well as
by specific forms or ‘grammars’ of securitisation” (Buzan et al. 1998: 27).
As discussed in the previous section, these “grammars” mean that although
there is one national/military logic of security, the “essential quality of
existence” can differ between sectors. This also has an impact on the “spe-
cific types of interaction” between actors within each sector:

The military sector is about relationships of forceful coercion; the political

sector is about relationships of authority, governing status, and recognition;
 6  Energy Securitisation: Avenues for Future Research    155

the economic sector is about relationships of trade, production and finance;

the societal sector is about relationships of collective identity; and the envi-
ronmental sector is about relationships between human activity and the
biosphere. (Buzan et al. 1998: 7)

The obvious question to ask at this point is: what sector(s) can energy be
situated within? The Copenhagen School treats energy as a “tradable
good on the global market” and therefore as an economic referent object.
Such an interpretation is problematic however, because it reduces energy
to oil, and energy security to concerns about oil supplies. This is largely a
function of how energy issues entered International Relations in the first
place. International Political Economy was, as Hancock and Vivoda
argue, “a field born of the OPEC crisis” (2014: 206) which largely reduced
the discussion of energy to oil, and viewed energy supply shortages as a
problem which could best be addressed through the spread of liberal mar-
ket norms. When we consider that the Copenhagen School largely rule
out the possibility of securitising economic issues under such a liberal
world view, it is clear that such a perspective can be limiting and may fail
to get to the heart of how energy securitisation functions (Judge and
Maltby 2017: 185).
Others have used the concept of sectors more productively when
examining energy issues. Natorski and Herranz-Surrallés (2008) argue
that energy is a cross-cutting issue which could potentially be examined
within each of the five sectors. Christou and Amadides (2013) go one
step further, arguing that the sector within which energy is securitised has
consequences for the kind of political effects that it generates. Such
approaches open up the possibility of different sector-specific grammars
of security playing a role in how energy is constructed as a security issue.
For instance, if energy is securitised as an “environmental” issue, then the
focus may be on mitigating the damaging effects of burning fossil fuels,
whereas if it is securitised as a “military” issue, then the focus may be on
the potential for external suppliers of a resource to coerce a state.
There is, however, another possibility worth considering—that energy
should be viewed as a distinct sector of security. Such a development is
not without precedent. Hansen and Nissenbaum (2009) argue that
“cyber security” should be regarded as a distinct sector, constituted by a
156  A. Judge et al.

unique configuration of referent objects and threats. A similar attempt

could be made in the case of energy security. One of the benefits of such
an approach is that rather than ultimately reducing energy to other sec-
tors, this places the question of what, if anything, is specific about energy
security at the forefront of our analysis.
In terms of referent objects, there has been a tendency to view energy
supplies as the core referent object within claims about energy security.
Such an approach is understandable but is often based on a misunder-
standing about what referent objects are, that is, “things that are seen to
be existentially threatened and that have a legitimate claim to survival”
(Buzan et  al. 1998: 36). In many cases where energy is being “securi-
tised”, it is not the energy supplies that have the legitimate claim to sur-
vival. Instead, they are the means through which survival of some other
referent object is secured. This similarly applies to other common objects
such as energy demand, infrastructure and prices. Bridge (2015) makes
this point when he identifies three “logics” of energy security: sovereign
state security, population security and vital systems security. Each of these
logics is based around different referent objects: states, societies and
energy systems. The first two objects could ultimately be traced back to
other sectors—military/political and societal, respectively. Energy sys-
tems cannot, however, and if we follow Cherp and Jewell in defining
energy security in terms of the “low vulnerability of vital energy systems”
(2014: 415), then this may provide a basis for a distinct security sector
with its own forms of interaction.
Supply interruptions may constitute the main threat to such systems;
however, the sources of such threats and the degree of harm they cause
may vary. A temporary blackout in the power grid, an inadequate supply
of gas during a cold winter, volatile prices disrupting the economic ratio-
nale for different energy sources, or a terrorist attack on a nuclear power
plant are all threats to energy security, but all have different real impacts
on energy systems.
What we mean by “energy systems” is fundamental for whether we can
entertain the possibility of energy as a distinct sector. Cherp and Jewell
define these as “resources, materials, infrastructure, technologies, markets
and other elements connected to each other stronger than they are con-
nected to the outside world” (2013: 151). The idea that energy systems
 6  Energy Securitisation: Avenues for Future Research    157

are a set of distinctive referent objects means that we can disentangle

securitising moves that refer specifically to these systems from moves
about other objects (e.g. framing “negative” energy prices as a threat to
national security might actually refer to the economic sector; securitising
greenhouse gas emissions as a major cause of climate change might refer
to the environmental sector, etc.). This helps to maintain the normative
edge of Securitisation Studies, by helping to specify which vulnerabilities
can—intentionally or not—be exaggerated. Moreover, the perception
and treatment of an energy system as “vital” could be a prerequisite for its
securitisation. This suggests that one avenue for future empirical research
would be to examine which energy systems are considered “vital” and
why. This is an avenue where some of the empirical studies in this volume
have already made important progress.

3.2 Logics of Security

Regardless of whether energy is seen as a distinctive sector or not, another

promising avenue is to examine what logics of security are most common
in attempts to securitise energy. Logics of security go beyond a focus on
referent objects and threats, to examine what may be termed the underly-
ing rationality embedded within a security discourse.2 Rather than reduc-
ing all security discourses to sector-specific variations on the Copenhagen
School logic of existential threats that lead to extra-ordinary measures
and political action, they open up the possibility of alternative logics that
deviate from an exclusive focus on existential threats to survival. These
could take the form of general logics of security that are applicable to
multiple sectors, or logics that are specific features of a sector and may
indeed strengthen the case for considering that sector as distinct from
others. We consider both these options below.
The idea that there may be other general logics of security is at the core of
many critiques of the Copenhagen School. In particular, the Paris School has
criticised the Copenhagen School for privileging an understanding of secu-
rity which is derived from how the term has been used in the realm of “inter-
national security” to the exclusion of meanings derived from the field of
internal security, where the policing of risks and vulnerabilities have arguably
158  A. Judge et al.

been more prevalent (Bigo 2002). Risk is perhaps the most notable alterna-
tive to a Realist logic of security because, as Williams argues, since the end of
the Cold War, western security policies and institutions have become increas-
ingly orientated towards the management of risks rather than the elimina-
tion of existential threats to survival (Williams 2008). The policies adopted
during the War on Terror are frequently cited as examples of constructing
and dealing with insecurity, through precautionary actions to insure against
potential harm and increase the resilience of political systems (Rasmussen
2004; van Munster 2005; De Goode 2008).
Corry argues that such security constructions and policies can be
understood as part of a distinct logic of riskification, which focuses on
indirect causes of harm that put the governability of referent objects at
risk, in contrast to the focus of the Copenhagen School on direct threats
to the survival of a referent object (Corry 2012). Such a logic leads in a
different policy direction than existential threats towards, “programmes
for permanent changes aimed at reducing vulnerability and boosting the
governance-capacity of the valued referent object itself ” (ibid: 248). A
logic of riskification may, at least at a discursive level, more accurately
describe the form that security constructions take within the energy sec-
tor, although this is fundamentally an empirical question (Judge and
Maltby 2017: 183; Lis (Chap. 4) in this volume). Examining whether
energy security is constructed in terms of existential threats or risks in
different contexts may allow for a more accurate account of what kind of
security concern energy is regarded as in different contexts.
That being said, drawing a sharp distinction between these two logics
is not without its problems. It makes the somewhat questionable assump-
tion that risk can be reduced to a single essence—the very same problem
with the Copenhagen School’s logic of security. Risk is, of course, a much
more complex and varied concept than this implies (Petersen 2012), as
are risk-related concepts such as “resilience” (Lundborg and Vaughan-­
Williams 2011; Bourbeau 2013). This could be viewed as a key avenue
for future research on energy securitisation/riskification—an examina-
tion of how risk is constructed in various contexts. Indeed, because of the
prevalence of risk-related discourses and practices within the energy sec-
tor, it could serve as a useful empirical site for developing how the con-
cept of risk is understood within Security Studies.
 6  Energy Securitisation: Avenues for Future Research    159

Rather than deductively applying general logics to the energy sector,

an alternative approach would be to examine inductively how security is
constructed within the energy sector itself. This would make it possible to
develop a more empirically grounded understanding of what energy
security signifies in different contexts, or to highlight the contested nature
of energy security within those contexts. The most fully developed
attempt at such an analysis is by Ciută, who has examined the various
ways in which the concept of energy security is used by academic research-
ers and political organisations. He distils these into three distinct logics of
energy security, which involve different configurations of threats, politi-
cal values, policy measures and forms of political action—war, subsis-
tence and total/banal security.
The logic of war portrays energy as, “a cause or an instrument of war
or conflict” (Ciută 2010: 129). It includes constructions of energy as a
weapon that can be deployed against dependent consumer states, as well
as the idea of resource wars or as an indirect cause of conflict through
environmental degradation, political strife within states and competition
for resources. It is an inherently geopolitical, and often militarised, under-
standing of security that involves a distinct rationality of political action
based on the application of strategic and military thinking to energy
issues. It therefore involves the subordination of the concerns of various
actors to the geopolitical objectives of the state.
The logic of subsistence, in contrast, views energy as a public good
which people need rather than being bound up in war and conflict. Such
a need “is not driven by the imperative to survive, but by the functional
demands of various sectors of activity, which means its absence does not
lead to extinction, but to dysfunction” (ibid: 132). Moreover, because it is
a public good, it involves a wide range of actors across different fuel types
(gas, nuclear, wind, solar, etc.) and sectors of activity (production, trans-
port, etc.). As a result, the specific meaning of energy security can vary
substantially between these actors due to their different levels of involve-
ment. Perhaps more importantly, it also does not result in a particular
type of policy response because, “energy security policies [are] non-spe-
cific as security policies. If market failure is the key problem for energy
security, then the solution is application of generic policies designed to
improve market functionality” (ibid: 134, emphasis in original).
160  A. Judge et al.

Finally, the logic of total or banal security is an extreme extension of

the previous logic. Because energy is an essential public good that involves
such a plurality of actors, there are a huge number of potential threats to
different aspects of energy supply, and potentially every actor can be
called upon to change their behaviours to increase security. This in turn
leads to investing “every single object of any kind with and in security”,
resulting in the “security of everything…everywhere…against every-
thing” (ibid: 134).
As Ciută notes, both the logics of subsistence and total security overlap
with a risk-based approach to security (see Heinrich and Szulecki (Chap.
2) in this volume). Likewise, a logic of war overlaps quite clearly with the
Copenhagen School logic of security. Ciută’s logics are, however, more
nuanced than either of these two approaches, and more likely to capture
the specific dynamics of the energy sector. The extent to which these log-
ics can be identified in attempts to securitise energy would, moreover,
lend even greater support to the idea that energy represents a distinct
sector of security composed of different referent objects, threats and log-
ics. Examining whether this is the case should be a major focus of future
research on energy securitisation.

4  he Process of Securitisation: Audiences,

T
Context and Causality
So far, we have examined alternative ways in which discourses of energy
security can be analysed, through sectors and logics of security. While
such avenues are undoubtedly worth pursuing, a focus on discourse risks
losing sight of the fact that securitisation is an inherently social process.
Many critiques of the Copenhagen School have sought to address this
shortcoming, which has led to various sustained efforts at rethinking
major elements of the theory that have pushed the field in a more “socio-
logical” direction.
“Sociological” approaches place a far greater emphasis on the process of
securitisation. Such approaches, which are often contrasted with the “phil-
osophical” approach of the Copenhagen School (and Corry’s riskification
 6  Energy Securitisation: Avenues for Future Research    161

framework), downplay the performative force of speech acts uttered by

securitising actors and instead engage in a deeper examination of the role
that audiences and contextual factors play in shaping this process. As
Balzacq argues:

securitisation is better understood as a strategic (pragmatic) process that

occurs within, and as part of, a configuration of circumstances, including the
context, the psycho-cultural disposition of the audience, and the power that
both speaker and listener bring to the interaction […] Securitisation can be
discursive and non-discursive; intentional and non-intentional; performa-
tive but not ‘an act in itself ’. (Balzacq 2010b: 1–2, emphasis added)

Within this understanding of securitisation, discourses of security remain

central but they are also not theorised according to a simple sender-­
receiver model of communication between an empowered securitising
actor and a passively recipient audience. Instead, they are influenced by
the circumstances within which this communication occurs. In other
words, both the social interaction of actors and audiences and the context
features of the situation in question. In this section, we focus on these
two features before returning to an issue raised in the first section of this
chapter—what this means for whether or not we should regard securitisa-
tion as a causal theory.

4.1 Audiences

The most obvious way in which most sociological approaches depart

from the Copenhagen School is in their more extensive theorisation of
“audiences”. Their central insight is that although particular authoritative
actors may be dominant in some circumstances, in many cases, securitisa-
tion success or failure will be a result of a network effect based on the
dispositions of, and power relations between, multiple securitising actors
and audiences. As a result, audiences should be regarded as the central
actors in the securitising process, because ultimately their acceptance or
rejection of securitising moves will be decisive in whether securitisation is
successful or not (Balzacq 2010a: 8–11).
162  A. Judge et al.

Shifting the focus of analysis from securitising actors to audiences

could be a particularly useful research strategy when examining energy
securitisation because in the energy sector, multiple actors beyond “the
state” may claim the right to “speak security”, and deliberations among
these actors are likely to lead to different conceptions of energy security
than standard or alternative logics of energy security would suggest.
Indeed, Ciutǎ (2010) argues that one of the defining features of the logics
of subsistence and total security identified in the previous section is that
they are constituted by a plurality of actors/audiences who are involved
across multiple sectors of activity. There are at least two areas where ana-
lysts may then want to focus their attention.
First is by differentiating between different types of audience that play
a role in the securitisation process. In various empirical studies of securi-
tisation across a wide range of issue areas and types of political system, it
is clear that there is no single “type” of audience that is always the most
important for accepting or rejecting securitising moves. Wæver himself
has acknowledged that the lack of differentiation between types of audi-
ence is a shortcoming of the Copenhagen School framework, not least
because what counts as a “relevant” audience will differ between sectors
and contexts (2003: 25). Identifying such audiences can be difficult
because, as Vuori argues, audiences have different abilities to, “provide
the securitising actor with whatever s/he is seeking to accomplish with the
securitisation” (2008: 72). An important step, however, is to develop a
clearer understanding about what types of audience could in principle
“matter” in concrete situations. One attempt by Salter (2008) distin-
guishes between popular, elite, technocratic and scientific audiences.
These categories are derived from the specific field of airport security, but
are designed to be general enough to apply to a variety of security issues
across sectors. One of the core questions for analysts of energy securitisa-
tion is whether these categories are appropriate or if alternative categori-
sations, perhaps incorporating military, economic, and activist audiences,
would be more suitable.
Second is by paying greater attention to power relations between secu-
ritising actors and audiences. Not only do different audiences play differ-
ent roles, they also have different kinds of relationship with securitising
actors. These are structured by both formal and informal power relations,
 6  Energy Securitisation: Avenues for Future Research    163

which, in most cases, pre-date attempts at securitisation and are often

institutionalised within particular political systems even if one of the pos-
sible outcomes of securitisation is that those power relations are subject
to change. The relations between actors and audiences should not be
understood in a static and unidirectional manner, where a securitising
actor has the power to compel or influence different audiences to varying
degrees. Instead, it is important to recognise, as Côté (2016) argues, that
audiences are active agents that can contest, develop, and potentially
transform securitising moves in a process of deliberation. Rather than
being passive recipients of securitising moves, audiences have agency, and
there is no reason to assume that securitising actors will always get their
own way. A key task for future research on energy securitisation is to pay
greater attention to the power relations between securitising actors and
different types of audience.
There are significant methodological challenges involved in measuring
audience acceptance. How do we know if a given securitising move is
accepted by the expert community and the society at large? This question
is of fundamental importance to all causally oriented and explanatory
studies of securitisation, but there are no easy answers. Rather than focus-
ing on the acceptance of a single move, however, we can approach the
question slightly differently. Instead, one can look at the wider accept-
ability of expressing energy issues in the language of security and apply-
ing extra-ordinary, non-political measures outside democratic control to
the energy sector. To grasp the acceptability of a securitising move—
understood as the willingness of a relevant audience to agree on a securi-
tising frame—we need to disentangle securitisation as a process that takes
place in a broader context, both material and ideational, which is difficult
to change with individual speech acts (McDonald 2008). Thus, by study-
ing discourses dominant in the energy sector, security imaginaries or
other intersubjective structures of meaning, we can establish whether cer-
tain audiences are more or less prone to accepting securitising moves.
An example of moving energy security studies in that direction is per-
haps the research of Fischhendler et al. (2015). They point to the funda-
mental importance of national security discourses that dominate other
debates, serving as a reservoir of narratives and rhetorical commonplaces
that spark securitisation in areas far from usual security concerns. These
164  A. Judge et al.

observations are very important for studying energy securitisation beyond

the usual “high politics” of oil and gas, but also for understanding differ-
ent securitisation modes in these sectors. That is in turn illustrated by
Fischhendler and Nathan’s (2014) study of Israeli natural gas exports as
an issue of “national security”. Together with Casier (2011), Godzimirski
(2009), Judge et al. (2016) as well as Siddi (Chap. 10) in this volume, and
echoing Guzzini’s (2013) and colleagues’ analyses of the “return of geo-
politics”, Fischhendler et al. provide us with much food for thought about
how securitisation of different issues—including energy policy—seems to
be facilitated in some contexts while it is less probable in others.

4.2 Context

It is clear that securitisation does not occur in a vacuum, but within a

social situation that undoubtedly shapes the manner in which this pro-
cess unfolds. This is not reducible to the relationship between securitising
actor and audience(s), but can involve factors ranging from proximate
features of the particular “setting” where securitisation occurs to more
distant elements such as political, economic and cultural environments
(Balzacq 2010b: 37). This poses additional methodological challenges for
analysts, because it is impossible to account for the influence of every
single contextual factor on any social process. It should, however, be pos-
sible to identify some of the most important factors within particular
sectors of security by focusing on relatively stable features or characteris-
tics of the major referent objects. This is the approach taken by Judge and
Maltby (2017), who argue that in the energy sector there are at least two
sets of relevant contextual factors that can be derived from the observa-
tion that energy is a socio-technical system—technical and political eco-
nomic (see also Szulecki 2016).
Technical factors—or to use language drawing on Bruno Latour
(2005), the materiality of energy systems—are concerned with what is
often referred to as the “geography” and “hardware”. Judge and Maltby
describe these as:

an assemblage of a particular mix of fuels in overall consumption and elec-

tricity production, the sources of these supplies (imported/domestic),
 6  Energy Securitisation: Avenues for Future Research    165

established roles for particular types of energy in particular economic sec-

tors, and a configuration of physical infrastructure including the capacity
to import, produce and transmit. (2017: 184)

However, it is important to not simply view technical factors as “material

facts” which place hard limits on the kinds of discourses and social
dynamics that are possible. Discourses about energy, regardless of whether
they embody claims about security, or not, all represent the elements of
this space and materiality in various ways. However, their representations
are also constituted by these material conditions. While a state can claim
that it wants to be energy independent regardless of whether it has the
physical resources to do so, these material conditions also play a role in
the plausibility, sustainability and contestability of these claims. As is
often observed, transformations of energy systems are highly path-­
dependent social processes, as changes through the development of new
generation or transit infrastructure are often difficult, time-consuming
and expensive (Stirling 2014).
Political-economic factors, by contrast, are concerned with the condi-
tions under which energy is produced, traded, and used, and how those
activities are regulated (Judge and Maltby 2017: 184). Dannreuther simi-
larly argues that political economy, “has a determining effect on which
particular securitisation of energy assumes dominance” (2015: 467), and
that “what actually gets securitised is decisively shaped by material power
relations” (2015: 468). While this may be too deterministic a reading, it
is nonetheless important to examine how pre-established structural con-
ditions may play a role in shaping the form, dissemination and success or
failure of securitisation. At a minimum, the power relations between
actors are shaped by their positions and roles within a particular political
economic system. However, this type of contextual factor goes further, by
focusing on how systems of energy governance structure actor interac-
tions in ways that are not reducible to power relations. They include
norms, policy paradigms, and institutionalised systems of regulation that
together constitute the “rules of the game” (Belyi and Talus 2015;
Kuzemko, et al. 2016).
Judge and Maltby distinguish between two main systems of energy
governance: “market-led governance” based on a deregulated economy in
166  A. Judge et al.

which market participants are the primary actors and “state-led gover-
nance” based on tightly regulated economy in which markets are subser-
vient to the political objectives of the state (2017: 184–185). These are,
of course, somewhat crude ideal types, and future research in energy
studies as a whole would do well to better differentiate between systems
of energy governance. Moreover, it is not clear that systems of energy
governance are confined to the internal political economy of a state.
Multilateral and supranational institutions also play a structuring role, as
do the ways in which international actors of all kinds pursue their foreign
policies. In a recent article, Prontera (2017) argues that in Southeastern
Europe there have been three forms of “state model” in the gas sector,
which he associates with different patterns of energy diplomacy: partner
states, provider states and catalytic states. The latter is particularly inter-
esting, as it combines a network form of energy diplomacy with an active
role for government within a market structure. This would suggest that
future research should develop more precise and nuanced conceptualisa-
tions of systems of energy governance, as a first step towards examining
what role they place in the process of securitisation.

4.3 F rom Audiences and Context to Securitisation

Dynamics

Our discussion of “sociological” approaches has focused primarily on

paying greater attention to key factors that were undertheorised in the
Copenhagen School’s original securitisation framework. What has not
been examined is the way in which sociological approaches understand
causality. More precisely, what are the implications of shifting from a
mainly poststructuralist understanding of securitisation (performative
speech acts) to a more sociological approach in which multiple factors
may potentially have an influence on the securitisation process? This may
seem like a somewhat abstract question, but it actually goes to the heart
of what distinguishes sociological approaches from the Copenhagen
School and other philosophical approaches. It also has major implica-
tions for future research on energy securitisation and the wider field of
Securitisation Studies, because empirical research that is unclear about its
 6  Energy Securitisation: Avenues for Future Research    167

methodological assumptions is likely to be logically inconsistent and

potentially flawed (Jackson 2011).
The Copenhagen School has a somewhat ambiguous understanding of
causality. On the one hand, from a soft constructivist standpoint, it out-
lines a causal sequence: securitising move, acceptance by an audience,
creation of a platform where the adoption of extra-ordinary measures
becomes possible. This is the approach adopted by Heinrich and Szulecki
when building the framework for the empirical studies presented in
Chaps. 3, 4 and 5. This causal sequence is what allows securitisation the-
ory to be considered an explanatory theory—the completion of all these
steps leads to successful securitisation and the production of substantial
political effects. On the other hand, from a poststructuralist standpoint,
the Copenhagen School cannot meaningfully develop such a causal
sequence because discourses are unstable and incomplete structures of
meaning which cannot be traced back to a set of initial causes. Moreover,
they are constitutive of social action rather than being distinct from such
actions, and therefore cannot be said to “cause” the substantial political
effects that are associated with securitisation. This tension between under-
standing the Copenhagen School framework as a causal or constitutive
theory is at the heart of Heinrich and Szulecki’s distinction between secu-
rity jargon and securitisation proper in Chap. 2.
Sociological approaches attempt to resolve this tension by developing
a different understanding of causality. Balzacq, for instance, in pushing
securitisation theory away from a focus on the “security speech act”,
argues that a causally deterministic account of securitisation is untenable.
Instead, he proposes that researchers investigate the, “degree of congru-
ence between different circumstances driving and/or constraining securi-
tisation” (Balzacq 2010a: 18). This makes sense if we consider that under
a sociological understanding, multiple actors and audiences may be
involved in deliberations about whether something is a security issue or
not and what that means, while these interactions will be shaped by the
full range of contextual factors identified above. This is why Balzacq views
these various factors as part of a “network of causality”, which it is the
task of analysts to examine rather than assuming there is a single factor
which is causally significant to the exclusion of others (ibid., 18).
168  A. Judge et al.

An alternative and more sophisticated approach to understanding cau-

sality comes from Guzzini (2011), who suggests that there may be value
in reconceptualising securitisation as a “social mechanism” as a sounder
basis for viewing it as an explanatory theory. Balzacq has also used the
terminology of “mechanisms”, by which he means the processes of per-
suasion, propaganda, learning and socialisation that may be involved in
the process of securitisation (2015: 106). That idea is somewhat debat-
able however, as it would either make securitisation a mechanism of some
higher echelon—a kind of “molecular mechanism” to use Elster’s term
(2007: 42–44)—or an unspecified theoretical construct that is reducible
to more foundational mechanisms.3 Guzzini develops a richer account of
securitisation as a social mechanism, based on the understanding of
mechanisms as focused on “how” causality rather than the “what” causal-
ity of correlational analysis (including Balzacq’s examination of the con-
gruence of different forces).
“How” causality allows for the analysis of action “embedded in a pro-
cess that, despite its focus on structures (security imaginaries, identity
discourses, cultures of anarchy), institutional processes and their path
dependencies, is basically open, since it is contingent on a series of con-
texts and factors” (Guzzini 2013: 276). This opens new spaces for re-­
constructing securitisation as an explanatory theory, which can account
for certain outcomes and explain the causal pathways that lead there. His
article can be read both as a plea for critical realist or analyticist reframing
of securitisation.
Two important points have to be made clear. Firstly, both Guzzini’s
“mechanismic” securitisation and Balzacq’s “sociological” securitisation
move the emphasis away from the securitising speech act. Guzzini sug-
gests that “the idea of a speech act refers here to a process, not a kind of
single bombshell event” (2011: 334). The latter seems to have been the
most common misinterpretation of the initial theorisation by the
Copenhagen School scholars—and one with far-reaching consequences.
In a similar vein, Balzacq does not mention the actual speech act among
the “essentials” of his ideal type of securitisation outlined above (Balzacq
2015).
Understanding securitisation as a process or a mechanism, with the
speech act becoming of lesser importance, we have to bear in mind that
 6  Energy Securitisation: Avenues for Future Research    169

the kinds of evidence we are after is not as simple as “I hereby declare this
a security matter”. In fact, the word security does not have to be uttered
at all for a specific statement to add to a gradual buildup towards security,
and clearly does not have to be mentioned in de-securitising moves.
Approaching energy securitisation from this perspective helps us over-
come the theoretical and methodological problem signalled earlier in this
chapter, regarding the definition of a securitising speech act. This idea is
well captured by the empirical study by Fischhendler and Nathan (2014:
156), who cast their net widely in a meticulous content analysis of com-
mittee public hearings. For them it was not “security” as such, but “exis-
tential language” that was the indicator of securitisation—“a sense of
urgency, prioritisation, and/or survival, [expressions] centered on threat
and risk”, etc.
What we are left with, however, is an unresolvable methodological
question in the broader, philosophically derived sense of “methodol-
ogy” as proposed by Jackson (2011): do we want an explanatory theory
of (energy) securitisation? This is often a matter of individual prefer-
ence, but there is also an important dividing line running between the
philosophical and sociological approaches as well as the “thinner” read-
ings of the Copenhagen School. Floyd has argued against the inclusion
of context in securitisation as that “would change the theory beyond
recognition, moving the focus away from the act that is securitisation,
toward a causal theory of securitisation instead” (2010: 21). Yet this
supposedly destructive move is, from a different point of view, the only
sensible one, as securitisation theory has arguably always been a causal
theory. If anything, it carries a “hidden causal argument” and an
implicit explanatory aim (see Jackson 2017). Building on Balzacq and
especially Guzzini’s proposals allows us to be more outspoken about
the non-positivist causality of the securitisation model, and explore the
ways in which energy becomes security through interpretive process
tracing, possibly in combination with other methods such as discourse
or content analysis (Szulecki 2016). This will allow us to both under-
stand specific examples of energy securitisation, and explain how cer-
tain outcomes came about at that particular moment and in that
context.
170  A. Judge et al.

Notes
1. The other theory that is examined with the Copenhagen School’s 1998
book is Regional Security Complex Theory. Space precludes a discussion
of this theory; however there has been some interesting work on how a
regional security complex centred around energy supplies has emerged
between the EU and Russia (Kirchner and Berk 2010; Maltby 2015).
There is clear potential for further work in this area in light of develop-
ments since the 2009 gas supply disruption.
2. Although as noted above, Bridge (2015) refers to different logics of state,
population and vital systems security, his primary concern is with the dif-
ferent referent objects that these entail rather than alternative security
rationalities.
3. In much the same way as Schelling proposed that “theory may comprise
many social mechanisms, but also a social mechanism may comprise
many theories” (1998: 33).

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 Part II
Europe’s External Policy Challenges:
Critical Perspectives on Energy
Security
 7
Taking Security Seriously in EU Energy
Governance: Crimean Shock
and the Energy Union
Kacper Szulecki and Kirsten Westphal

1 Introduction
Over the last five years, the European Union (EU) has seen important
shifts of emphasis on its main energy policy priorities. The drive for cost-­
efficiency and competitive energy supply, growing out of the Eurozone
crisis, was met with supply security and geopolitical risk considerations in
the aftermath of the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the war in Eastern
Ukraine. At the same time, with the 2015 Paris Agreement, Europe reaf-
firmed its commitment to long-term decarbonisation. Following the
‘Energy Union’ proposal, put forth in 2014, external and internal energy
governance is on the table in an attempt to resolve tensions on two levels.

K. Szulecki (*)
Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
K. Westphal
German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP),
Berlin, Germany

© The Author(s) 2018 177

K. Szulecki (ed.), Energy Security in Europe, Energy, Climate and the Environment,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1_7
178  K. Szulecki and K. Westphal

One is the continuous need to find the right balance between policy goals
in the so-called energy policy triangle—securing stable supply, maintain-
ing economic competiveness and safeguarding environmental
­sustainability. Next to balancing the ‘policy triangle’, there is also the
constant need to square the circle of internal EU energy governance,
which is faced with the tension between growing European harmonisa-
tion with increased competences of the European Commission (EC) and
the principle of Member State sovereignty over national energy mixes.
Initially proposed by the then Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the
Energy Union has been fleshed out by the incoming Jean-Claude
Juncker’s Commission as one of its 10 priorities (European Commission
2017). The Commission specified five dimensions of this energy policy
strategy: energy security, solidarity and diversification; an integrated
internal market; energy efficiency; decarbonisation; and innovation,
research and competitiveness. It broadened the earlier focus on energy
security, in an attempt to bring together 28 energy agendas of the
Member States (MS).
Writing an article for ‘Global Policy’ at the onset of the Ukraine crisis
in 2014, we listed five ‘cardinal sins’ of European energy non-governance.
We identified deeply entrenched problems and argued that they resulted
from political and infrastructural legacies, varying interests and national
strategies, as well as the EU’s own institutional framework. The five sins
were the tension between national sovereignty and common European
governance, a navel-gazing policy orientation, a segmented internal
energy landscape, the overlooked and ill-defined rationale of energy secu-
rity and a backlash against sustainability that impedes an energy transi-
tion (Szulecki and Westphal 2014).
Can we see a new idea for balancing the ‘energy triangle’ emerging,
and what is the understanding of energy security driving it? In this
chapter we argue that the Ukraine crisis was a  shock for European
energy non- or (at best) reluctant governance. The question now is
whether that challenge has been turned into opportunity and if so, what
progress we can see in eradicating the five cardinal sins discussed earlier.
Or, to the contrary, will we see a deepening of the existing rifts, a fur-
ther disintegration beyond the ‘Brexit’ or a core EU moving forward?
 7  Taking Security Seriously in EU Energy Governance: Crimean...    179

In the remainder of this chapter, which also serves as an introduction to

the following contributions providing critical perspectives on the under-
standing and practice of EU energy security, we proceed as follows.
First, we sketch the increasingly fluid geopolitical environment and
the global challenges, which European energy policy has to address:
­shifting demand, the problem of energy access and changing global
energy governance architecture. We then turn to internal issues, high-
lighting a split over economic efficiency, divergent climate policy ambi-
tions, the tension between market-oriented and statist energy policy
approaches, and problematise the perceived trade-off between security
and sustainability. We conclude with a strong argument for streamlining
energy and climate policy, as well as energy sustainability and security, in
a longer-­term EU energy strategy framework that seems to be emerging.
We also emphasise the need for an approach to energy security moving
beyond supply security—a point to which many of the following chap-
ters return, each in their own way.

2  he External Environment: Geopolitical

T
Shifts and Lingering Uncertainty
Since 2010, energy policy is conducted in an environment of ongoing rapid
and fundamental shifts in the global energy landscape—which the
International Energy Agency (IEA) described as facing ‘unprecedented
uncertainty’ (IEA 2010, p. 45). ) While global geopolitical shifts are perhaps
of a more fundamental nature in the long run, the long-­awaited impulse to
reconceptualise EU energy governance came as a result of events in its near
neighbourhood. The major energy supplier to the EU, Russia, has chal-
lenged the European security order with the annexation of Crimea and
destabilisation of Ukraine. This constitutes a new security challenge by qual-
ity and nature (Szulecki 2016). Moreover, it touches on the strong belief in
economic rapprochement and change which has its roots in the 1970s inter-
bloc détente policy (Högselius 2013). The functional understanding of
interdependence (see Kustova, Chap. 8, in this volume) is being challenged
and reduced to a dual strategy of deterrence and economic cooperation,
180  K. Szulecki and K. Westphal

at least by some Member States. The unprecedented level of uncertainty is

then neither a mere dramatisation nor a sound bite designed to attract
media attention to the already prominent sector.

2.1 An Era of Plenty?

One of the particularities of fossil fuels is their uneven geographic distri-

bution, which, combined with their political relevance results in the geo-
political dimension of energy, necessitates large-scale global trading and
is the source of perceived energy insecurity (Yueh 2010, p. 216). While
conventional hydrocarbons are concentrated mostly in the ‘strategic
ellipsis’ stretching from West Siberia and the Caspian Basin into the
Middle East, unconventional hydrocarbons and/or hydrocarbons in
unconventional reservoirs have fundamentally changed the picture. It is
thus not surprising that especially the former losers of this geological
resource lottery welcome the emergence of unconventional energy
sources—for example, shale gas and oil.
Technological progress and high oil prices helped to enlarge the
resource potential between 2009 and 2014. Offshore, pre-salt and deep
sea as well as Arctic fields were part of that new landscape. Another shift
in the gas markets is driven by the worldwide sea transport of liquefied
natural gas (LNG) and the construction of long-distance pipelines,
together turning gas from a regionally to a nearly globally tradable com-
modity (Hirst and Froggatt 2012, p.  5). These recent developments,
resulting from technological innovation, a high oil price level as well as
global warming when it comes to accessing permafrost zones and sea pas-
sages, have put a question mark behind ‘peak oil’—at least for the time
being. Some experts even speak of ‘fossil fuel abundance’ (Browne 2013;
compare Claes, Chap. 12, in this volume). This has led to an interesting
discursive shift, in which the notion of ‘peak oil’—visibly postponed—is
instead replaced by the industry’s and exporting state’s concerns with
‘peak oil demand’. The strong drop in oil prices seen in 2014 might there-
fore not be part of the usual conjuncture cycle, but rather we might see
prices of hydrocarbons stay ‘low for longer’.
 7  Taking Security Seriously in EU Energy Governance: Crimean...    181

Moreover, the growing expansion of renewable energy—with the most

rapid acceleration ever seen in the development of the energy mix—adds
to the picture. We have witnessed steep cost declines for onshore wind
(now seen as a mature technology no longer in need of additional sup-
port, and certainly not beyond 2030) and offshore wind, and ­plummeting
costs of solar photovoltaic (PV). All this adds up to an image of an era of
plenty where energy demand will not be growing at the same pace as sup-
ply from different resources.
At first sight, this might seem like a fairly benign environment for
energy importers and good news for European energy governance, as in
a buyers’ market the rules of the game are generally defined by consum-
ers (Mommer 2000, 2002). This can be somewhat misleading. The rea-
son is that given the large and geographically distributed resource basis,
‘above ground’ political and regulatory decisions determine whether,
where and when fields will be exploited. The geopolitics of energy are
unfolding with new dynamics, for example, the United States (US) as a
new energy producer or the Middle East as an emerging centre of
demand, positioning themselves on opposite course. The long-held tenet
that the world’s primary conventional energy resources, especially oil,
are concentrated in ‘a handful of volatile countries’ (Goldthau and
Sovacool 2012, p. 233) might still play out, as the Middle Eastern low-
cost producers are expected to exploit their competitive edge and thus
remain the backbone of the world’s oil supply in a carbon-constrained
world (IEA 2016).
Yet, the fracking revolution in the United States has had a structural
effect on the global oil and gas market. That is because the resources from
shale and tight geological rock formations can be extracted rapidly, upon
price signals and in smaller volumes, resembling rather a manufacturing
process than large-scale high upfront cost endeavours like those typical
for conventional oil and gas production. While energy markets have
faced an oversupply and relatively low prices, the geopolitics of energy
remain a major unknown (Rühl 2014). The unconventional revolution
and the low oil price level are shaking the stability of fossil fuel-abundant
countries, putting a question mark behind their oil-price-driven eco-
nomic models and the fiscal revenue basis as mere rent-seekers. This is,
182  K. Szulecki and K. Westphal

above all, affecting the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region
already in great disarray and increasing socio-economic instability in the
EU’s neighbourhood.
Shale gas fracking, while taking some of the security of supply pressure
off, adds further environmental risks—both global, such as the carbon
footprint from wellhead to combustion, and local, that is, due to possible
water supply and pollution (compare Lis’ Chap. 4, in this volume).
Moreover, environmental activists rightfully point to the risks of perpetu-
ating fossil fuel dependency.
Furthermore, fracking has dramatically improved the energy situation
for the United States, facilitating ‘America First’ policies and the use of
statecraft, for example, in sanctioning major energy producers such as
Iran and Russia. Moreover, it is putting the United States, on a com-
pletely different trajectory from its Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) partners, in terms of resilience
and energy patterns. It is also giving the United States a competitive edge
over other OECD economies as gas prices are and most likely will remain
lower compared to Europe or Japan. This second geo-economic dimen-
sion of the shifting patterns of global fossil fuel supply adds to the general
uncertainty, as the energy mixes and pathways are increasingly divergent
across and among regions, while Europe is increasingly becoming the
odd-man-out, the ‘liberal actor in a realist world’ of statist energy politics
(Goldthau and Sitter 2015).
The developed countries of Europe and North America for years have
grown accustomed to significant import dependency, especially on oil
and gas. They thus built their leverage on interdependence with hydrocar-
bon suppliers (see Godzimirski and Nowak, Chap. 9, in this volume).
Developed energy consumers tried to govern the global energy sector
through the IEA, balancing the influence of the Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) (Colgan et  al. 2012). As
described above, this ‘energy importers alliance’ is fundamentally chang-
ing with North America gaining self-sufficiency due to growing indige-
nous supplies and also because of the increasing energy efficiency of the
power and transport sectors. Despite the unexpected supply revolution,
demand will be the determining factor of the energy markets. Falling US
demand for LNG and oil has already impacted the Atlantic region’s
 7  Taking Security Seriously in EU Energy Governance: Crimean...    183

energy market. Moreover, the new supply of fossil fuels is met with rapid
shifts in demand in Asia, as well as in the Middle East. China is now the
largest energy consumer in the world, with India following.

2.2 Navigating Europe Towards Decarbonisation

As a consequence, the European Union is now finding itself increasingly

‘sandwiched’ between the energy-hungry Asian economies and a self-­
sufficient and self-interest-led United States. This can undermine the
EU’s position as a major and influential hydrocarbon importer.
Moreover, developing economies promise to be growing markets, which
is turning them into attractive destinations for infrastructure invest-
ments and long-­term supply contracts. These new leading consumers
are pushing for changes in the rules that govern global energy markets,
all in all creating a global landscape which is more heterogeneous and
characterised by increased protectionism—challenging the aspiration for
a level playing field and liberalised trade that are part of the IEA legacy.
Goldthau (2012) argues that after the statist paradigm that dominated
most of the twentieth century, and the liberal, market-oriented para-
digm that replaced it in the 1980s and 1990s, we have recently wit-
nessed the emergence of a new interventionist paradigm, under which
growing resource nationalism meets the concerns of ‘energy geopolitics’
both in Europe and globally. This parallelism of trends may well see the
balance shaken in favour for mercantilist and state-led approaches—and
these two logics are also clashing in the EU’s internal policymaking, to
which we shall return.
In contrast to the United States, the EU has to act from a position of
relatively decreasing market shares, also due to decarbonisation aims, and
without providing long-term predictability of demand, particularly
important from the point of view of suppliers (Sharples 2013). This may
translate into decreasing political influence to shape hydrocarbon
governance.
As an increasingly passive ‘taker’ of the developments in a conventional
energy world, the EU has more power to shape and gain in a sustainable (i.e.
low carbon) energy world. From the perspective of an energy consumer,
184  K. Szulecki and K. Westphal

accelerating diversification by using more renewable energy is a means to

hedge against repercussions in the hydrocarbon world, for example, supply
disruptions and price volatility. For the EU it seems crucial to continue with
an integrated energy and climate policy, and the ‘vision’ of a more sustain-
able energy system beyond 2030 and continuing to 2050.
Geopolitical shifts are constraining Europe’s manoeuvrability in the
conventional energy domain, but provide an important push towards
sustainability. This conjuncture reduces the trade-off between supply
security and sustainability, and what remains is the economic dimension.
Energy efficiency and decarbonisation (the third and fourth dimensions
of the Energy Union framework) are important in this respect. If the EU
wants to maintain and possibly improve competitiveness based on the
five dimensions in the Energy Union, it has an interest to push a sustain-
able energy transition not only for climate reasons but also for technology
and industrial policies. Here the Energy Union’s fifth dimension—
research and innovation—becomes especially relevant. In the shifting
geopolitical and geo-economic environment, the EU’s competitive posi-
tion, economic growth and innovativeness depend on serious and con-
certed infrastructure investment in the energy realm.
Hesitating and sluggish efforts will possibly mean that China takes a
leading role in innovative energy technologies (Slezak 2017). The uncer-
tainties related to renewables lie in their production and geographical
concentration. German companies were the first to move on wind and
solar technologies (and somehow German consumers paid for the global
learning curve), but the trade dispute with China settled in 2013 made it
clear that the economic benefits (also) fall into the hands of imitators
(Hughes and Meckling 2017). There are concerns that RES production
will become dependent on China. This is due not only to the latter’s state
subsidies, which in fact benefit global consumers, and market domi-
nance, but due to the concentration of natural resources necessary for the
production of modern RES installations.
However unrealistic that might have sounded even 10  years back,
China may become an important driver of global decarbonisation, while
former environmental ‘champions’ like Australia and Japan have made a
U-turn and expect to increase their CO2 emissions and carbon intensity
(e.g. Hua et al. 2016). Since 2013, Europe is no longer the major market
 7  Taking Security Seriously in EU Energy Governance: Crimean...    185

for renewables. The fact that the EU is losing out on that ground is bad
news for its industrial and technology policy as well as its growth model
building on innovation. As of 2016, China’s installed wind capacity was
147 160 MW, with the United States coming in second (81 311 MW).
In comparison, the EU’s combined capacity was around 155 350 MW
(with 45 639 in Germany) (IRENA 2017). China is also the global leader
in solar PV with 77 433 GW (followed by Japan with 41 600 GW,
Germany and the United States), as well as solar heating and geothermal
heating (REN 21 2016). Finally, China is also emerging as a strategic
investor into key infrastructure such as smart and super grids (Eid et al.
2017). With the June 2017 decision of the Donald Trump administra-
tion to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the EU
and China are left as the main decarbonisation engines for the future.
Even if that particular political move will most likely not have a deep
impact on the American energy trajectory, which is largely shaped by
state-level policies and private investment strategies already in place, it
brings in enough uncertainty for the US renewable energy sector to allow
Asian and European competitors to outpace it. The third decade of the
twenty-first century will thus see Sino-European competition or coopera-
tion—or most likely a mixture of both.
Another element adding to the growing divergence in global energy
paths, but also to more uncertainty, is the future of nuclear energy. Only
a decade ago, nuclear energy seemed to be among the most rational
options for decarbonising the power sector and meeting the rising global
energy demand at the same time. Some experts suggested a ‘nuclear
renaissance’ was on the horizon (Ferguson 2009). The disaster at
Fukushima Daiichi in March 2011, however, had a significant impact on
the present and future of this sub-sector. First, the perceptions of risk and
thus societal and political support for new nuclear plants have changed.
Germany and initially Japan opted for a nuclear phase-out. In the May
2017 referendum, Swiss citizens also supported a gradual phase-out and
transition based on renewables. Financial calculations, linked to nuclear
safety and insurance, have changed as well. In 2008, the cost of a kilowatt
of installed nuclear capacity was estimated at an already high $4 000
(Ferguson 2009, p. 304). The calculation of the costs of developing new
units at Hinkley Point in the United Kingdom (UK) was set at € 5400
186  K. Szulecki and K. Westphal

(over $7000) per kilowatt (Schneider and Froggatt 2012, p. 34). In 2016
the British government released a report suggesting that the lifetime cost
of Hinkley Point C would be some 37 billion GBP.1 To achieve satisfac-
tory levels of safety, nuclear facilities are becoming extremely expensive to
build. Last but not least, the ‘end of commercial nuclear endeavours’ is
looming with Westinghouse bankruptcy and Areva’s bailout, making
nuclear power generation more and more a field of activity for state-led
companies such as Rosatom of Russia (Mallet 2016; Hals 2017).
The implications for Europe are, again, uncertain. The internal divi-
sion of perspectives on nuclear puts Germany on one side, and France,
the UK as well as some Central-East European (CEE) countries on the
opposite side. However, while in 2012 the eastern part of Europe seemed
destined to a nuclear energy oversupply—with Belarus, Russia
(Kaliningrad), Lithuania, Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland all boast-
ing new nuclear projects, at the end of 2017 progress on these projects
was limited.

2.3  limate Change Mitigation, Energy Access

C
and Changing Institutional Architecture

The 2015 Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention

on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has established a new globally and
legally binding climate regime from 2020 onwards. It confirmed the
efforts to keep global warming at a level below 2°  (compared to pre-­
industrial era), and the obligation by all parties—without division
between developed and developing, but acknowledging ‘differentiated
responsibility’—to increase mitigation efforts. The nationally determined
contributions (NDCs), which all parties are bound to come up with, will
be subject to cyclical revision between the signatories (in a form of ‘peer
review’). Unlike the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement estab-
lishes a bottom-up mechanism in which a variety of efforts in different
sectors are to be orchestrated in light of the common and universally
recognised goal of mitigation, adaptation plus financial mechanisms
(Dröge 2016).
 7  Taking Security Seriously in EU Energy Governance: Crimean...    187

The US administration under Donald Trump has taken a very differ-

ent stance to climate change, and again, somewhat surprisingly perhaps,
China appears as a major partner for the EU in climate change mitigation
efforts. All in all, the Paris Agreement came as a relief for the European
vision, as it gives a chance to work internationally on a reliable frame-
work which the renewable energy industry needs.
However, with the world’s population still growing rapidly, the ‘energy
dilemma’ (Wilhite 2012, compare Bradshaw 2014) of fuelling economic
development without increasing the already massive pressure on the
planetary system is coming to the fore. Energy access and energy justice
will become primary issues, given that the present system is already
incredibly unjust (Goldthau and Sovacool 2012, p. 236; Sovacool and
Dworkin 2015). Currently, 1.2 billion people have no access to electric-
ity, while 2.7 billion lack access to modern, safe and clean cooking facili-
ties. More than 90 per cent of the anticipated growth in demand in the
next two decades will come from non-OECD countries. While modern
energy services have a multiplier effect on other welfare sectors such as
health or education (Florini and Sovacool 2011, p. 67), most developing
countries lack the financial capacity to invest in such infrastructure and
have to rely on the cheapest possible solutions.
Access to energy and development has become a new guiding para-
digm. The United Nations’ Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) initiative,
launched in 2011, has been reaffirmed in 2015 through the UN 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development. The latter provides a revised list of
‘Sustainable Development Goals’, where Goal 7 is to ‘ensure access to
affordable, reliable, sustainable & modern energy for all’ (SE4All 2017).
The initiative aims at strengthening the paradigm of development. If the
financial mechanisms provided under the Paris Agreement are synergised
with the initiative, the expansion of renewables can be accelerated.
Meeting the growing global demand and modernising the ageing energy
infrastructure will require investment counted in trillions of dollars. Due to
path dependency and the current political economy of energy, national
subsidies encourage the channelling of energy investments heavily in the
direction of fossil fuels and nuclear rather than renewables (Florini and
Sovacool 2011, p. 63). Subsidising renewables, which sees wide media criti-
cism, and subsidising fossil fuels to a greater extent is rightly compared to
188  K. Szulecki and K. Westphal

‘running air-conditioning and heating at the same time’ (Browne 2013).

Low hydrocarbon prices unlock new emissions with new demand and may
perpetuate fossil fuel consumption. At the same time, however, they pro-
vide an unprecedented opportunity to phase out fossil fuel subsidies.
The general trend is shaped by the growing divergence in energy paths
chosen by the key powers as well as diverse level of ambitions to mitigate
climate change. The energy mixes are becoming more heterogeneous.
This may also result in a growing competition over winning economic
models and a geopolitical rivalry in a multipolar world (Statoil 2016). To
exploit economies of scale and markets of scope (as a precondition to
decrease costs), the EU needs to push a global energy transition.
In those circumstances, we can expect a major shake-up of our gover-
nance system in the future. The role of established bodies of energy gov-
ernance, such as the OPEC, can be ambiguous in the face of the need to
decarbonise and the rise of unconventional fossil fuels. The current global
energy governance landscape is described as a ‘byzantine architecture of
parallel, nested and overlapping institutions’ (Van de Graaf 2013, p. 147),
even ‘littered with governors and institutions’ (Dubash and Florini 2011,
p. 6), but in face of the crisis of multilateralism and climate change scep-
ticism, it seems unrealistic to achieve more coherency under a common
roof. Moreover, we have seen significant steps forward in building in ele-
ments to support renewables (International Renewable Energy Agency—
IRENA), to push for a sustainable energy evolution in developing
countries (SE4All and SDGs) and to steer towards long-term decarboni-
sation, albeit at varying speeds (UNFCCC). The G20 has also enhanced
their energy cooperation in different working groups (Roehrkasten et al.
2016; Roehrkasten and Westphal  2016).

3  overnance in an Energy Union: Internal

G
Challenges
The bombshell experience of the Ukraine crisis on energy governance has
surely had varying impact across the European Union. In fact, already
existing cleavages in the interpretations of EU-Russia energy trade rela-
tions, especially in the gas sector (see Siddi, Chap. 10, in this volume),
 7  Taking Security Seriously in EU Energy Governance: Crimean...    189

were anything but erased overnight. Questions about the way forward
remain, as do controversies over longer-term economic sanctions on
Russia. These splits are additionally reinforced by internal EU divergences
on climate ambitions, preferred energy pathways, and the tension between
market and state-centric logics that we have seen already in the global
overview. While the Commission has been very active in trying to flesh
out the still rather basic setup of the internal energy market, unexpected
political turns—most importantly Brexit—will certainly affect both the
continued Europeanisation of energy policy, expansion of the internal
market and the EU’s climate ambitions.
The European Union is rooted in a regional cooperation with energy
issues at its core. Initially coal, and later nuclear energy were the rationale
for cooperation and integration at the community’s very beginning.
Given all this, it can be surprising to see how little progress has been
made in the area of energy policy coordination over six decades. However,
despite the uncertain global environment, recent years have seen unprec-
edented progress. The 2009 Third Energy Package with the target to
finalise an internal energy market were historic steps (Schubert et  al.
2016). The Energy Union, growing out of the shock after the annexation
of Crimea and the outbreak of war in Eastern Ukraine, seems to be a
much welcome framework for harmonising the mosaic of 28 energy and
climate agendas of the Member States.

3.1  nergy: Our Common Goal, or Core State

E
Power?

In the future, Europe will have a smaller share in the global market, which
may translate to a quieter voice in international energy affairs. If it does
not bundle forces in the changing landscape, it is hardly imaginable how
it can shape rules and markets. A major paradox lies in the fact that while
a common energy market and a European policy on energy, ‘in a spirit of
solidarity’, are the envisaged goals of the EU, sovereignty over actual
energy policies and mixes stays firmly in the hands of Member State gov-
ernments. This significantly undermines the effectiveness and coherence
of European energy policy and governance. The inherent tension in
190  K. Szulecki and K. Westphal

Article 194 of the Treaty of Lisbon makes it clear that policy and gover-
nance coordination ‘shall not affect a Member State’s right to determine
the conditions for exploiting its energy resources, its choice between dif-
ferent energy sources and the general structure of its energy supply’ but
calls, elsewhere, for solidarity and a common market.
With regard to the strategic energy triangle that guides energy policy
action, it has become ever more evident since 2007 that shared values are
lacking as a minimal common denominator. Member States prioritise the
objectives of energy security, sustainability and economic efficiency quite
differently and attach diverging urgency and immediacy to these targets—
and so the broader European energy triangle is like a jigsaw puzzle com-
posed of smaller Member State triangles that do not seem to fit together.
Wettestad et al. (2012) argued that what we have recently been observ-
ing in terms of the Commission’s actions regarding emissions trading,
renewable energy policy and the internal energy market is in fact a ‘hesi-
tant supranational turn’, in which the EC promoted its position using
other tactics and channels. The Renewable Energy Directives are an
example of explicit work by the Commission in expanding its mandate to
the energy sector. The 2020 Strategy as well as the 2030 Climate and
Energy Framework used national and EU-wide targets as a governance
instrument for increased harmonisation. The latter document also intro-
duced the notion of a ‘governance mechanism’ for energy, which was later
given more substance in the Energy Union framework (Szulecki et  al.
2016). Last but not least, state aid guidelines—an instrument of compe-
tition regulation, which has been the Commission’s domain for a longer
time—has increasingly been used to drive and harmonise national energy
policies by shaping renewable energy support schemes, capacity mecha-
nisms and limiting fossil fuel subsidies.
Creating an internal energy market on a legal foundation marked by
internal tension between solidarity and sovereignty is certainly a daunt-
ing task, involving 28 Member States grafting onto it 28 approaches, 28
renewable policies and soon perhaps 28 capacity market designs (Helm
2014). By 2017 that picture became even more complicated, as we can-
not be sure when and on what conditions 28 become 27. The ‘Brexit’
process will surely have an impact on both the EU and UK energy policy
in some way, but it is very difficult to anticipate how.
 7  Taking Security Seriously in EU Energy Governance: Crimean...    191

The stark divergence in climate policy ambitions is also playing into

this fragmentation, and the roots of differing perspectives are not only
material (resource endowments, economic constraints) but also ide-
ational, ideological and rooted in political and organisational cultures
(e.g. Szulecki 2017). This should not be seen as a one-sided issue, where
‘green’ states opt for harmony and carbon locked-in laggards act as veto
players. Germany’s Energiewende—the transition towards a renewable-­
based system—although laudable in its environmental aims, has been
pointed out as a unilateral policy that created coordination problems for
neighbouring countries. Poland and France were among the critics of the
way the reforms were conducted—the speed and lack of consultation—
while such deep changes in the German power system necessarily had an
impact on the interconnected neighbourly grids. A radical policy aimed
at increasing the sustainability of a system can suffer from a navel-gazing
attitude, and energy transformation needs to be conducted at a transna-
tional, Europe-wide scale. What adds to that is the fact that discussions
about energy transitions and reforms have for more than five years and
until recently concentrated on the electricity sector. Currently, more and
more European countries are also developing policy frameworks for
energy efficiency, decarbonisation of transport, household retrofitting
and thermo-modernisation and so forth.
Division lines are still criss-crossing the Union. This is related to issues
such as energy mixes and long-term energy strategies, sectorial policies,
uncoordinated support mechanisms for different energy sources, market
coupling models, utility ownership arrangements and so on. What adds
to the state of EU energy and climate policy plagued by internal cleavages
is the fact that spillovers from other policy fields such as foreign and secu-
rity policy or economic and fiscal policy complicate the creation of an
Energy Union even more (as the first part of this volume has attested, at
least in relation to the securitisation of energy by framing it in terms of
national security and foreign policy).
A division that is becoming more spelled out and important in its
consequences lies between Member States that want to see more market-­
based approaches and those that try to safeguard energy policy as a core
state power and unique state domain. This division has varying roots.
An argument raised in support of market expansion is often based on
192  K. Szulecki and K. Westphal

economic efficiency. As Europe reaches the end of a decade marked by

economic strife, arguments about cutting costs and increasing the effi-
ciency of investment through market mechanisms is resonating widely.
At the same time, we are seeing an increasing revival of statist approaches
where more power is concentrated in executives, and the public owner-
ship of energy companies is perceived not merely as desirable but abso-
lutely necessary for energy security. This is sometimes underpinned by a
geopolitical gaze on energy politics.
One explanation of this can be found in Goldthau’s (2012) distinction
between energy ‘marketers’, treating energy as ‘just another commodity’,
and energy ‘securitisers’ seeing it as an existential matter. The Lisbon
Treaty of 2004 reflects a strong (neo)liberal market approach and the
Commission as the guardian of the treaty has to stand by these principles.
That leads to the impression that European institutions are dominated by
marketers, while in contrast some Member States adopt a hard-nosed
securitising stance. As we have seen also in Part 1 of this book and in the
chapter by Kustova, this is an oversimplification. There is, however, no
single best approach here. Moreover, Member States do not have to be
consistent in their pro-market or pro-state regulation stance, which
depends on various factors. This is even more evident when the urgency
of an energy transition is prioritised, because markets most likely will not
deliver, but require rather strong state-led policy elements. Germany—
the top ‘marketer’, at least when gas or regional electricity trade is con-
cerned—has been pushing for a very state-led model of renewable
expansion, while Poland, the archetypical ‘securitiser’, uses market-based
rhetoric in climate policy discussions. The area where all players seem to
agree that regulation and state steering will be necessary is energy
­efficiency, continuously dragging behind renewable energy expansion,
despite its obvious benefits.
The degree to which the EU is divided in the perception of Russia as a
political partner, and the interdependence in energy trade as either a
stranglehold or a lever, became more tangible than ever before in the face
of the 2014 Ukrainian crisis (Westphal 2016).
2014 has had a cathartic effect because the EU has engaged in a ‘stock-­
taking’ and common modelling exercises with the stress test in natural
gas supplies. Moreover, the creation of the Energy Union, the Energy
 7  Taking Security Seriously in EU Energy Governance: Crimean...    193

Security Package of 2015 and the Clean Energy Package of 2016 as well
as, for example, generation adequacy assessment in the electricity sector
are all directed towards enhancing cross-border and regional cooperation
in the power and gas sector. In pushing the Energy Union, the Commission
is stepping beyond the inertial status quo, enhancing the scale and scope
of energy policies with a view on the future shape of the energy system
(compare, however, important critical points, e.g. Fischer 2017).
The egocentric and statist orientation downplays solidarity and
impedes Europeanisation as well as an energy transition. It is therefore
not only an obstacle for internal energy governance but also makes poli-
cymakers blind to the scale and direction of global changes. As the global
importance of Europe inevitably weakens, energy nationalism and
Eurocentrism become graver sins, subverting the EU’s and single Member
State governments’ response to new circumstances and global
challenges.

3.2  nergy Security: A Key Rationale, Lately Highly

E
Politically Charged

The EU is by far the largest importer of energy, buying nearly twice the
volume of the US energy import and five times that of China. Import
dependency is often perceived as the defining problem of European
energy policy (Umbach 2010; Godzimirski and Nowak, Chap. 9, in this
volume), at least in the old conventional energy world. Lilliestam and
Patt (2012, p. 28), having analysed policy documents from the EU and
two Member States, argue that two dimensions are crucial for energy
security from a state-centric perspective: availability (having enough
energy) and reliability (having it at all times and places).
This, however, does not seem to be a constructive definition. Energy
security has to be defined in an encompassing way. An approach to
focus on import dependency falls short because energy security also
demands resilience in the system. Cherp and Jewell (2014), building
their approach on the concept of vulnerability, also point our atten-
tion to the need of concentrating governance efforts on increasing the
resilience of vital energy systems to long-term stress and abrupt shocks.
194  K. Szulecki and K. Westphal

This approach expands the overwhelming focus on supply to all parts

of the supply chain, making systemic robustness a fundamental policy
issue. Diversification and possibilities for fuel switch, interconnections
and reverse flows, but also security stocks, buffers and so on, are com-
ponents of energy security. Landry (Chap. 11, in this volume) also
criticises the long-standing EU approach for its narrow focus on nega-
tive security, while only including positive security logics recently.
Following Cherp and Jewell’s approach, if the vulnerabilities of a
particular energy system are difficult or impossible to eliminate and
resilience cannot achieve the desired level, an alternative might be not
to seek solutions within that system but replace it with an alternative
system altogether. The overemphasis of import dependency from Russia
and diversification of gas supplies has not only limited the discussion of
resilience but more importantly perhaps of the diversification of energy
sources. If the dependency on fossil fuels supplied by a single, powerful
supplier turns out to be politically problematic, the alternative is to
turn away from fossil fuels. This is also the approach that we have
pointed to in the discussion of the global landscape as Europe’s most
constructive option for the future, bringing together (if governed well)
all three tips of the energy triangle. In pushing for an accelerated energy
transition, the EU has to reframe the issue of affordability, to see eco-
nomic calculations not only in ‘snap shot’ mode but also as an invest-
ment into a sustainable energy future with, for example, low operation
costs.
That said, system stability in the electricity sector is another focal
point—also often underestimated in traditional energy security discus-
sions. This has led to the argument that the expansion of renewable
energy sources is happening too quickly (see Szulecki and Kusznir,
Chap.  5, in this volume). Once again, these points are marked by an
unconstructive fixation on the supply side and particularly frame renew-
able supply as the sole ‘troublemaker’. In fact, the sluggish adaptation of
transmission lines and distribution grids, lack of proper demand responses
and conventional energy’s low flexibility all contribute to that problem.
Infrastructure and interconnections are key to increase flexibility and
resilience (Puka and Szulecki 2014). The relationship between Germany
and Poland in the energy sector is a great example of the way different
 7  Taking Security Seriously in EU Energy Governance: Crimean...    195

assumptions about and understandings of energy security can undermine

cooperation (Gawlikowska-Fyk et al. 2017, see also the contributions by
Heinrich and Lis, Chaps. 3 and 4, in this volume).

3.3  nergy Union: Finally Merging Security

E
and Sustainability?

Climate protection is not the only rationale of the energy transition—

energy security also has to be taken into account and seen as a justifica-
tion (cf. Jewell et al. 2014). However, the way in which the EU has come
to attach priority to a rather traditional understanding of energy security
sits uneasily with its declared climate aims.
Environmental concerns have been an important part of the way
energy policy was conceptualised by the Commission (Solorio Sandoval
and Morata 2012). The Green Paper of 2006 mentions sustainability as
an objective of an EU energy strategy, and this is the dimension in which
the EU energy policies have had their particular strength (Westphal 2006,
pp. 50–3). The EC’s major success in both shaping European energy poli-
cies and steering them towards sustainability was undoubtedly the
Climate and Energy Package (Helm 2014). It was essentially a set of
short-term targets grounded on the assumption that fossil fuel prices
would rise, making renewables more competitive and hence yielding
competitive advantage to the EU, while the Emissions Trading System
(ETS) was to become a model for a global emissions trading scheme
(Pustelnik 2013). This strategy, given the assumptions and information
that the EC had in hand at the time, was highly rational.
When oil prices were skyrocketing in 2008, and climate change was on
the top of the agenda, the moment was perfect for launching a deep
energy system transformation that should, like a proverbial silver bullet,
solve all of the EU’s problems at the same time: reduce energy costs in the
long run, decrease import dependence and increase energy security and,
last but not least, contribute to global (climate mitigation) and local
(reduced pollution) environmental protection. The unforeseen external
shifts—a global financial crisis and the US shale gas and oil bonanza—
changed the entire policy context.
196  K. Szulecki and K. Westphal

Faced with fossil energy prices ‘low for longer’, that strategy needs
recalibrating. The expansion of renewables, which seems inevitable with
the new climate regime in place and in the face of falling prices and
increasing efficiency, will contribute to reducing the demand and with it
the price for fossil fuels, making it again economically unsound to look
for new hydrocarbon sources.

4 Conclusions
As the European Union enters its ninth consecutive year of internal crisis,
the need for future projects and policy fields that may help to reinforce
integration is greater than ever before. A sustainable Energy Union,
merging the energy security agenda with climate policy and economic
growth, seems promising in this respect.
Experience has shown that energy and climate policies are two sides of
the same coin. In the EU, as Helm notes (2014, p.  33), the common
energy market and climate policy were two separate pillars of energy pol-
icy, pursued by two different Directorates. An integrated climate and
energy policy is a must, also because it is bringing in more stability to
tackle the growing uncertainties (hence the importance of the post-2030
agenda till 2050). The EU has to constantly work on a common EU
energy vision that translates in a roadmap till 2050. So far though, only
Denmark, Germany and the UK have a clear strategy for sustainable
energy transition until the mid-twenty-first century.
It is now a necessity under the Paris Agreement’s framework to restore
the EU’s soft power, linking it to the Sustainable Development Goals
agenda, and securing global leadership in sustainability transition. This
model has the potential to generate slow but sustainable economic growth
in the long term. But to achieve this, we have to overcome both internal
divisions over climate ambitions, the growing market vs. state mismatch,
and the fragmentation resulting from state-centric and egoistic under-
standings of sovereignty in the energy sector.
Until now, European states lack a shared vision regarding the future of
energy policy. What seems even more important, though, is that EU
Member States lack even a common understanding of their position in
 7  Taking Security Seriously in EU Energy Governance: Crimean...    197

the international energy landscape. There is a clear antagonism, a ‘policy

trap’, between national and integrated energy governance. The only pos-
sibility to escape that tension is to rethink and emphasise the collective
benefits of energy solidarity. Sovereignty should be seen as a collective
good, not a national or private one; and states should be expected to
exercise theirs in a way that is respectful of the sovereignty of others. To
move forward, leaders, analysts and scholars need to ‘dispel the prevalent
notion that international cooperation necessarily means losing policy-
making sovereignty and to make the case for more multilateralism, dem-
onstrating that under conditions of policy interdependence more
multilateralism helps states to regain and maintain their policymaking
sovereignty’ (Kaul 2013, p. 54).
The European perceptions or reimagination of energy security should
reflect a systemic understanding, not focussed merely on supply, to navi-
gate through the new energy landscape and deal with the risks, challenges
and opportunities ahead (Scholl and Westphal  2017). Energy sustain-
ability needs to be understood in holistic terms, where environmental
goals bring significant economic and security co-benefits. The positive
impact of renewable energy and energy efficiency on energy security
should be continuously emphasised—as models show, a low-carbon tran-
sition can be beneficial in this respect (Jewell et al. 2014). Our system is
not sustainable—not merely ‘environmentally unfriendly’.
Decarbonisation and the energy transition have to be seen not just as
a ‘green’ project but also a long-term strategy for inducing growth,
increasing innovation, making Europe’s vital energy systems more resil-
ient and deepening integration by making Member States join forces in
coordinating the shift. Integrating an ever-larger proportion of
­intermittent renewable energies requires not only a change on the genera-
tion side but presupposes a systemic structural change, ranging from gen-
eration to transmission, storage and demand. In that sense, it requires a
grand transformation of the technical and the commercial side. This step
is still ahead of the EU countries and part of the large debate on costs
stems from this challenge. But it is also a question of the lens one looks
through: the modernisation of infrastructure is in any case a growing
need in most of the Member States.
198  K. Szulecki and K. Westphal

The Energy Union—forging a crisis into an opportunity to finally

shape the EU’s energy policy in a coherent way—is also something
beyond a chance for streamlining the economic side of energy with cli-
mate policy and security awareness. It provides a new impetus for integra-
tion, in an extraordinarily complicated supranational system, which
originated from collaboration in the energy sector. Taking Tusk’s initial
idea and remodelling it, the Commission has laid ground for a new era in
EU energy collaboration. Unfortunately, Brexit and important differ-
ences between important Member States can prove insurmountable. The
already fragmented landscape can, in result, gain a functional representa-
tion in a (Energy) Union of different speeds. Differentiated integration is,
whatever the political and normative judgements in that regard, already a
fact (Leuffen et al. 2013).
The fundamental problem that prevails is the lack of a common energy
vision. However, even if the Member States do not agree on the shape of
the house the Commission foresees, they seem to be supportive of the
general blueprint and basic architectural structure. The Energy Union
framework with the in-built governance mechanism may well prove to be
a tool to break out of the gridlock, helping to exploit functional effects
and leading to more coherent policies.

Notes
1. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/decc-government-major-
projects-portfolio-data-2016

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 8
Unpacking the Nexus Between Market
Liberalisation and Desecuritisation
in Energy
Irina Kustova

1 Introduction
Energy has been recognised by International Relations (IR) scholarship as
an increasingly salient factor affecting domestic policies and inter-­
governmental relations and an essential part of security concerns. It has
been acknowledged that political interventions into the economy of
resource exchange can generate energy security solutions that might tres-
pass “normal” politics and require extraordinary security measures (the
so-called process of “securitisation” seminally elaborated by the
Copenhagen School and discussed in Chaps. 2 and 6). The literature has
explored how energy relations and domestic political processes can be
securitised, especially as a response to several energy crises in Europe

This chapter was originally presented at the academic conference “Towards a common European
energy policy? Perceptions of energy security” at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland,
on 19 May 2016. The author would like to thank Kacper Szulecki, Andrew Judge, and Andreas
Heinrich for their invaluable comments on earlier drafts.

I. Kustova (*)
University of Trento, Trento, TN, Italy

© The Author(s) 2018 203

K. Szulecki (ed.), Energy Security in Europe, Energy, Climate and the Environment,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1_8
204  I. Kustova

throughout the 2000s (Natorski and Herranz Surrallés 2008; Judge and
Maltby 2017; Stoddard 2012), but has left the analysis of energy desecu-
ritisation to sporadic research inquiries (Christou and Adamides 2013).
Largely, debates about the conditions under which desecuritisation
could occur have been developed in the context of broader IR energy
studies in line with “Western-backed neoliberal orthodoxies” of “a gener-
alisable paradigm heavily influenced by ideas about liberalisation, dereg-
ulation, and competition” (Kuzemko 2013, 1). These “pro-market
orthodoxies” have implicitly expected desecuritisation of energy policies
as an outcome of market reforms and, contrarily, securitisation of rela-
tions as a result of non-market policies, especially those of energy produc-
ers (Correlje and van der Linde 2006; Moran and Russell 2009; Goldthau
2012). Overall, these studies have viewed the “desecuritisation” of energy
politics as an essentially rationalist-driven exercise where a choice of mar-
ket reforms provides the necessary grounds for international cooperation
and presupposes a non-securitised path of energy policies (Wilson 2015).
To some extent, these ideas rely upon “the prevailing orthodoxy of eco-
nomic liberalism in energy policy” (McGowan 2008, 91) which has been
embraced by governments and international bodies since the late 1980s
(e.g., Kessides 2004).
Indeed, open markets combined with rule-based market exchange may
decrease the likelihood of politically grounded conflicts over resource
exchange. However, this does not presuppose that market liberalisation
and securitisation trends cannot occur simultaneously. Moreover, empiri-
cal examples, such as security concerns about the global oil market and
the securitisation of the European Union’s gas policies, seem not to jux-
tapose market reforms and securitisation trends in policies. These obser-
vations raise a need of a clearer definition of relations between liberalisation
and securitisation. This chapter does not contrast liberalisation as part of
market reforms to political aspects of energy relations, and does not view
securitisation as part of political practices, as endorsed by many studies.
On the contrary, this study argues that market liberalisation per se is nei-
ther a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the “normalisation” of
energy politics.
This study also has a different understanding of energy commodifica-
tion and liberalisation from the economic strand of the energy security
 8  Unpacking the Nexus Between Market Liberalisation...    205

literature, which supposes that “energy markets were meant to ­depoliticize

energy supply and thus make it less vulnerable to the types of politically
motivated disruptions that shaped the earlier thinking on energy secu-
rity” (Cherp and Jewell 2011, 205). In this regard, market liberalisation
is understood in this study as a specific set of institutions which relies
upon certain perceptions and ideas and promotes certain paradigms in its
domestic (“domestic liberalisation”) and international (“international lib-
eralisation”) dimensions. Thus, the domestic dimension refers to the mar-
ket liberalisation of states’ energy sectors, while the international one
refers to the market liberalisation of international (global) and regional
energy markets.
As market conditions and models would vary significantly, containing
perceptions, ideas, practices, rules, and norms, this study suggests that
linking a particular type of energy market governance (“market liberalisa-
tion”) with (de)securitisation processes requires the analysis of case-­
specific conditions, which create the environment where tendencies for
either securitisation or desecuritisation could prevail. In this research,
these conditions are identified as (i) the compatibility of domestic insti-
tutional models of the energy sector, which refers to consensus regarding
contractual forms, deliveries, and access to markets among actors, and (ii)
the “non-strategic” socio-economic role of resources, which reflects
actors’ perceptions about the importance of a particular resource for
states’ economy, security, and policies. In short, the compatibility of
domestic institutional models creates the environment for desecuritisa-
tion in the context of (regional) interactions and policy formation and
perceptions about the “non-strategic role” of resources in the context of
the desecuritisation of international governance patterns and policy
formation.
These conditions allow for looking closer at combinations of the liber-
alisation and (de)securitisation processes (Fig. 8.1): (i) when the liberali-
sation of domestic energy sectors is accompanied by securitisation, (ii)
when the liberalisation of domestic energy sectors is accompanied by
desecuritisation, (iii) when the liberalisation of international (regional)
energy markets is accompanied by securitisation, and (iv) when the liber-
alisation of international (regional) energy markets is accompanied by
desecuritisation. The proposed conceptual framework is supported with
 206 

Securisaon

Oil market
I. Kustova

Gas trade in
Europe

Non-compability of
DIMs ‘Strategic’ socio-economic
role of a resource
Domesc EU Internal Energy Internaonal
Market and Energy
Liberalisaon Liberalisaon
Community ‘Non-strategic’ socio-
economic role of a
resource
Compability of DIMs

Coal market

Desecurisaon

Fig. 8.1  Domestic/international liberalisation and (de)securitisation: a typology

 8  Unpacking the Nexus Between Market Liberalisation...    207

several examples throughout the text, which demonstrate the intricacies

of market reforms and desecuritisation processes in energy markets. It
shows that, contrary to neoliberal expectations (Helm 2007; Goldthau
and Sitter 2015, 23–26; Wilson 2015), additional conditions are more
likely to generate further securitisation of energy issues in domestic and
regional contexts.
In this way, this chapter aims at redefining a casual chain between lib-
eralisation and desecuritisation. First, this chapter defines the concepts of
liberalisation and securitisation and delineates their use in the current
literature. Second, it establishes the conceptual links between them on
the grounds of two factors introduced as omitted causal factors. This
study advocates a need for a more thorough analysis of the scope condi-
tions that might influence the desecuritisation pattern. It outlines causes
affecting securitisation process regardless of the presence or absence of
market reforms. The objective consists not in denying the possible impact
of liberalisation but in providing a more comprehensive causal chain that
frames energy policy analysis. It will result in a more methodologically
robust definition of causes which takes a different path from economic
determinism (including the views of one particular economic model
leading to positive policy outcomes). Instead, the approach will contrib-
ute to securitisation theory by highlighting non-tangible causes of the
complex social process.

2  arket Liberalisation and (De)

M
securitisation: Delineating
the Conceptual Boundaries
The major debate regarding the liberalisation of energy sectors has been
whether energy policy should be an object of public policy deliberations,
of extraordinary security measures, or of technocratic governance. While
the reply would depend upon the paradigmatic stance one chooses, the
recent literature has favoured the approach to depoliticisation as the
reduction of the role of central/regional government in certain issue areas
(Kuzemko 2015). This choice has been justified by a need for indepen-
208  I. Kustova

dent, politics-free decision-making which relies upon a transfer of

decision-­making to independent agencies and removes the issue from
political deliberations. That model includes national regulators, which
are designed as agencies independent of ministries and (at least in theory)
of direct governmental pressure, and transmission system operators
(TSOs), which operate as market actors and in many countries are pri-
vate, for-profit entities. It has been widely acknowledged that the liberali-
sation of the energy industry decreases the sector’s politicisation—the
separation of activities in the sector and independent regulation trans-
form strategic assets subject to political deliberations into market-traded
commodities. This also means that security choices are more likely to be
made by market actors rather than by governments. A number of reforms
have been endeavoured in the USA, the UK, and the EU across the sec-
tors, including those of telecommunication, transport, and energy
(Kuzemko 2013; Talus 2011).
Contrary to this, a rising “hunt for resources” and increasingly nation-
alist energy policies of producers have been often referred to as “politici-
sation”, and its extreme form, securitisation, of energy relations (Goldthau
and Sitter 2015). By this, politicisation has been often understood in
energy-related studies as a process occurring in the situation of political
conflicts and tensions over energy resources (Colgan 2013). Overall,
there has remained a tension between the way International Relations
and International Political Economy literature contrast “the usual eco-
nomic activity” with “politics”—that is, everything that cannot be
explained through usual market behaviour—where the latter also stands
for securitisation (Moran 2009). In this regard, securitisation has been
interpreted as a response to external shocks, producers’ resource national-
ism and consumers’ domestic political concerns about security of
supplies.
This study advocates a need for a more thorough analysis of the scope
conditions that might influence (de)securitisation patterns and for estab-
lishing relations between the concepts. Showing that securitisation is possi-
ble in a liberalised context, it opens up rationalist neoliberal debates to
discuss how liberalisation trends can become securitised due to states’ per-
ceptions of security threats. What this chapter seeks is to problematise what
seems to be a dominant perception in the literature of a causal relationship
 8  Unpacking the Nexus Between Market Liberalisation...    209

and to improve it by adding those missing scope conditions. It aims at estab-

lishing under what scope conditions (de)securitisation is likely to occur. A
clearer typology of possible combinations provides for a better understand-
ing of the interrelationship between liberalisation and (de)securitisation
trends emerging in the current energy politics in various parts of the world.

2.1  he Domestic and International Dimensions

T
of Market Liberalisation

Paradoxically, the domestic and international dimensions of market lib-

eralisation have often been used interchangeably in the IR literature,
referring to various combinations of regulation and market openness in
international energy markets and domestic energy sectors. While they are
mostly interrelated, one does not necessarily presuppose the other.
Domestic market reforms refer to government-led organised reforms of
the energy sector, its competition rules, and market access (Talus 2011),
the international dimension is mostly concerned with the modes of gov-
ernance that emerge in international markets as a result of various com-
binations of characteristics such as physical production, financial
instruments, pricing mechanisms, and contract structures (Dannreuter
2015). In this regard, domestic organisation may define strategies and
preferences for international markets, but this might not necessarily be
the case.

Domestic Liberalisation

“Liberalisation of domestic energy sectors” refers to a combination of

measures directed at the enhancement of competition in the sector (pri-
marily through unbundling of operations and access to networks) and
deregulation (inter alia by the allocation of authority to independent
regulatory agencies), often accompanied with various degrees of privati-
sation (Jordana and Levi-Faur 2004). As has been conventionally argued
by various international bodies (Müller-Jentsch 2001), these reforms
allow market competition, provide incentives for the diversification of
supplies and infrastructure development, and thus enhance energy secu-
210  I. Kustova

rity (Kessides 2004). In a nutshell, market reforms are aimed at re-­

organising a domestic institutional model (DIM) of the energy sector,
which has traditionally comprised restricted competition in the market of
vertically-integrated companies. The DIM usually includes the following
aspects (Rossiaud and Locatelli 2010, 10):

• access to the market (property rights to resources and their protec-

tion), investment protection, and investment dispute settlement;
• the organisational model (the level of state involvement and market
freedoms, the role of state and private companies, and the access of
foreign companies to upstream and downstream activities);
• competition rules (the level of competition in production, transmis-
sion, distribution, and export and the role of a regulator).

While the neoliberal literature would tend to view DIMs as a combi-

nation of rules and regulations that prescribe certain market behaviour
and market operation, this study approaches DIMs from a more institu-
tionalist point of view, viewing them as a set of rules and norms that
guide interactions in energy markets and encompass a broader vision
about underlying principles of the organisation of the energy sectors. The
domestic institutional model is thus defined as a set of underlying prin-
ciples of the organisation of energy sectors, identified by formal rules,
organisational and regulatory frameworks, and informal rules and norms
that provide the internal consistency of the model. In broader terms, a
model reflects a paradigm or a set of ideas on the continuum between free
markets and resource nationalism, which address the extent of state
involvement (whether the state is an arbiter or a regulator) and the inter-
play between competition and regulation (whether a certain degree of
competition is allowed and competition rules are indeed implemented
and applied in practice).

Liberalisation of International (Regional) Energy Markets

The liberalisation of international or regional energy markets refers to the

development of free, transparent, and rule-based markets. In such mar-
 8  Unpacking the Nexus Between Market Liberalisation...    211

kets, contractual obligations are concluded at specific trading platforms

and cover various time frameworks. Liberalisation of markets is usually
referred to as global governance mechanisms, which are aimed at
“foster[ing] efficient markets, deal with externalities (notably, but not
only, climate change), extend access to energy services to the billions of
people not adequately served by markets, and address the many trade-offs
involved with improving energy security” (Florini and Sovacool 2011,
57). These global governance mechanisms aim at shaping transactions
and interactions, leading to more predictable and transparent interac-
tions in regard to investment agreements, trade rules, and transport
regimes (Goldthau and Witte 2010). In other words, these structures are
viewed as “a positive-sum market that merely needs better institutional-
ization to overcome the fundamental problem of energy security” (Florini
and Sovacool 2011, 59). Some studies have been more sceptical about
this politics-free nature of liberalisation (Belyi and Talus 2015; Dannreuter
2015) and view “international liberalisation” as a strategy to promote a
certain vision of markets, which could contrast the existing governance
practices.

2.2  stablishing Links Between the Liberalisation

E
and (De)securitisation Processes: The Domestic
Institutional Models and the Socio-Economic
Role of Resources

This brief overview reveals that both liberalisation and securitisation can
be grasped in multi-level dimensions. Then, an important question is
addressed about how the two processes overlap. The present theoretical
model inspired by the securitisation theory implies two core components
foregrounding the causal chain—the compatibility of models and the
social approach to the resources.
There are certain links between greater market freedoms and more
peaceful rule-based relations, and this study seeks to unpack these causal
mechanisms. The processes of (de)securitisation and market liberalisation
can affect each other in both directions—for example, domestic liberali-
sation may lead to the desecuritisation of domestic energy policies, but
212  I. Kustova

also the desecuritisation of political processes may invoke reforms. The

proposed typology distinguishes four sets of relations between the pro-
cesses which vary along (i) the type of market liberalisation, and (ii) the
presence or absence of securitisation:

(i) Liberalisation of energy sectors (“domestic liberalisation”) and

desecuritisation;
(ii) Liberalisation of energy sectors (“domestic liberalisation”) and
securitisation;
(iii) Liberalisation of international (regional) energy markets (“interna-
tional liberalisation”) and securitisation;
(iv) Liberalisation of international (regional) energy markets (“interna-
tional liberalisation”) and desecuritisation.

Figure 8.1 illustrates this typology and provides examples for each set,
which are elaborated below. In defining securitisation, this study refers to
the methodological considerations identified in Chap. 6, thus not focus-
ing on single security speech acts but including the analysis of contextual
factors. It views extraordinary measures in line with the definitions in
Chap. 2, which include “breaking norms that otherwise bind […], shift-
ing competences and power (towards the executive) and withholding or
limiting information”, all legitimised by reference to security. This study
introduces two factors that may intervene into this relationship in a non-­
linear, case-specific fashion: (i) the compatibility of DIMs and (ii) the
socio-economic role of a resource. This analytical exercise by no means
presupposes that causal links can be established; however, clarifying the
complex relationship between liberalisation and (de)securitisation pro-
vides a clearer conceptual basis for future analysis.

 omestic Liberalisation and (De)securitisation:

D
The Compatibility of Domestic Institutional Models

Domestic institutional models affect actors’ strategies depending on their

institutional interests. They contain both formal rules for the organisa-
tion of the sector but also a variety of perceptions about the role of the
sector in the economy, the role of actors, goals, approaches to trade, and
 8  Unpacking the Nexus Between Market Liberalisation...    213

strategies. Preferences might include, inter alia, ways to guarantee reve-

nues, approaches to risk division, property and operating rights, and
political and symbolic dominance. For example, revenues as economic
benefits from cross-border trade can be secured by various mechanisms in
commodity contracts, including flexibility of pricing and flexibility of
volumes. Approaches to risk division define how risks between producers
(“resource” risks of upstream activity, exploration of new fields and infra-
structure) and consumers (“market” risks of downstream activity, market-
ing, and sales) are divided in commodity contracts (Konoplyanik 2009).
These preferences may generate a variety of strategies about resource
exchange and investment including the issues of: (i) types of commodity
contracts (a commodity purchase or a long-term investment contract),
(ii) access to infrastructure (mandatory or negotiated), and (iii) invest-
ment protection.
Once differences in these aspects penetrate energy relations, it might
be argued that tensions are more prone to occur. Compatibility of mod-
els—a consensus about most of these issues—is likely to provide stability
in the interactions, and contrarily, once (unilateral) changes in energy
markets are invoked, they increase a probability of conflicts. Differences
in domestic institutional models might increase disagreements and result
in diversification policies, the absence of a common framework, and the
prioritisation of physical aspects of energy security. In other words, liber-
alisation as a particular type of domestic institutional models is not a
necessary and satisfactory factor of desecuritisation; instead, under cer-
tain conditions, it can generate further conflictual patterns in interna-
tional practices.
Market reforms could occur simultaneously in the context of greater
securitisation of policies and liberalisation may become a way to achieve
securitisation, framed as a tool for enhancing resistance to (external)
threats. Domestic market reforms do not always generate incentives for
market openness in international relations. Certainly, at the regional
level, or at a certain stage of market development, states may opt to adapt
to a new regulatory paradigm due to a wide range of reasons (Prange-­
Gstöhl 2009), but it is questionable whether non-liberalised models a
priori result in conflictual patterns.
An example includes gas trade between Europe and Russia that has
become increasingly conflictual since the early 2000s—the period when
214  I. Kustova

a number of reforms regarding further liberalisation of the EU gas market

were adopted (Eikeland 2011) and when a number of initiatives con-
firmed stronger adherence to the state-controlled natural monopoly
model in Russia.1 These EU reforms have significantly changed three
major aspects of the models—how the market is accessed, to guarantee
investment protection and to settle disputes; how the market is organ-
ised; and the interplay between competition and regulation in the gas
sector. These changes have triggered a number of uncertainties for both
domestic and external stakeholders both in the EU and Russia. For exam-
ple, unbundling measures introduced by the EU as part of the so-called
Third Energy Package in 2009 have further complicated EU-Russia gas
relations. These measures included the Third Country Clause, which was
“referred to in the press as the ‘Lex Gazprom’” (Boussena and Locatelli
2013, 32) and which was largely defined by Russian officials as hostile to
Russia, and Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov (2013, 8)
pointed to “de facto expropriation of Russian companies”.
While these reforms have been often referred to as a step towards the
end of Russia’s energy leverage in political gas pricing and as “normalisa-
tion” of the gas sector, they further fuelled tensions as a result of the
implementation of EU regulation by the members of the EU Energy
Community Treaty, in particular Ukraine. While the implementation of
EU energy provisions by Ukraine would approximate its domestic model
to the EU internal energy market, the broader system of energy ­governance
demonstrates the significant incompatibility of the EU models with insti-
tutional practices of Russia. After the transit gas contract between Russia
and Ukraine expires in 2019, these profound gas sector reforms in
Ukraine will provide a new impetus for political deliberations in a broader
gas market in Eurasia. Further advancement of the EU-led reform in
Ukraine and other countries of the Energy Community will inevitably
raise the issue of the co-existence of these models.

 iberalisation of International (Regional) Energy Markets

L
and (De)securitisation: The Socio-Economic Role of Resources

One could expect that if resources are exchanged in free markets, desecu-
ritisation of relations would occur. This postulate relies upon the strand
 8  Unpacking the Nexus Between Market Liberalisation...    215

of the literature that views energy markets as those that “can deliver
energy more efficiently and ensure necessary investment in energy infra-
structure while the diversity of market actors would guarantee security of
supply” (Cherp and Jewell 2011, 205). From one side, open markets
provide flexibility and liquidity, and may potentially invoke domestic
transformations in the country’s sector as part of adaptations to the new
market realities. For example, changes in contract practices in interna-
tional energy markets facilitate changes of business practices and models
(Rogers 2017). However, this does not presuppose desecuritisation. For
example, notwithstanding the global and liberalised oil market, which
can be only slightly distorted by non-market behaviour of market partici-
pants, oil is still widely considered a strategic commodity, and oil-related
issues remain essentially a matter of securitisation by governments
(Hughes and Long 2015).
Therefore, this study points to a need to consider the socio-economic
role of the resource—that is, the importance attributed to a resource in
the society, region, or the world. To some extent, this concept relies upon
elaborations on “vital energy systems” by Cherp and Jewell—they view
vital energy systems and their vulnerabilities not only as objective phe-
nomena but “also political constructs defined and prioritized by various
social actors” (2014, 419). This argument is consistent with the idea that
the strategic nature—or “vitality”—of resources depends not only on
objective factors such as trade liquidity, sector’s transformations, and
regional/world prices but also on a wide range of securitised path depen-
dencies and persisting threat perceptions at domestic, regional, or global
levels.
Accordingly, the level of international energy securitisation depends
upon the considerations of states and market players about the role of a
resource in their economies and politics. Economic developments, shift-
ing market and industry structures, and changes in guiding paradigms
can replace one resource with another as a strategic resource. In other
words, it is not much about market structures (as the “liberalisation the-
sis” would argue) but about the degree of importance attributed by
agency to this particular resource. This has occurred, for example, in the
coal market, which nowadays plays only a marginal role in Europe both
in economic and paradigmatic structures. Coal is no longer a crucial
216  I. Kustova

source for economies, an instrument for financial policies, or a crucial

source of revenues. This contrasts to gas markets which are currently
undergoing liberalisation and internationalisation. Gas market liberalisa-
tion triggers a liquidity of gas trade and stimulates new market entry
points in Europe. Yet, a process of desecuritisation did not occur in this
issue-specific case. Indeed, gas is still perceived as a strategic commodity,
which benchmarks the overall policies of the EU, Ukraine, and Russia.
More particularly, in spite of current market reforms in line with EU
energy regulation, a level of securitisation is observed since Ukrainian
legislation opened a possibility to disrupt transit for security reasons. The
Law “On Sanctions” adopted by the Ukrainian Parliament in 2014 allows
Ukraine to apply 26 types of sanctions, including a complete or partial
ban on transit of all kinds of resources (MENA Chamber 2014).

3 Conclusion
This chapter has not sought to challenge the argument that market
reforms contribute to the stabilisation of resource exchange practices but
aimed at scrutinising the interrelationship between the concepts of “(de)
securitisation” and “market liberalisation”, which has remained under-­
elaborated in the IR literature. It has often been presupposed that the
introduction of the elements of privatisation and commodification into
energy sectors would change the logic of the market actors into a rational-
ist “Homo Economicus” in the way they should be expected to act as
utility maximisers in a rational way. Contrarily, the absence of such
reforms has been argued to invoke various political tensions and ineffec-
tive policies. This study has stressed there is a need to overcome this preva-
lent juxtaposition between market reforms and political deliberations
about energy resources and has argued that market reforms are neither a
necessary nor a sufficient factor for desecuritisation. In order to provide
new insights into the relationship between the concepts, this study has
complemented the existing rationalist-driven framework of energy dereg-
ulation and commodification with two context-dependent conditions
grounded in the updated securitisation theory. A more robust method-
ological approach decouples liberalisation from policy outcomes and thus
 8  Unpacking the Nexus Between Market Liberalisation...    217

distances itself from an economic determinism providing a foundation to

more social causes to the process. Two subjective factors to be taken into
account have comprised (i) the compatibility of institutional models of
energy sectors and (ii) the socio-economic role of energy resources.
This analysis has helped to demonstrate that “domestic liberalisation”
is not a silver bullet for desecuritisation of energy relations—empirical
inquiries demonstrate that both market reforms and securitisation of
energy policies can occur simultaneously. “Market liberalisation” as a
form of the organisation of the energy sector may generate securitisation
of relations and policies once it comes into conflict with the established
modes of interactions regarding resource exchange among states.
Moreover, liberalisation itself may become part of a securitisation dis-
course, as shown in the examples of an LNG terminal construction in
Poland (Chap. 3, in this volume). Conversely, the absence of market
reforms does not necessarily imply securitisation of energy politics, the
argument to challenge studies about the increasingly bullying policies of
energy producers. States with various forms of domestic energy sectors
and export models have proved to have stable relations over decades once
their domestic models were compatible.
The liberalisation of international markets is not also a necessary con-
dition for the desecuritisation of domestic policies. Thus, the security of
oil supplies has dominated the political deliberations of many states as
part of their national security strategies. In other words, these policies do
not depend much upon the types of markets these resources are exchanged
in but upon the (perceived) role of these resources in the society and
economy. In this regard, desecuritisation is more likely to occur once the
socio-economic role of the resource is viewed as non-strategic by partici-
pants (compare Chap. 6). “A strategic view” does not exclude the objec-
tive importance of resources for societies (e.g., the share in the national
energy mix), but draws attention to policy ideas that persist about this
particular resource. The perceptions about resources may change in time
along economic developments and policy changes.
In conclusion, by subjecting the concepts of liberalisation and desecu-
ritisation to greater scrutiny, this chapter has demonstrated that no deter-
ministic and linear relationship between the two exists. Instead, the
relationship is contingent and contextual; liberalisation processes at either
218  I. Kustova

domestic or international levels shape various interactions that may trig-

ger desecuritisation depending on a particular context. In future research
cases, beyond the present illustrative cases, scholars may need to take into
account circumstance-based factors engendering either securitisation or
desecuritisation.

Notes
1. For the history of cooperation between Europe and the USSR in the con-
text of non-liberalised gas markets, see: Högselius, Per (2013). Red Gas.
Russia and the Origins of European Energy Dependence: Palgrave Macmillan.

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 9
EU Gas Supply Security: The Power
of the Importer
Jakub M. Godzimirski and Zuzanna Nowak

1 Introduction
This chapter examines several aspects of European Union energy policy.
First, we map EU gas relationships and attitudes towards its external gas
suppliers in the broader context of the internal debate on increasing
energy import dependence as a challenge to the security of supply. Second,
we explore what energy policy instruments the Union has at its disposal
in general and when related to external suppliers of gas. The sheer size of
the market is the key strength of the EU’s relations with external actors
while its development of a set of well-functioning market tools and regu-
lations adds what can be described as regulatory state power to this equa-
tion. Third, we examine how the use of various energy policy instruments
and choice of priorities in energy policy can influence the future of the
European gas market and impact on relations with its gas suppliers. In the

J.M. Godzimirski (*)

Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo, Norway
Z. Nowak
National Centre for Nuclear Research, Poznan, Poland

© The Author(s) 2018 221

K. Szulecki (ed.), Energy Security in Europe, Energy, Climate and the Environment,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1_9
222  J.M. Godzimirski and Z. Nowak

fourth part, we narrow the geographical scope of this study to gas rela-
tions with Russia and Norway, the current main suppliers of gas who have
the ambition to remain important players in the ongoing energy game.
This choice is justified by the central position of these two on the gas
market and their various ways of relating to the EU in formal and infor-
mal terms. Russia for obvious reasons is treated as a significant—some
would even say, indispensable—energy partner, but also as a source of
strategic concern. Norway, in turn, is viewed as a good commercial part-
ner and a semi EU-insider because of its ‘membership’ of the European
Economic Area (EEA). In the concluding part, we look at what the use of
these policy instruments can reveal about the Union’s strengths, weak-
nesses, opportunities, and threats as a gas importer and market regulator.

2  he EU as a Market for External Energy

T
Suppliers
The European Union is not a single, collective purchaser of energy com-
modities. Energy supplies are delivered to concrete recipients in individ-
ual EU member states. However, general rules of the energy game are, at
least in theory, the same on the whole territory of the Union and should
apply to all EU Member States. Since 2004, the EU has had to import
cumulatively over 50% of the energy it needs, mostly due to falling
domestic production that was not outpaced by improved energy effi-
ciency. In 2014, 53.5% of the EU-28’s gross inland energy consump-
tion—45.64% of solid fuels, 94.01% of crude oil and petroleum
products, and 67.4% of natural gas—had to be imported. Since 2013,
when Denmark’s energy production dropped, all the Member States have
been net importers of energy. The level of import dependence varies from
almost 100% in the case of Malta to 8.9% in the case of Estonia. As a
consequence, the EU is the most important importer of energy in the
world (World Trade Organization WTO 2010), which makes access to
its market an attractive option to all those who export energy c­ ommodities.
The competition over supplies is harsh, but there is a relatively high level
of concentration of supplies coming from a limited number of external
suppliers. In 2014, 69.1% of gas imports and 43.5% of crude oil imports
 9  EU Gas Supply Security: The Power of the Importer    223

came from the two top suppliers (Russia and Norway), while 70.7% of
solid fuels—mostly various forms of coal—were supplied by Russia,
Colombia, and the United States. Table 9.1 illustrates which countries
were the most important external suppliers of energy to the EU in three
categories of energy supplies in 2014.
At the same time, the EU’s import dependence gives the external sup-
pliers certain leverage in their relations with the Union. However,
­exporters of energy to the EU face several challenges related to Union
energy policy. First, the consumption of energy in the EU is being decou-
pled from economic growth, so the EU market is not a growing market,
even in a period of prosperity. Second, the question of the sustainability

Table 9.1  External suppliers of energy to the EU—shares of EU import in per cent
(official EU data for 2014)
Share of EU import Share of EU import Share of EU import
Country of solid fuels of crude oil of natural gas
Algeria 4.2 12.3
Angola 3.3
Australia 6.2
Azerbaijan 4.4
Canada 2.5
Colombia 21.2
Indonesia 3.4
Iraq 4.6
Kazakhstan 6.4
Libya 2.1
Nigeria 9.1 1.5
Norway 0.7 13.1 31.6
Others 5.1 15.5 6.5
Peru 0.4
Qatar 6.9
Russia 29 30.4 37.5
Saudi Arabia 8.9
South Africa 9.9
Trinidad and 0.9
Tobago
Turkey 0.2
Ukraine 1.5
United States 20.5
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Energy_production_
and_imports, accessed 25 May 2017
224  J.M. Godzimirski and Z. Nowak

of current and future energy supplies has made it to the top of the EU
energy agenda, and there is a clear ambition on the part of the EU and its
member states to reduce the share of fossil fuels in their energy mix as a
way of mitigating the risk of climate change and at the same time reduc-
ing the level of energy import dependence. Third, external energy sup-
plies are increasingly being viewed as not only an economic challenge but
also a security risk that must be addressed. Fourth, the EU has developed
a strong regulatory framework that all importers must bear in mind when
deciding to export their energy commodities to this market.

3 EU Gas Needs and Import Dependence

At the strategic level, the EU seems to face today two key gas-related chal-
lenges. First, there is the question of the sustainability of gas as a source
of energy in the context of the debate on climate change and the need to
cut GHG emissions, which could be achieved only by reducing the role
of fossil fuels in the energy mix. Although the Second Report on the State
of the Energy Union concluded very optimistically that Europe’s energy
transition was well underway (European Commission 2017a, b), the EU
2016 Reference Scenario assessing the developments until 2050 pre-
sented a more realistic and challenging picture (European Commission
2016). EU domestic energy production, especially of fossil fuels, is
expected to decline in this period; the gross inland energy consumption
is to slightly decline from 1 666 601 ktoe in 2015 to 1 491 621 ktoe in
2050, but the import of gas is to increase from 269 292 ktoe in 2015 to
332 706 ktoe in 2050. The imbalance between the dynamics of EU gas
production and gas consumption constitutes a serious, yet not unex-
pected, problem in terms of security of supply. As data presented in
Table 9.2 show, this negative trend has been a characteristic feature of the
EU gas market since at least 2000 when domestic production peaked.
This gap is likely to widen. Due to the expected falling domestic
­production of gas, the level of gas import dependence is to increase from
69% in 2015 to 86% in 2050. Gas is also to remain an important source
of energy in the EU energy mix—its share in the EU in 2015 was 23.2%
while in 2050 it is to have a 25.3% share.
 9  EU Gas Supply Security: The Power of the Importer    225

Table 9.2 EU gas production, consumption, and import—recent dynamics

(European Commission 2016, p. 9)
Average
annual
EU-28, 2014 mtoe growth rate
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2013 2014 90 > 05 >
14 14
Natural gas 164.1 190.9 209.2 190.6 159.6 131.8 117.0 −1.40 −5.28
primary
production
Gas gross inland 298.2 336.1 396.2 445.2 447.3 387.3 342.9 +0.58 −2.86
consumption
Natural gas net 135.7 145.5 193.4 254.1 278.0 252.6 231.1 +2.24 −1.05
imports

Hence, the second long-term strategic gas-related challenge—from

where to import additional volumes of gas needed to fuel the EU econ-
omy? In 2014, import covered around two-thirds of the EU’s gas needs
and the bloc had to rely on a relatively small number of gas suppliers, as
almost 70% of external gas supplies were coming from only two coun-
tries—Russia and Norway. Algeria accounted for only 12.3%, Qatar 6.9%,
and Libya 2.1% of total EU gas imports in 2014. Although the EU aims
at diversification of its gas supplies, for example, through the development
of LNG trade, Russia and Norway, due to strong infrastructural ties, prob-
ably will remain the most dominant suppliers for decades to come.
Although in terms of negative environmental impact coal is the main
challenge, the role of natural gas in the EU energy mix and in its strategic
energy designs for the future is also disputed. This worries all EU external
gas suppliers who have invested heavily in the infrastructure that links gas
production sites with consumers and want thus to use it in the future.
Some of them, like Gazprom with its Nord Stream 2, plan also to add
new elements of the costly infrastructure to secure their access to the EU
market and strengthen their position. Natural gas is often presented by its
producers (and some consumers as well) to be the most attractive fossil
fuel with a far lower environmental footprint than coal or oil (Magnus
et al. 2016).
There are, however, several aspects of natural gas that may undermine
its position on the European energy market. The high level of import
226  J.M. Godzimirski and Z. Nowak

Table 9.3  External sources of gas supply to the EU between 2004 and 2014
(in per cent of import—EU official data)
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Russia 43.6 40.7 39.3 38.7 37.6 33.1 32.1 34.9 34.9 41.2 37.5
Norway 24.3 23.8 25.9 28.1 28.4 29.4 27.5 27.3 31.2 30.0 31.6
Algeria 17.9 17.6 16.3 15.3 14.7 14.3 14.0 13.2 13.6 12.8 12.3
Qatar 1.4 1.5 1.8 2.2 2.3 5.5 9.7 11.8 8.5 6.6 6.9
Libya 0.4 1.6 2.5 3.0 2.9 2.9 2.7 0.7 1.9 1.7 2.1
Nigeria 3.6 3.4 4.3 4.6 4.0 2.4 4.1 4.4 3.6 1.8 1.5
Trinidad 0.0 0.2 1.2 0.8 1.7 2.3 1.5 1.1 0.9 0.7 0.9
and
Tobago
Peru 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.8 0.5 0.4
Turkey 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.1 2.0 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2
Others 8.7 11.0 8.8 7.3 8.2 9.9 8.2 6.3 4.5 4.5 6.5
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Energy_production_
and_imports, accessed 25 May 2017

dependence on Russia is viewed not only as an economic concern but

also as a hard security challenge in a situation where it has questioned the
very basic principles regulating cooperation in Europe by annexing
Crimea and intervening in eastern Ukraine (Godzimirski 2015; Pirani
et al. 2014; Stern et al. 2014). In addition, the issue of the environmental
footprint of fossil fuels and global warming may undermine the position
of natural gas in Europe. Russia and Norway may face greater competi-
tion for market shares from each other, greater competition from other
suppliers of gas to Europe, including those supplying LNG, as well as
growing competition from other more environmental-friendly sources of
energy available locally, such as wind or solar (Table 9.3).

4 Instruments and Tools of EU External

Energy and Gas Policy
Energy policy instruments are used to achieve energy policy goals set by
a given actor in its interaction with other actors. They are used to influ-
ence the behaviour of other participants in the energy game by providing
various incentives, promoting specific actions and approaches, or by de-
incentivising other types of behaviour (Prontera 2009). They can thus be
 9  EU Gas Supply Security: The Power of the Importer    227

described as either carrots or sticks or a combination of both approaches,

depending on what goals are sought.
In his paper outlining various sides of energy policy and how energy
policy interacts with other policies, Prontera (2009) listed a host of avail-
able policy instruments. The list included communicative instruments
(negotiations, bargaining, the threat of sanctions, use of international
organisations, persuasion, promotion of a rational and responsible use of
energy), economic instruments (the promise or offer of rewards, taxation
measures, financial incentives and subsidies, market liberalisation, and
privatisation), as well as organisational instruments (creation of public
firms and independent agencies, long-term planning, improvement of
efficiency and energy savings).
Sathiendrakumar argued that energy policy instruments can be divided
into two main categories, regulatory-legal and economic (Sathiendrakumar
2003), but for the purpose of this study, we find the categorisation of
instruments proposed by Egmond et al. (2006)—who operated with four
categories of energy policy instruments, namely, legal-judicial, economic,
communicative, and structural—to be the most relevant.
Judicial and legal instruments prescribe the desired behaviour and set
norms. Hence, as such, they influence the behaviour of actors by making
them understand what is desired and accepted and what is not. If actors
comply and play by the rules, they can expect rewards; if they don’t, they
should expect a kind of punishment or sanction. Economic instruments
aim to influence financial considerations of actors, providing economic
incentives to those who accommodate the interests of rule-setters and de-
incentivising those who could oppose the realisation of various aspects of
energy policies and plans. Communicative instruments transfer
­knowledge for the purpose of informing, persuading, convincing, or
tempting. These instruments can also be combined with and support
other instruments. They often create social support or opposition and
increase awareness of the impact of implementation of various aspects of
energy policies. Finally, infrastructural, physical instruments can be used
to promote interests by, for instance, the construction of various elements
of physical energy infrastructure or actions aimed at existing infrastruc-
ture to change its physical and market parameters and render it either
useful or useless to other actors.
228  J.M. Godzimirski and Z. Nowak

All the types of policy instruments listed above can be found in the EU
energy policy toolbox (Andersen et al. 2015; Birchfield 2011; Birchfield
and Duffield 2011; Kuzemko and Hadfield 2015; Matlary 1997).
However, to understand how EU energy policy in general, and EU policy
towards its external gas suppliers in particular, are put into practice, we
need to get a better understanding of what the EU long-term energy
policy goals are, how EU energy policy is ‘organised’ in institutional
terms and how these goals would be achieved by translating ideas on
energy policy into policy actions.
In the most general terms, EU energy goals boil down to three long-­term
objectives. Its energy policy aims to secure access to needed energy sources
by promoting the security of energy supply, make energy supply and use
sustainable, and secure the economic competitiveness of the EU economy
in the global economic game (European Commission 2006, 2011).
How the EU is going to realise its energy policy goals depends also on
how and by whom these energy policy goals are set and policies fulfilled.
The EU is a very special political construction where policies are defined
and implemented through a unique pattern of interactions between EU
institutions and member states (Eberlein 2010; Eberlein and Kerwer
2004; Sabel and Zeitlin 2010). In the field of energy policy, the division
of competences between the EU and member states is defined in Article
194 of the Treaty on The Functioning of the European Union. In broad
lines, the EU is responsible for liberalisation and market creation, com-
petition, construction of infrastructure, and the environmental aspects of
energy policy, including energy efficiency and development of renewable
energy sources, while member states are responsible for their energy secu-
rity, energy mix, and development of various types of energy sources.
The actual implementation of energy policy therefore takes place in a
very complex institutional landscape in which both EU institutions and
national actors have a say (Eberlein 2008, 2010; Eberlein and Kerwer
2004). In addition, policy-related decisions are also directly and indi-
rectly influenced by many actors with direct and indirect stakes in energy,
such as non-EU governments, energy companies, NGOs, consumers,
regional and local authorities, lobbyists, media, and so on, who use both
formal and informal channels to influence the policymaking process
(Godzimirski 2011; Nørgaard et al. 2014).
 9  EU Gas Supply Security: The Power of the Importer    229

This raises several questions: How are these instruments and frame-
works used, how are EU ideas about energy priorities translated into
action, and what has been the EU practice when it comes to the EU’s
exertion of its market and regulatory power towards external gas
suppliers?
The EU’s power as gas importer is a result of the aggregation of its
member states’ interests and positions, the evolution of the institutional
and regulatory setting, as well as external factors impacting suppliers’
positions that the EU can use to its own advantage, factors that have
played a part in defining its relations with external gas suppliers. These
relations have been shaped by the EU decision on the creation of a single
internal gas market as outlined in the three EU energy packages, three
Gas Directives, and by the implementation of gas legislation at EU and
national levels (Eikeland 2011; Romanova 2016; Yafimava 2013). Also,
changing market conditions (Grigoriev et al. 2016; Kardaś 2014; Stern
and Rogers 2014) with the emergence of new potential suppliers of gas,
including suppliers of LNG (Molnar et al. 2015), and hopes for develop-
ment of new gas resources in Europe in the wake of the US shale gas revo-
lution (McGowan 2014; Szalai 2013) played a part in this process. The
increased focus on sustainability of the energy system and the negative
impact of fossil fuels on the global environment have been important fac-
tors influencing the situation of gas on the European market (Mathieu
2014; Youngs 2013). Because of the high level of import dependence, the
state of political relations between the EU and countries supplying gas
has both direct and indirect impacts on the situation on the European gas
market. A quick glance at the list of key suppliers of gas to Europe reveals
that, except for Norway and Trinidad and Tobago, this list is ‘populated’
by actors who do not necessarily share EU norms and values. Relations
with these countries may therefore pose several challenges because an EU
that represents liberal values has to relate to actors and gas suppliers oper-
ating in another normative universe (Godzimirski 2014b; Goldthau and
Sitter 2015; Smith 2011). In addition, the EU regulations on competi-
tion and other aspects of energy policy have had an impact on the situa-
tion of external suppliers of gas on the European market.
In its whole history, the EU has faced several gas-related issues that
have had to be addressed by the application of various policy instruments
230  J.M. Godzimirski and Z. Nowak

and measures. The most important tool was the EU regulatory power
based on the application of a set of legal-judicial instruments designed
and implemented by the Union and member states (Andersen et al. 2015;
Goldthau and Sitter 2015). The EU has also applied various types of
economic instruments in its pursuit of policy goals by providing subsidies
for some sorts of energy sources and punishing economically the use of
other energy sources (Rashchupkina 2015). The EU has also used a whole
host of communicative instruments to increase energy awareness among
its citizens and other actors operating in the EU to persuade them to use
available energy resources in a more rational and efficient way. The com-
municative instruments have also been widely used to present the EU
energy policy goals to the outside world and to promote EU approaches
to energy. Finally, the EU has also been using various infrastructural
instruments to improve its energy security and resilience. A good exam-
ple of the use of these types of instruments is the increased interconnec-
tivity of the EU energy system, including gas infrastructure, which has
made the whole system better prepared for unexpected disruptions in
energy supplies and other possible problems both within the EU and in
its energy relations with the world outside (European Commission
2015c; Glachant et al. 2013; Parmigiani 2013; Westphal 2014; Zachmann
2013). The EU’s cooperation patterns with its two main suppliers, Russia
and Norway, allow for an in-depth analysis of the EU’s importer power
and tools it uses to exert it.

5  ussia and Norway: Current and Future

R
Gas Suppliers to the EU
Russia is the EU’s most important partner, but also the most significant
challenge in its gas policy. This results from numerous geopolitical condi-
tions: Russia’s tendency to manoeuvre on the boundary of established
rules, different perspectives on common problems, as well as the unequal
relationships the individual Member States and their gas companies have
with Russia’s Gazprom. On the other hand, Russia can also feel put to the
test (and complains about it), as the EU is in reality formulating and
exploring its own policy during interactions with this most challenging
 9  EU Gas Supply Security: The Power of the Importer    231

partner. The same as their respective gas policies are constantly in the
making, the bilateral EU-Russia relationship goes through ups and
downs, slowly towards a predictable convergence.
Definitely, due to the geopolitical EU-Russia setting, the issue of the
Union’s dependence on gas import from Russia is high on the political
agenda. Both are preoccupied with the issue of security—of supply for
the EU and of demand for Russia. From this perspective, it has been of
common interest to appease threats related to the transit of gas to the
EU.  The Russia-Ukraine gas conflicts in 2006 and 2009, as well as
recently in 2014, made alarm bells ring in the EU. However, these alarms
were heard by the Europeans only after the second conflict and truly
woke up the Union only in 2014. Yet, while the EU was willing to
respond to this problem in two ways, by implementing several measures
to reduce its gas vulnerability vis-à-vis Russia and to be less exposed to
possible transit-related problems (Godzimirski 2014a) while also sup-
porting gas sector reforms in Ukraine, the Russians have been pushing
for the total elimination of Ukrainian transit through bypass pipelines. In
this context, some infrastructure projects to boost the development of the
internal single gas market of the EU, especially numerous interconnec-
tors on member states’ borders, were implemented with financial and
organisational support from the EU.  It must be underlined, however,
that even the Nord Stream pipeline, viewed as a strategic challenge by
some new members (Godzimirski 2009) and aimed at ruling out Ukraine
from the Russian gas business, was at that time labelled as a project that
deserved EU political support.
Russia in its dealings with Ukraine has proved to be able to use energy
as a tool to exert power and influence or even a direct threat. It is ques-
tionable, however, whether Gazprom would be able to use the same set of
tools towards the EU.  Numerous voices have underlined that Russia
could not use its energy resources to inflict damage on the Union as
Russia is also highly dependent on access to the European market
(Godzimirski 2013; Godzimirski and Demakova 2012; Goldthau 2008;
Orttung and Overland 2011). According to data provided by the Russian
Central Bank (Central Bank of the Russian Federation 2017), between
2000 and 2015, Russia’s earnings from export of crude oil, petroleum
products and natural gas, representing 63.6% of Russia’s export revenues
232  J.M. Godzimirski and Z. Nowak

in this whole period, amounted to a rather impressive sum of 3 209 mil-

lion USD. Overall, 91.1% of the value of Russian oil export and 93% of
the value of the export of petroleum products came from trade with non-­
CIS countries. In addition, 73% of the volume of Russian gas export
went to non-CIS customers, and sale of gas to those customers is the
most important source of revenue to Gazprom, the Russian piped gas
export monopolist. EU member states were the most important destina-
tion for export from Russia in general and for Russian export of energy
commodities in particular. In his recently published detailed study on the
Russian gas sector, Kardaś presented data on the growing importance of
the EU as an importer of gas from Russia (Kardaś 2017). His data show
55% of the volume of Russian gas export in 2011 went to the EU, and in
2016, mostly because of the dramatically falling export of gas to Ukraine,
the share of the EU in the volume of Russian gas export increased to
72%. In 2016, five EU member states could be described as mega-­
importers of Russian gas, importing more than 10 bcm each. Germany
imported an impressive 49.8 bcm, Italy 24.7 bcm, the UK 17.9 bcm,
France 11.4 bcm, and Poland 11.1 bcm. Austria took in 6.1 bcm and
Hungary 5.5 bcm, while export to other EU member states was less than
5 bcm. This list defines how Russia sees the strategic importance of its gas
relations with member states and how member states depend on Russian
supplies to meet their gas needs. The argument raised in 2014 by the
Russians about Gazprom’s possible pivot towards Asia and an increase in
gas supplies to the East seems now of little relevance to the EU market.
This Russian export diversification would not translate into gas resource
scarcity for the EU market, as the two export directions take advantage of
different, distant resource bases.
Nevertheless, Russia’s actions in Ukraine, as well as attempts to use
propagandist leverage on the EU, have challenged the whole set of rules
regulating cooperation in various spheres of post-Cold War Europe. They
have undermined trust in Russia as a strategic partner and reintroduced
military power as an instrument in European politics and in relation to
energy. This had a huge impact on the EU’s thinking on energy security
(Godzimirski 2014a), putting this question on top of the European
energy agenda (Dreyer and Stang 2013, 2014). These strategic energy-­
related challenges have forced various bodies of the EU and the expert
 9  EU Gas Supply Security: The Power of the Importer    233

communities to present assessments of how Europe could reduce its gas

dependence on Russia (Peruzzi et al. 2014) and work out a set of docu-
ments aimed at assisting the EU in identifying and addressing crucial
issues pertaining to European energy security (European Commission
2014b, c; Glachant 2015; Slingerland et al. 2015). The need to address
questions related to energy security of supply was one of the key factors
behind the recent establishment of the Energy Union, a new institutional
framework that is to make EU energy policy more coherent and effective
(Egenhofer et  al. 2014; European Commission 2015b; Szulecki et  al.
2016).
The EU has strengthened its stance over the years, underlining that the
ability of a Russian gas supplier to generate revenues from trade with the
EU will depend on its ability to adapt to changing market and regulatory
conditions in Europe. Despite much turbulence in the EU-Russia rela-
tionship, it is possible to observe a number of EU achievements and,
hence, Russia’s forced adaptation to the EU regulatory framework.
First of all, as shown in the Commission’s exercise of stress tests con-
ducted in 2014 (European Commission 2014a) simulating Russian gas
supply disruption scenarios, through a number of investments created
with the use of EU funds (e.g., Projects of Common Interest, Baltic
Energy Market Interconnection Plan, etc.), the Union has significantly
increased its capacity to jointly respond to gas security threats. Liquidity
of the gas market being one of the conditions for supply security, the EU
has put a strong emphasis on the construction of new infrastructure such
as LNG terminals and the densification of pipeline networks on its terri-
tory (European Commission 2015a). Flagship projects Lithuanian FSRU
in Klaipėda and Polish LNG terminal in Świnoujście (both appearing on
the PCI list) have proven to constitute an immediate remedy to overde-
pendence on Russian piped gas supplies as a means of effective diversifi-
cation and market game-changers (Godzimirski et al. 2015). Similarly,
numerous interconnector projects, such as Poland-Lithuania or Poland-­
Slovakia, have allowed the most vulnerable countries to integrate better
with the EU internal gas market (Černiuk 2016). Also important has
been the effort to increase market flexibility through enhancement of
reverse pipeline capacity, which has allowed Ukraine’s European neigh-
bours to pump gas eastwards and help it secure energy supplies. Among
234  J.M. Godzimirski and Z. Nowak

the most debated projects in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is the
so-called Baltic Pipe, a part of the broader Northern Gate project. The
project itself has long been on the list of EU PCIs but only recently, in
response to Russian-German plans to build Nord Stream 2, has gained
momentum. By the time renegotiation of the long-term gas supply con-
tract with Russia comes in 2022, Poland wants to have an ace up its
sleeve. Baltic Pipe, delivering gas from the Norwegian shelf with a few
bcm capacity, is considered a reliable alternative to Russian supplies, not
only for Poland but also for the whole region. Worth underlining is that
Norway, the main competitor with Russia on the EU market, is consider-
ing involvement in the project. First, it openly claims that it would be
conditional upon an economic assessment stating clearly business bene-
fits for itself. Second, due to the pipeline’s relatively small capacity (espe-
cially in comparison with the 55 bcm Nord Stream 2), Norway probably
does not see any threat of direct confrontation with Russia in the CEE
region. Third, Russia has not yet presented any official views about this
infrastructure and remains reluctant to make any moves.
Within its borders, the EU has also insisted on uniformity of rules,
regulations, and habits linked to the gas industry, especially after the big-
gest enlargement in 2004. New member states, the most exposed to
Russian gas jugglery due to historical and infrastructural ties, the exis-
tence of long-term contracts, strong dependency, and the dominant posi-
tion of Gazprom, adhered to the European acquis. As a consequence,
liberalisation of their gas markets has become a contribution to their
increased security of gas supplies. With the constant development of EU
energy and gas policies, this troubled region could see a protective regula-
tory umbrella being spread in a similar way as over the Western EU states.
For instance, the question of compliance of Gazprom’s South Stream
pipeline with the Third Energy Package was one of the major reasons for
participants to stop work on this project. Recently, in the name of trans-
parency, the European Commission (EC) acquired the right to review
intergovernmental gas agreements concluded with non-EU parties as a
means of ensuring their compliance with EU law. In signing new agree-
ments, this should help avoid numerous legal issues in relations with
Gazprom, such as abuse of its dominant position, the partition of mar-
kets, as well as breaking antitrust rules in the CEE region. Facing the risk
 9  EU Gas Supply Security: The Power of the Importer    235

of substantial fines (11 billion euro in the ongoing antitrust case),

Gazprom openly questions the EC’s proceedings but nonetheless is qui-
etly adapting to the new EU market requirements (Romanova 2016).
Russia is, for instance, diversifying its export portfolio with LNG or
offering more gas at spot prices, as well as at auction (Grigoriev et  al.
2016; Mitrova 2013).
In addition to the above-mentioned examples of regulatory powers
influencing Russia’s behaviour, the European Union has gained a better
overview of all member state gas markets—although they are still not
connected enough—as well as their dealings with external suppliers.
Thanks to increased access to information, the Commission was able to
put itself on a higher plane, caring, at least declaratively, for the good of
all members. It is therefore closely following and participating as a side in
a court battle between supporters and opponents of extended Gazprom
access to the Opal pipeline (an extension of Nord Stream on German
territory). This position, however, does not allow the Commission to sat-
isfy all member states’ interests nor to conduct a fully consistent policy.
The Nord Stream 2 case especially shows certain shortcomings. On the
one hand, Germany, backed by Gazprom and its major gas companies
(some also partially owned by Gazprom or its subsidiaries), together with
a number of other European gas companies, has tried to convince the
Commission of the necessity of this project’s implementation for the sake
of supply security, using economic arguments. On the other hand,
Poland, with neighbouring CEE states, has tried to demonstrate the exact
opposite, namely the threat posed by Nord Stream 2, using more political
arguments (Lang and Westphal 2017). The Commission in this crossfire
is considering both sides’ arguments and its own capacity to intervene.
Seeing such indecision in the EU, Gazprom has not hesitated to pour oil
on the flame, spreading information about the start or completion of the
next, small stages of the project (Lissek 2016).
Marked by significant distrust, Gazprom’s continuing race to find legal
loopholes while the Commission patches them ad hoc, the influence of
various players (states, companies, even individuals such as Gerhard
Schroeder1), flipping business and political arguments, and simply the
clash of different political and regulatory orders, this European-Russian
relationship has developed beyond expectations over the last 50  years
236  J.M. Godzimirski and Z. Nowak

through a set of new connections and deals, but has become strong
enough so that both parties cannot imagine doing business without the
other.
Norway, the second key supplier of gas to the EU, is also interested in
retaining its position on the EU market. The Norwegian interest in
‘defending’ the role of gas on the EU market is due to the increasing role
of gas in the country’s energy exports. In 2002, gas represented only
24% of petroleum export from Norway, but in the first months of 2015,
its share stood at 61% (Ytreberg 2014). Norwegian experts see, however,
some challenges emerging in this important market, such as the falling
demand for gas in Europe, especially in the power generation sector
where gas is replaced by cheaper coal and the possible impact of the
implementation of EU climate policy on the role of fossil fuels in the
energy mix (Endresen and Ånestad 2013; Kaspersen 2014; Løvas 2015;
Wærness 2014). However, according to the latest edition of Statoil’s offi-
cial assessment on the future of energy, gas does not look that gloomy:
By 2040, the share of gas in the global energy mix will be the same or
even slightly higher than in 2013 (Statoil 2016). The same assessment of
the future of the global energy system estimates that the demand for gas
in the European Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) area will be both in 2020 and in 2040 lower
than in 2013, which will indeed cause some problems for current and
future gas suppliers to Europe (ibid. p.  58). Today, almost 100% of
Norwegian gas export reaches the EU market, and the country is highly
dependent on revenues from this sector and trade (Godzimirski 2014c;
OED 2016). Of Norwegian gas exported through the well-developed
pipeline system, 42.3% reaches the EU market in Germany, though
some of this gas is shipped further down the chain through German
pipelines to other customers; 24.5% is exported directly to the UK;
15.1% to France; 12.3% to Belgium; 0.4% to Denmark; and the rest,
5.3%, is marketed as LNG. Between 2000 and 2015, Norway’s export
of gas and oil generated on average 510 billion NOK in revenue per
year, or 8 164 billion NOK in total, and represented on average 47% of
the country’s export revenues. This clearly illustrates that Norway has a
very strong economic incentive to remain one of the key external energy
suppliers to the EU, which, according to most estimates, will have to
 9  EU Gas Supply Security: The Power of the Importer    237

increase its energy imports due to falling domestic production (European

Commission 2016).
The most important feature in the context of Norway’s energy coop-
eration with the EU is that Norway has been a member of the EEA since
1994 and has been following, with some exceptions, all the rules, includ-
ing on energy, set by the EU (Archer 2005; Austvik 2003; Austvik and
Claes 2011; Claes and Eikeland 1999; UD 2012). This has over the last
25 years resulted in many decisions influencing the conduct of Norwegian
energy policy, such as the organisation of the energy sector, the state’s role
in it, the disbanding of the centralised gas sales monopoly,
Gassforhandlingsutvalget (GFU), licensing practices, non-discrimination
against foreign companies, and the overall liberalisation of the regulatory
regime. This is especially the case of GFU in which Norway in 2001 was
forced by the EU to abandon a quasi-monopolist approach to the sale of
gas to the EU market. That was a clear example of how EU energy and
competition policies contributed to changing the national Norwegian
framework. The GFU was established in 1986 to manage the sale of
Norwegian gas to Europe in a situation when external gas sellers had to
deal with a buyers’ monopoly represented by several European transmis-
sion companies that used their dominant market power to ‘dictate’ the
conditions of gas trade. The idea was to strengthen the position of
Norwegian gas and secure better conditions for its deliveries to the
European market by providing the Norwegian state with an instrument
that would limit the role of non-Norwegian producers of gas who were
also among its most important buyers represented in the monopoly.
However, when Norway joined the EEA and the European gas market
became liberalised in response to the quasi-monopolistic practices of key
companies controlling domestic markets and transmission networks,
Norwegian authorities were forced to accept the EU objections and
reform the national framework for management of energy resources and
trade by, among other things, abolishing the GFU in 2001 and establish-
ing Gassco, Gassled, and Petoro (Austvik and Claes 2011; UD 2012,
pp. 554–556).
The GFU case was a very good example of how, in response to the new
emerging institutional and regulatory reality and to improve its ability to
indirectly influence EU energy policy, Norway has had to adopt rules and
238  J.M. Godzimirski and Z. Nowak

practices that were in line with EU formal requirements. Norway’s adap-

tation to new regulations is a good example of the adoption of legal
instruments by an actor that is interested in having access to the attractive
market. But Norway responded also by applying other instruments: com-
municative, such as direct contacts with DG Energy, participation in
working meetings in Brussels, organisation of Baltic-Nordic breakfast
meetings before the councils to communicate Norway’s interests, increas-
ing the presence in Brussels by establishing governmental and non-­
governmental organisation representations in the EU to communicate
their interests; structural, such as the construction of new elements of
infrastructure facilitating new gas deliveries; and economic, such as
incentives for European companies that operate on the Norwegian shelf
(Austvik and Claes 2011; Puka et al. 2015).
A recently published study (Puka et al. 2015) argues that the EU and
Norway have a common interest in maintaining stable trade and there-
fore see their energy cooperation as a win-win scenario. However, the
price interests of these two actors do not overlap, as they approach the
market from two different positions—one a seller and the other a buyer.
In addition, the study argues, EU market regulations intend to optimise
European economic developments and do not primarily support Norway’s
national economic interests. To achieve its economic and political goals
in its dealings with this important external/internal supplier of gas to the
EU, the Union exerts pressure in two ways on Norway. First, it develops
rules influencing policies in the sphere of liberalisation, competition, and
climate that Norway must follow as a member of the EEA framework.
Second, the EU aims at the long-term transformation of the Union
towards a low-carbon economy, and this may also create the risk of
shrinking demand for Norwegian oil and gas. The latter issue is also
directly connected with the impact of EU climate policy on the situation
of all external suppliers of fossil fuels since the policy of energy transition
aims at limiting the use, and thus the demand for, fossil fuels in Europe.
In the case of Norway, which is obliged to follow EU regulations as a
member of the EEA, the question of the application of binding environ-
mental requirements on petroleum production and ETC schemes also
has had an impact on the country’s ability to pursue its national goals in
energy policy.
 9  EU Gas Supply Security: The Power of the Importer    239

Norway faces therefore a double challenge in its energy relations with

the EU—how to best adapt to a changing EU regulatory framework and
market conditions and how to make its fossil fuels relevant in a situation
in which they are increasingly being viewed by the EU and other con-
cerned actors as a challenge or problem rather than a long-term solution
to the EU’s energy problem.
There are, however, several factors that make Norway an important
EU partner. First, contrary to Russia, which spends most of its revenues
generated from the petroleum trade with the EU on many ambitious
politically driven projects, such as the huge military modernisation pro-
gramme launched in 2012 by the newly re-elected President Putin,
Norway shares basic values with its European partners, plays by the rules
set by the EU, and has followed the policy of setting aside most of its
revenues in the Norwegian Pensions Fund Global, which makes the
country an important investment player in Europe and globally (Sverdrup
2016). Second, Norway has some specific features that make it a highly
attractive energy partner for the EU. The country has a unique energy
mix dominated by hydropower, which could help stabilise a greener
energy system in Europe (Gullberg 2013). Norwegian gas could also
serve several purposes: help the EU stabilise its energy market (Schjøtt-­
Pedersen 2016) and reduce the dependence of some of the most exposed
European gas customers on Russian gas supplies, which are also bound,
in the opinion of some European politicians, to a relatively high level of
political risk. Norway has already embarked on a cautious policy of mar-
ket diversification and has started supplying gas to Lithuania and Ukraine.
It is considering supplying gas to Poland and via Poland to other regional
customers in Eastern Europe if the Baltic Pipe project is completed.
Norway is also a NATO ally to all its major energy customers in Europe,
which is important in a situation when energy and gas dependence on
Russia is increasingly viewed by some of them not only as an energy secu-
rity challenge but also increasingly as a ‘hard’ security issue to be viewed
through the lens of state security and foreign policy (Sverdrup 2014).
What may pose a challenge for Norway’s continued role as an important
external supplier of gas to the EU, however, is the expected fall in gas
production with the depletion of Norwegian gas fields. According to
Norway’s own estimates, the production of gas is about to plateau and
240  J.M. Godzimirski and Z. Nowak

may start declining in the coming decades just when the EU will need
more gas from external suppliers to fill the growing gap between falling
domestic production and its gas needs (European Commission 2016).

6  onclusions, or How to Assess the EU’s

C
Ability to Influence External Gas
Suppliers?
The European Union finds itself in an interesting position of a vulnerable
norm-setter in whose hands, to a certain extent, lies the capacity to define
whether its own features constitute an impediment or an advantage in
dealings with external gas suppliers. In addition to this, the attitude of
the supplier (aiming to reach a win-win situation, as in Norway’s case, or
a position of strength, as in Russia’s) plays a role in determining the appli-
cation of the EU’s market and regulatory power.
The EU is the biggest importer (if the states are viewed collectively) of
gas worldwide, and that makes it both strong and exposed in its relations
with external suppliers of gas. Strong, because it is extremely appealing to
external gas suppliers who, for geographical and infrastructural reasons,
would have problems with supplying gas to other markets but have access
in the EU to a market with a high level of predictability, secure
­environment, and willingness to pay an attractive price for the commod-
ity. Hence, the EU’s gas relationships with Russia and Norway through-
out the years have been put, with mutual consent, on track of ever-stronger
interdependency, where stepping back on one side would create in the
short to medium term more damage to the gas trade balance in Europe
than benefits for all parties concerned. Exposed, because external suppli-
ers of gas are also aware that the EU would face huge problems with
meeting its gas needs in case of a sudden rupture in gas relations with its
current suppliers. The strong energy connection between consumers and
suppliers can even create a situation in which suppliers may think that
some of their actions challenging the existing order would be tolerated
and go unpunished due to this strong energy interdependence (Busygina
and Filippov 2013). The somehow external factor playing in favour of the
 9  EU Gas Supply Security: The Power of the Importer    241

EU is the peaceful symbiosis of Statoil and Gazprom on the Union’s mar-

ket, since none of them is willing to compete aggressively with the other.
However, if there is a gas supply disruption from one of these companies,
be it for political or technical reasons, the other would eagerly and imme-
diately substitute, at least partially, for the failing supplier, reducing the
threat of gas scarcity on the EU market.
Similarly, the strength of the EU lies in the size of its market, common
rules, and unity. Any breach in solidarity is considered by suppliers to be
weakness and a potential flash point for abuse. While it is not surprising
that the member states often diverge in their interests related to gas—all
the more when taking into account, for instance, the large discrepancy in
gas consumption patterns among them (five countries, Germany, Italy,
France, UK, and Spain, account for over 70% of total gas imports in the
EU, while 14 countries each account for 1% or less, with 0% for Malta
and Cyprus)—the EU has yet to learn how to build an internal consensus
over controversial issues, instead of airing its dirty linen in public. In real-
ity, the EU’s perseverance on common gas policy formulation and imple-
mentation is what defines the suppliers’ room for manoeuvre. This is best
illustrated by the Opal pipeline case. Its operating rules set by the
Commission in 2009 and constantly questioned since then by Gazprom
underwent a long process of revision supported by the German regula-
tory authority and that resulted in a new decision at the end of 2016.
However, insufficient consultations with other member states, curious
exemption solutions, and a number of other uncertainties alarmed some
of the CEE countries, which brought the case to the European Court of
Justice, which in turn ruled against the decision.
The multitude of interests of the member states, their gas companies,
lobbies, and so on, as well as shared competences between member states
and EU institutions, determine internally the democratic strength of any
worked-out European consensus. However, when faced with a company
with a focused position (such as Statoil, which follows a precise business
model) or a state (such as Russia, often guided by geopolitical interests),
this consensus and shared values prove to be out of touch with reality.
Too often, the European Union opens only one compartment of its tool-
box, choosing the right but not a comprehensive form of interaction with
242  J.M. Godzimirski and Z. Nowak

the gas suppliers. That was long the case of the EU’s legal-judicial
approach towards Russia, deprived of a political (therefore communica-
tive as well as structural) dimension. Only the announcement of the
Energy Union concept in the name of ending ‘Russia’s energy strangle-
hold’ on Europe (Tusk 2014) constituted the beginning of a new wide-­
ranging European energy policy. Three years later, the Energy Union
rising like a phoenix from the ashes amidst fears of insecurity of gas sup-
ply constitutes still the greatest opportunity for European Union gas
policy. Time will show whether this ambitious project will be up to the
task of preparing the EU to not only respond properly and uniformly to
all gas suppliers but also to take the initiative and become a proactive,
decisive player.

Notes
1. Gerhard Schroeder served as Germany’s Chancellor from 1998 to 2005.
He joined the board of Gazprom immediately after he lost the election in
2005, becoming a lobbyist. He was also directly involved in the Nord
Stream pipeline project as the head of the shareholders’ committee of the
company.

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 10
Identities and Vulnerabilities:
The Ukraine Crisis and the Securitisation
of the EU-Russia Gas Trade
Marco Siddi

1 Introduction
Since the mid-2000s, the European Union (EU)-Russia gas trade has
evolved from a factor driving détente and cooperation into one augment-
ing controversy and heightening threat perceptions within the EU. This
is particularly remarkable if we bear in mind that gas trade between
(Soviet) Russia and European countries has been taking place for nearly
five decades, providing Moscow with a lucrative business and its European
partners with much-needed energy to power their economies and societ-
ies. The Soviet Union started to export large quantities of gas (and oil) via
pipeline in the 1960s, first to member states of the Comecon (the Soviet-­
led Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) in East-Central Europe
and then to Western European countries, including members of NATO
and the European Community (the predecessor of the EU). Against the
background of détente in East-West relations in the late 1960s and early

M. Siddi (*)
Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Helsinki, Finland

© The Author(s) 2018 251

K. Szulecki (ed.), Energy Security in Europe, Energy, Climate and the Environment,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1_10
252  M. Siddi

1970s, Italy, Austria, West Germany, Finland and France became key
customers of Soviet fossil fuel exports.
In the tense context of the Cold War, energy trade was one of the very
few drivers of continental integration; indeed, some commentators
referred to it as the ‘hidden integration of Cold War Europe’ (Högselius
2013: 2). The East-West gas trade kept growing after the dismemberment
of the Soviet Union. Russia inherited the role of Europe’s main gas pro-
vider, as most existing extraction facilities and reserves were located on its
territory. In 2014, Russia supplied 37.5% of the gas imported by the EU,
as well as 30.4% of crude oil and 29% of solid fuels; it was thus the main
external supplier of the EU for all of these fossil fuels.1
However, European institutional discourses have increasingly framed
the gas trade with Russia as a security issue (Casier 2011: 538–40).
Despite the rhetoric of ‘interdependence’ in the gas relationship with
Russia, in the mid-2000s, EU official documents began to portray reli-
ance on Russian gas as a security issue and stressed the need to diversify
energy relations. The gas transit crises between Russia and Ukraine in
2006 and 2009, which led to temporary disruptions in the flow of
Russian gas to Europe, accelerated the securitisation of European dis-
courses. The EU enlargements of 2004 and 2007 contributed to this
trend, as the new member states in East-Central Europe are more vulner-
able to disruptions in gas supplies from Russia and, for historical reasons,
are more suspicious of Moscow’s policies.
Moreover, following the Russian-Georgian war of August 2008, ana-
lysts portrayed Brussels and Moscow as competitors for access to the gas
resources of Central Asia (see for instance German 2009). In the EU,
mistrust of Russia as an energy supplier reached a peak with the Ukraine
crisis.2 Although the flow of Russian gas through Ukraine never stopped
during the crisis, the EU reformulated its energy security strategy in late
2014 and launched the Energy Union strategy in February 2015, both
largely as a response to the mounting mistrust of Russia as an energy sup-
plier. Even more than in the past, new infrastructural projects and busi-
ness initiatives involving European companies and Gazprom—most
notably the Nord Stream-2 project, a set of pipelines connecting Russia
and Germany via the Baltic Sea3—have become the subject of tense intra-
­EU discussions (Fischer 2016).
 10  Identities and Vulnerabilities: The Ukraine Crisis...    253

The evolution of the EU-Russia gas trade from a driver of cooperation

into a source of controversy seems to run counter to liberal arguments,
widely entrenched in mainstream Western economic and political
thought, according to which trade promotes international cooperation
and has pacifying effects on international relations (Goldthau and Witte
2009; Kuzemko et al. 2015: 10–12). Other contributions to this volume
have exposed the shortcomings of the liberal approach and challenged
some of its main assumptions (see the chapter by Kustova (Chap. 8)). The
following analysis explores and contrasts other theoretical approaches
that appear better suited to explain the securitisation of EU discourses
regarding gas trade with Russia.
Two different theory-driven explanations can be identified. The first,
rooted in geopolitical realism, conceptualises energy as a strategic tool in
the competition among great powers for political supremacy in the inter-
national arena—access to energy resources is thus seen as a zero-sum
game among states (Kuzemko et  al. 2015: 9–10; see also Klare 2009;
Kropatcheva 2011). In this view, the EU’s reliance on Russian gas is a
source of weakness, as Russia will attempt to use its natural resources and
the ensuing economic leverage to achieve its political goals. Accordingly,
the EU’s energy trade with Russia is seen as a security issue because it
increases the Union’s vulnerability.
The second explanation stems from social constructivist theory and
focuses on identity-based threat perceptions. From a social constructivist
perspective, the securitisation of European discourses concerning gas
trade with Russia is due to the increasing perception of Russia as a threat-
ening ‘Other’, rather than to material factors and vulnerabilities. For his-
torical reasons, notably the long subjugation to Russian imperialism, the
image of Russia as a threatening ‘Other’ is particularly strong in East-­
Central European national identities (cf. Neumann 1998). This explains
why East-Central European EU members, such as Poland and the Baltic
States, tend to securitise energy relations with Russia more than Western
European countries (i.e. Germany, Italy, Austria). The latter are keener on
doing business with Gazprom, a fact which has led to heated disagree-
ments within the EU. A social constructivist analysis thus holds that dif-
ferences of opinion stem from divergent constructions of Russia as a
foreign policy actor (Ehin and Berg 2016; Siddi 2017).
254  M. Siddi

While both the realist and the social constructivist approaches provide
useful perspectives, this chapter evaluates which one best explains the
securitisation of the EU’s gas trade with Russia. The realist view postu-
lates that securitisation stems from the EU’s vulnerability in this relation-
ship and thus from the existence of a material security threat to the
EU. The pertinence of this claim is assessed according to four indicators,
following Casier (2011): (1) EU’s vulnerability to supply disruptions, (2)
Russia’s demand dependence, (3) dominance of the gas trade in the bilat-
eral relationship and (4) the willingness of Russian leaders to use gas trade
for political purposes.
For the realist explanation to hold, these indicators should reveal that
the EU is indeed vulnerable and exposed to security threats. The realist
explanation also falsifies the social constructivist approach, as it argues
that threats and vulnerabilities are real, and not constructed. However, if
the indicators show that there is weak or no evidence for the realist expla-
nation, the constructivist theory is not falsified, and it thus can be argued
that securitisation stems from socially constructed threats and identity-­
based narratives.
Besides offering insights into theoretical approaches to securitisation
and EU-Russia energy relations, this research focus answers recent calls to
explore ‘to what extent the securitised [energy] policy issues actually rep-
resent a threat’ and to provide ‘a more critical assessment of perceived and
real threats to EU energy security’ (Kustova 2015: 291). Before pursuing
this investigation, however, it is necessary to define the key analytical
concepts used in this chapter.

2  nergy Security, Securitisation

E
and Identities
Energy security is usually defined as the availability of sufficient energy
supplies at affordable prices (cf. Yergin 2006: 70–1). This definition
focuses on the security of supply and hence primarily reflects the perspec-
tive of importing countries and organisations, such as the EU. Exporting
countries, such as Russia, view energy security more in terms of the secu-
rity of demand, namely having stable access to profitable markets for
 10  Identities and Vulnerabilities: The Ukraine Crisis...    255

their energy sales. The concept of sustainability (using energy while limit-
ing the negative effects on the environment) also influences conceptions
of energy security (Kuzemko et al. 2015: 25–6).
In several EU countries and institutions, the increasing focus on the
security of supply and perceptions of Russia as a threat, or at best an
unreliable provider, has fuelled the securitisation of the gas trade. The
term ‘securitisation’ has been discussed at length in scholarly works (cf.
e.g. Balzacq 2010; Buzan et al. 1998; Wæver 1995). Here, it is defined as
the discursive practice of characterising something—in this case, reliance
on Russian gas—as a security threat and advocating emergency or swift
policy counter-measures to confront the presumed threat, usually with-
out heeding existing rules and procedures. European Council President
Donald Tusk’s call for an EU central gas purchasing authority in April
2014, with reference to the possible threat of a Russian cut-off of gas sup-
plies to Europe, is paradigmatic of the securitising discourse (Tusk 2014).
By calling for a centralised managing authority, Tusk’s plea implied a
departure from the legal acquis of the EU, which aims at liberalising the
Union’s gas market.
This chapter argues that discourses securitising gas trade with Russia in
the EU are rooted in national identities and long-standing constructions
of Russia. In other words, the construction of gas trade with Russia as
threatening derives primarily from entrenched national perceptions of
that country as a danger to security, rather than from a thorough assess-
ment of actual risks. This, however, requires the definition of national
identity, another complex and contested concept (cf. e.g. Johnston 1999;
Lebow 2008; Malesevic 2011). In this analysis, national identity is
­conceptualised as a discursive construction that aims at strengthening the
cohesiveness of a collective (usually the dominant ethnic group within a
state) by emphasising a shared history, culture, values, language and
attachment to a particular territory (cf. Miller 1997: 18, 22–7).4 National
identity operates as a cognitive device that provides a state with an under-
standing of other countries, their motives, interests, probable actions and
attitudes. Moreover, it is a multifaceted and malleable construct, which
evolves as a result of the contestation among different domestic agents
and conceptualisations (Hopf 2002: 5; Siddi 2017: 15–40).
256  M. Siddi

Most significantly, national identity tends to be constructed in relation

to one or more significant ‘Others’, namely actors in the international
environment that are perceived as different or antithetical to the nation
(or ‘Self ’). As a vast body of literature has shown, in many EU member
states, national and European identities have been constructed or rein-
forced in opposition to the Russian ‘Other’ (see Morozov and Rumelilli
2012; Neumann 1998). Rivalry and conflicts with Russia have been so
frequent and pervasive that they have become a defining trait of national
identity discourses. Moscow’s assertive stance in the last decade, particu-
larly its annexation of Crimea and destabilisation of Eastern Ukraine, has
revived and provided new material for European narratives portraying
Russia as a threat. As will be argued in the latter part of this chapter, these
narratives have had a profound impact on current political debates,
including those concerning the gas relationship with Russia.

3 Is Russian Gas a Security Issue?

In order to assess the relevance of the realist interpretation, I will adopt
four criteria which examine whether the EU-Russia gas trade indeed con-
stitutes a security issue for the EU: the EU’s supply vulnerability; asym-
metrical trade interdependence, notably the absence of demand
dependence for Russia; the importance of the gas trade in the broader
hierarchy of bilateral issues in EU-Russia relations; and Russia’s political
will to make use of its gas exports to the EU for political purposes. These
criteria were first formulated by Casier (2011), who applied them to the
investigation of the potential security threat to the EU posed by its reli-
ance on Russian fossil fuels.
The ensuing analysis updates Casier’s research, which was carried out
before the Ukraine crisis, and narrows it down to natural gas imports.
Gas is more politically sensitive than oil in the EU-Russia energy rela-
tionship because gas markets, unlike oil markets, are only partially glo-
balised. The intrinsic characteristics of gas make its transportation more
difficult than that of oil. Hence, gas can be brought to Europe only via a
limited number of routes, mostly pipelines from Russia, Norway and
Algeria; the transport of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from more distant
 10  Identities and Vulnerabilities: The Ukraine Crisis...    257

areas of the world is increasing, but tends to be more expensive and

requires additional infrastructure. For these reasons, Russia has, in prin-
ciple, the option of using its gas exports to Europe as a lever for political
purposes.

3.1 The EU’s Supply Vulnerability

In the context of EU gas imports from Russia, vulnerability concerns the

EU’s exposure to high costs and shortages with far-reaching consequences
should gas flows from Russia be disrupted. As Casier (2011: 541) points
out, ‘a country will only be vulnerable if it has no escape route, no alter-
natives on offer’. In 2015, EU-28 gas imports from Russia represented
40% of total gas imports, followed by Norway (37%), Algeria (7%) and
LNG imports from other countries (13%, of which 90% came from
Qatar, Algeria and Nigeria).5 This data shows that Russia is indeed an
essential gas supplier to the EU.  However, the share of Russian gas in
total EU imports has gone down by approximately 10% since the year
2000, despite the EU’s Eastern enlargement of 2004–2007 and the con-
sequent inclusion of countries that were relatively more dependent on
Russian gas (as a total percentage of their gas imports).
In the last decade, the main interruptions of Russian gas flows to
Europe were related to the issue of Ukrainian transit and Russian-­
Ukrainian conflicts; they took place in January 2006 and 2009 (Pirani
et al. 2009). However, in the last five years, considerable flows of Russian
gas were redirected from the Ukrainian transit system to the Nord Stream
and Yamal (linking Russia and Poland via Belarus) pipelines. Following
the opening of Nord Stream in 2011–2012, the percentage of Russian
gas exports to the EU going through Ukraine has been halved—from
around 80% to 39% in 2015.6 Redirecting flows has thus decreased
threats to the EU’s security of supply, particularly in the light of the ongo-
ing crisis in relations between Moscow and Kiev. Moreover, although
40% of EU-Russia gas trade still transits Ukraine, there have been no
serious disruptions in gas flows during the current crisis. This highlights
that, despite the very tense political situation, neither Moscow or Kiev
258  M. Siddi

have opted to use the gas trade as an instrument of political influence vis-­
à-­vis the EU.7
In the last few years, several other factors have dented Russia’s capabil-
ity to use gas as a weapon against the EU. These include the US shale gas
revolution and the subsequent decrease in energy prices, the opening of
new LNG import infrastructure in the EU (two LNG terminals became
operational in Lithuania and Poland in 2015), the higher quantities of
gas sold at spot prices and of LNG available in international markets, and
increasing infrastructural interconnections among EU member states.
Hence, if an assessment is based exclusively on the analysis of trends in
gas markets and trade, it must be argued that the EU now faces far fewer
risks to the security of its supplies from Russia than it did a few years ago.
This suggests that the realist explanation does not hold: the increasing
securitisation of discourses on the EU-Russia gas trade is not grounded in
objective economic or data-based analysis, but rather in growing threat
perceptions within the EU.
As will be argued in the latter part of this chapter, these perceptions are
driven by Russia’s increasingly assertive and revisionist foreign policy
since the late 2000s, and especially after 2014. The new Russian foreign
policy posture has reawakened negative constructions of the Russian
‘Other’ in national identities, most particularly in East-Central European
countries that harbour historical grievances with Russia.8 This has also led
to the securitisation of European discourses on the gas trade, despite the
fact that gas flows have continued largely unhindered and actual threats
to them have diminished in the recent past. For instance, current Polish
foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski described Russia as an ‘existen-
tial threat’ (cited in Die Welle 2016) and argued that Moscow could
exploit the Nord Stream pipelines ‘for blackmail at any time’ (cited in
France 24 2017).
A partial limitation to the social constructivist approach can be derived
from a more specific analysis of energy dependence on Russia at the level of
EU member states. East-Central European members are, on average, much
more dependent on Russian gas than Central and Western European mem-
bers (even though the latter import much more in total volumes) (Siddi
2016b: 134). While countries such as Germany and the Netherlands are
well-interconnected with global gas markets, Poland and Slovakia are much
 10  Identities and Vulnerabilities: The Ukraine Crisis...    259

less so and rely heavily on Russian gas in sectors—such as heating—where

it cannot easily be replaced. In past years, using its position as a monopo-
listic supplier in East-Central Europe, Gazprom has often charged higher
prices for its gas than in Western Europe. Hence, a certain degree of vulner-
ability to Russian gas geopolitics does exist in the region. However, the
construction of new infrastructure and interconnections is weakening
Gazprom’s monopolistic position. The vulnerability of East-Central Europe
to Russian gas supplies has diminished in recent years and could be further
reduced in the near future (cf. Dickel et al. 2014: 72). Therefore, even in
this region, the increasing discursive securitisation of EU-Russia gas trade
cannot easily be traced to a rise in actual threats to the security of supply.

3.2 Asymmetric Dependence?

The claim that Russia could interrupt gas supplies to the EU for political
purposes presupposes that Moscow can sustain the losses from the for-
gone sales of gas at a level that would impact the EU’s security of supply
significantly. In other words, it assumes that the EU-Russia gas relation-
ship is strongly asymmetric to the benefit of Russia. It has already been
highlighted that, in the last few years, changing market conditions and
additional infrastructure have reduced the EU’s vulnerability to disrup-
tions in Russian gas supplies. Russia’s dependence on European gas
demand and the indispensability of income from energy exports for the
Russian federal budget strongly support the argument that the EU-Russia
gas trade is not asymmetric to Russia’s advantage and that Moscow would
incur enormous losses in both the short and the long term if it were to
stop supplies to the EU. By conceptualising energy as a mere strategic
tool in inter-state power politics, the realist approach largely overlooks
the domestic impact, technical issues and economic costs to Russia of a
politically-motivated severance of supplies to Europe.
Fossil fuel exports constitute more than two thirds of Russia's total
export revenues.9 Although most of the income originates from oil sales,
gas exports account for nearly 15% of total export revenues. This is not a
negligible sum, particularly in the post-Ukraine crisis context, which has
seen Russia mired in deep economic recession due to the combined effect
260  M. Siddi

of low oil prices and EU sanctions. Renouncing the revenues from gas
sales to the EU, by far Gazprom’s main export market, would strain gov-
ernmental resources enormously. The Russian government would deprive
itself of the funds to provide basic services, pay pensions or the salaries of
public employees. Such a move would have deep long-term consequences,
as Russia would no longer be seen as a reliable supplier by its Western
and, most importantly (in terms of purchased volumes), European cus-
tomers. The latter would sue Gazprom for breaking supply contracts,
demand large sums of money in compensation and seek new suppliers
elsewhere.
Furthermore, Russia has no immediate alternatives to its European
customers. Gazprom is seeking new partners in Asia, particularly China,
but the endeavour has not produced the results that the company hoped
for (Henderson and Mitrova 2015). New pipelines would be necessary to
transport additional volumes of gas to China, which requires large invest-
ments. In turn, these are particularly difficult to make at a time of eco-
nomic crisis and while Russian companies are banned from accessing
Western funds due to the sanctions. Moreover, the gas fields that cur-
rently supply Europe are very distant from the Asian market. Redirecting
Russia’s gas exports eastwards would thus require either large infrastruc-
tural investments or the exploration and extraction of gas in new fields
closer to Asian markets.
These considerations indicate that Russia cannot halt its gas sales to
Europe—and redirect them elsewhere—without incurring major losses
that would undermine its economy and threaten the stability of the
country. Although many observers have convincingly argued that Russia
is in a ‘crisis mode’ and subordinates economic interests to political ones
(cf. e.g. Laine et al. 2015), stopping gas flows to Europe would ultimately
have devastating consequences also at a political level, both domestically
and internationally (where Russia would lose any credibility with its
long-standing European partners). It is thus extremely unlikely that
Russia will make large-scale use of its gas exports to achieve political goals
in its relationship with the EU. This also undermines the realist argument
about Russia’s ability to use the ‘energy weapon’ in relations with the
EU. In light of these considerations, the Russian ‘energy weapon’ seems
more a social construction than a real and effective policy tool.
 10  Identities and Vulnerabilities: The Ukraine Crisis...    261

3.3  as Trade in the EU-Russia Relationship: How

G
Significant?

The realist argument that Russia will use gas exports to split the EU and
force it into concessions implies that the gas trade is a dominant aspect of
the EU-Russia relationship. In fact, it is only one element in a much
more complex scenario, and arguably not the most significant one. It has
already been shown that, in terms of revenues, oil trade is more s­ ignificant
and does not easily lend itself to political uses. We have also seen that
market developments in the last few years have diminished the strategic
significance of Russian gas exports to the EU. By broadening our analysis
to non-energy related factors of EU-Russia relations, the importance of
the gas trade appears even more modest.
In economic terms, Russia is a much weaker power than the EU. The
EU’s gross domestic product (GDP) is nearly 15 times larger than that of
Russia.10 Within this picture, despite the economic importance of gas for
the EU in sectors such as electricity generation and heating, gas trade is
economically much more significant (as a share of total GDP) for Russia
than for the EU. Hence, the incentives for Russia to escalate a trade war
with the EU in the energy sector are virtually non-existent. Besides
depriving state coffers of essential income, such a trade war would swiftly
extend to other areas where Russia cannot compete with the EU. On a
smaller scale, this has already become evident in the light of the EU sanc-
tions and Russian counter-sanctions following the Ukraine crisis (Dreger
et al. 2016): Russia is dependent on the import of a vast range of prod-
ucts from the West, access to Western capital markets, and Western
investments and technology in numerous economic sectors, including
the energy sector.
Furthermore, following the Ukraine crisis, the political dimension
seems to have become the most significant aspect of the EU-Russia rela-
tionship. Economic confrontation has been limited to a set of areas that
excludes the energy partnership. While energy trade has continued largely
undisturbed, negotiations have focused primarily on political issues, such
as the cessation of hostilities in Eastern Ukraine, constitutional reform in
Ukraine and the future of its separatist regions. Developments in the
international arena—most notably terrorism, the Syrian civil war and the
262  M. Siddi

refugee crisis in Europe—are increasingly shifting the focus of EU-Russia

relations towards political (rather than energy-related) issues. In some
policy areas, Russia even seems to be seeking cooperation with the West,
as shown by its calls to form an international anti-terrorist coalition with
Western countries (see Sengupta and MacFarquhar 2015). Within this
broader picture, the severing of Russian gas exports to Europe appears a
highly unlikely scenario.

3.4  ussia’s Willingness to Use Gas for Political

R
Purposes

In the past decade, Russia has made use of its gas sales to gain political
concessions in relations with members of the Commonwealth of
Independent States—for instance, when it offered Ukraine a discount in
gas prices in exchange for the extension of the lease of the naval base in
Sevastopol in 2010 (Harding 2010). Gazprom also charged higher prices
to some East-Central European EU member states, but it is disputable
whether it did so for political purposes or simply in order to exploit its
position as monopolistic supplier (and hence for purely economic goals)
(cf. Siddi 2015: 8–9).
There is no conclusive evidence that Russia has made large-scale use of
gas as a political weapon directly against the EU or individual member
states (Stegen 2011; Yafimava 2015: 7–9), and it is highly unlikely that it
will do so in the foreseeable future. Russia’s strong need of revenues and
foreign currency, low energy prices and the EU’s increasing resilience to
disruptions further increase the costs and diminish the effectiveness of
such a move. The fact that Russia did not stop supplies to the EU even at
the peak of the Ukraine crisis, and eventually resumed its gas exports to
Ukraine in both the winters of 2014–2015 and 2015–2016, is emblem-
atic of its willingness to leave energy trade out of the current confronta-
tion with the EU.
Although Gazprom’s new infrastructural project—Nord Stream-2—
has a political dimension and has provoked acrimonious debates within
the EU (see Fischer 2016), it will not change the current trends that have
determined the EU’s growing emancipation from Russian gas and will
 10  Identities and Vulnerabilities: The Ukraine Crisis...    263

not put Russia in a position to dictate political conditions to the EU by

using the threat of a supply cut-off. In fact, it appears that Russian leaders
are using new infrastructural projects as a form of soft power to improve
relations with traditional Western and Southern European partners. By
making its gas exports to the EU less dependent on Ukrainian transit,
which proved problematic in the past, Russia may in fact end up depoliti-
cising its gas trade with the EU (cf. Boersma 2015).
This section has shown that there is not sufficient evidence to demon-
strate the existence of a threat to the EU’s energy security stemming from
the EU-Russia gas trade. This considerably undermines the realist
approach, which would provide an apt framework to understand securi-
tisation only if an objective security threat was actually present. The fol-
lowing sub-chapter shows how a social constructivist approach, based on
identities and long-standing perceptions of Russia as Europe’s ‘Other’,
contributes to a better understanding of the securitisation of European
discourses.

4 Identities and European Discourses

on Russian Gas
As Neumann (1998: 67–112) has shown, numerous primary sources sug-
gest that Russia has played the role of Europe’s ‘Other’ for more than four
centuries. Mainstream European narratives of Russia reveal a tendency to
portray it as a liminal case of European identity. Russians were often
described as barbarous and deficient in terms of civility, forms of govern-
ment and religion (Poe 2003: 21). The first characterisations of Russia as
‘the barbarian at the gates’, a recurrent theme in European discourses,
emerged in the descriptions of Russian soldiers during the Northern War
against Sweden in the early eighteenth century. The theme was reiterated
in mainstream narratives propagated by European cultural and political
elites throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century (for more detailed
analysis, see Neumann 1998; Siddi 2012).
During the Cold War, Western European discourses conceptualised
Soviet Russia as a military and political threat (Neumann 1998: 99–100).
This perception was substantiated by the presence of large Soviet conven-
264  M. Siddi

tional and military forces in Central Europe. A distinct narrative was

advocated by some prominent oppositional East-Central European intel-
lectuals, such as Milan Kundera and Mihaly Vaida. This discourse con-
structed East-Central European countries within the Soviet bloc as
‘Central Europe’, part of European and Western civilisation, while it
excluded the Soviet Union and its Russian core from this conception of
European civilisation (cf. Szulecki 2015: 30). In the words of Milan
Kundera, Soviet Russia was ‘the radical negation of the modern West’ and
East-Central Europe had been ‘kidnapped, displaced and brainwashed
[by the] totalitarian Russian civilisation’ (Kundera 1984). Although other
East-Central European dissidents—such as Milan Simecka and Jaroslav
Sabata—disagreed with this view, the idea of Russia being ‘outside
Europe’ eventually prevailed in the geopolitical imaginaries of the dissi-
dents who acquired leading political positions after the Cold War (cf.
Szulecki 2015: 30, 34).
In the final years of the Cold War, in Western Europe, diminishing
threat perceptions gradually left room for a more positive reassessment of
Soviet foreign policy. The new Soviet leadership’s discourse of a ‘common
European home’ and its acceptance of the end of Eastern European
regimes in 1989 and of German reunification were key components in
this reassessment (cf. Herman 1996). Energy trade was largely seen as an
economic driver of political rapprochement and continued to expand in
the post-Cold War decades. However, perceptions of Russia remained
more negative in East-Central European countries that had been part of
the Soviet sphere of influence. Following the end of the pro-Soviet
regimes in the region, a generation of politicians and members of civil
society that had grown up in the milieus of the anti-Soviet underground
came to power. Under the new political class, national identity was rebuilt
in stark opposition to state socialism and the experience of domination
by the Soviet Union. In their rhetoric, the accession of East-Central
European countries to the European Union and NATO was portrayed as
a ‘return to Europe’—a process that involved the othering of Russia,
which remained outside both organisations. Moreover, some East-Central
European leaders continued to fear that Russia would pursue neo-­
imperial ambitions and abuse its energy resources for this purpose (cf.
e.g. Kaczynski 2006).11
 10  Identities and Vulnerabilities: The Ukraine Crisis...    265

As post-Soviet Russia recovered economically thanks to high energy

prices and adopted a more assertive foreign policy under Vladimir Putin,
threat perceptions gained momentum in East-Central Europe. This was
most notable in countries—such as Poland and the Baltic States—where
identity-based distrust of Russia was particularly strong (Ehin and Berg
2016; see also Zarycki 2004). The strategic significance of Russia’s gas
exports, as well as the energy dependence of East-Central European
states, made gas trade an important part of the ensuing political contesta-
tion. Politicians in Poland and the Baltic States were particularly fearful
of energy cooperation between Germany and Russia, which in their view
was reminiscent of the German-Soviet rapprochement that led to the
partitioning of East-Central Europe in the late 1930s and 1940s. Most
notably, at a conference held in Brussels in May 2006, Polish defence
minister Radosław Sikorski compared the Nord Stream pipeline to a ‘new
Molotov-Ribbentrop pact’ (cit. in Castle 2006). In the mid-2000s, the
Polish political elite conceptualised dependence on Russian energy as a
threat to their country’s energy security and national sovereignty, thereby
strongly securitising the issue (Godzimirski 2009: 193–196).
While the Nord Stream project allowed the redirection of gas flows,
and potentially affected the income from transit fees for some East-­
Central European countries (see Godzimirski 2009: 192–3), it certainly
did not signify a new German-Russian partitioning of Eastern Europe, as
implied by Sikorski’s statement of May 2006. It is also difficult to accept
at face value the argument that risks to the security of gas supply were the
main driving factor for opposition to the project in the Baltic States. In
fact, Nord Stream did not substantially change their energy security, as
pre-existing Russian export pipelines to Europe (Yamal and the Ukrainian
network) already bypassed the Baltic region. Identity-based threat per-
ceptions related to Russian policies and German-Russian cooperation, by
contrast, offer a more convincing explanatory framework for Baltic oppo-
sition to the pipeline. As Jakub Godzimirski (2009: 198) argued, ‘the
opponents of the project [were] driven first and foremost by their fear of
Russia, that has been their main and threatening constituting Other in
both identity and energy security terms’. Russia’s foreign policy agency
since 2006–2007, including its energy disputes with Ukraine, further
fuelled East-Central European fears.
266  M. Siddi

In the tense context of the Ukraine crisis, the initiative of Gazprom

and several Western European companies to double the capacity of Nord
Stream has revived and strengthened such threat perceptions. In March
2016, eight East-Central European countries sent a letter to European
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker objecting to the expansion
of the pipeline (Sytas 2016). Moreover, Russia’s aggressive policies in
Ukraine have fuelled opposition to Nord Stream-2 in Western Europe as
well. Here, narratives of Russia as a security challenge—which had lost
prominence after 1989—have returned to occupy an influential position
in public discourses and among epistemic communities. Critical views
are particularly dominant in EU institutions and Brussels-based think
tanks, where Russia’s policies towards Ukraine and its quest for coopera-
tion with the German government over Nord Stream-2 are perceived as a
direct challenge to the European integration project (cf. Fischer 2016).
However, Western European politicians tend to have a much less
emphatic stance on the Nord Stream-2 issue. Several German leaders
have declared themselves favourable to the project. During his tenure as
German Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, Sigmar Gabriel was
arguably the most prominent of them. Chancellor Angela Merkel also
tried to defend the pipeline by portraying it as a commercial initiative
rather than a political one (cf. Siddi 2016a: 671–2). It might be tempting
to conclude that this stance is motivated entirely by the economic and
security benefits for Germany deriving from the pipeline. While these
certainly help to understand the German position, its roots are much
deeper and more complex. The cooperative stance vis-à-vis Russia known
as Ostpolitik, which is based on trade and the energy partnership, has
become ingrained in German foreign policy thinking over the past four
decades. German leaders largely see it as a successful policy, which proved
crucial to de-escalating tensions in Cold War Europe and eventually cre-
ated the conditions for Germany’s reunification. Hence, Ostpolitik is part
of the country’s foreign policy identity. This is particularly evident when
politicians affiliated to the party that first crafted it, the German Social
Democratic Party, are in charge of the foreign ministry, which has been
the case from 2005 to 2009 and from 2013 to 2017 (Bagger 2016).
 10  Identities and Vulnerabilities: The Ukraine Crisis...    267

5 Conclusion: An Identity-Based
Explanation to the Securitisation
of EU-Russia Gas Trade
This chapter set out to explain the increasing securitisation of European
discourses concerning gas trade with Russia. Dependence on Russian gas
started to be constructed as a security issue in the 2000s and became
central to European foreign policy debates following the Ukraine crisis in
2014. This discursive shift took place despite the fact that gas trade
remained nearly unaffected by the crisis and the EU’s dependence on
Russian gas has decreased over time. The securitisation of EU-Russia gas
trade thus poses a theoretical conundrum, as it appears to challenge dom-
inant liberal arguments about the pacifying effects of trade on interna-
tional relations.
In scholarly analyses, the most widespread reaction to this challenge
consisted in the (re)assertion of geopolitical realist thinking, which con-
ceptualises energy as a strategic tool in the competition among great pow-
ers within an anarchic international environment. Indeed, there are
strong indications that confrontational and zero-sum thinking has
become dominant in EU-Russia relations, particularly from the perspec-
tive of the Russian leadership (cf. Auer 2015). However, evidence that
such reasoning has extended to the energy field is insufficient, as wit-
nessed by the regular continuation of bilateral gas trade. Hence, this
chapter has proposed a different explanation, based on perceptions, iden-
tities and a social constructivist analysis.
From this theoretical perspective, the securitisation of EU-Russia gas
trade has been promoted primarily by the re-emergence of identity-based
constructions of Russia as a threat and as Europe’s ‘Other’, most notably
in East-Central Europe. This process was fuelled by Russia’s increasingly
assertive posture in the 2000s and, most significantly, by its aggressive
policies during the Ukraine crisis. Within this broader foreign policy
framework, gas imports from Russia have been portrayed as a security
issue, regardless of their actual significance for the EU’s security of supply.
As tensions related to the Ukraine crisis appear to be subsiding and are
becoming overshadowed by other international issues, a split in intra-EU
268  M. Siddi

discourses about energy cooperation with Russia has emerged—which

sees East-Central European countries opposed to Germany and Western
European nations that support energy trade with Moscow (Siddi 2016a).
While economic and energy security considerations are at the fore-
front of this contestation, identity-based and divergent perceptions of
Russia as a foreign policy actor provide the conceptual framework against
which the debate is taking place. Conceptualisations of Russia in national
identities have remained dissonant across EU member states, a fact
reflected in their differing stances vis-à-vis energy trade with Gazprom.
Nevertheless, as argued, national identity is a fluid construct that evolves
as a result of the contestation of different domestic discourses and in
response to international developments (cf. Siddi 2017). Thus, it is pos-
sible that negative discourses on Russia may be displaced by more opti-
mistic representations of the country, particularly if relations between
Moscow and the West improve. Energy trade could play a role in this
respect, and its continuation in spite of the tensions caused by the Ukraine
crisis is a potent factor limiting the vicious circle of securitisation.

Notes
1. Eurostat, Main origin of primary energy imports, EU-28, 2004–14,
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Energy_
production_and_imports (accessed 27 March 2017).
2. Numerous different actors and stances co-exist and play a role in EU
energy policy making. In this chapter, the term ‘European Union’ is used
to refer both to the European Commission and the joint decision mak-
ing of member states through the European Council.
3. Nord Stream-2 would double the capacity of the already existing Nord
Stream gas pipelines from 55 to 100 billion cubic metres per year.
4. Other scholars, such as Brubaker and Cooper (2000), criticise reifying
conceptualisations of identities and question the analytical usefulness of
the concept.
5. Quarterly Report on European Gas Markets Market. Observatory for
Energy, DG Energy, vol. 9, issue 1 (fourth quarter of 2015 and first
quarter of 2016), pp. 10–12.
6. Ibid.
 10  Identities and Vulnerabilities: The Ukraine Crisis...    269

7. This was also possible thanks to the EU’s mediation in resolving gas-
related disputes between Russia and Ukraine in 2014 and 2015.
8. For instance, a survey conducted by the Pew Research Centre in the
spring of 2016 found that 71% of Polish respondents viewed tensions
with Russia as a threat; in most Western countries, between 30% and
40% of respondents shared this view. See http://www.pewglobal.
org/2016/06/13/europeans-see-isis-climate-change-as-most-serious-
threats/ (accessed 9 January 2017).
9. U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy,
23 July 2014, http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=17231
(accessed 7 July 2016).
10. See International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Database
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2015/02/weodata/index.aspx
(accessed 3 July 2016).
11. In the cited media interview from 2006, for instance, then Polish Prime
Minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, stated that ‘we [Poles] do not want to be
afraid that, at some point, someone will shut off our [Poland’s] supply
[of gas]. The older and adult generations of Poles can still remember well
that, 25 or 30 years ago, they were asking themselves the question: will
the Russians invade us or not?’

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 11
Positive and Negative Security:
A Consequentialist Approach to EU Gas
Supply
Paulina Landry

I would like to thank Kacper Szulecki, Dag Harald Claes, Ole Gunnar Austvik, Andreas
Heinrich, Irina Kustova, Inga Ydersbond, the organisers and participants of the PhD-seminar at
the University of Oslo (3.06.2015) and the Politologseminar at Lillehammer University College
(6.03.2015) for their constructive comments on the previous drafts of this chapter. My greatest
debt of gratitude goes to Lillehammer University College for providing me with the financial
support necessary for the research involved in preparing this chapter, which is part of my doctoral
dissertation Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) as an Energy Subregion and its
Influence on EU policy-making on energy security. I would also like to thank the University of Oslo
which provided me with the necessary infrastructure and access to online databases where I was a
guest researcher in 2015. I must mention due thanks to Peter Burgess and Mark B. Salter—the
organisers of Methods in Critical Security Studies course given by UiO-NTNU-PRIO Research
School on Peace and Conflict (08.12.14–12.12.14)—for the comments on the early draft of this
paper and for enriching conversations about critical approaches to security studies. I would also
like to thank for the training in energy security studies that I received from Michael Bradshaw at
the course Global Energy Dilemmas: Energy Security, Globalization and Climate Change (Oslo
Summer School in Comparative Social Science Studies at the University of Oslo, Norway
23.07.12–27.07.12) and from the Florence School of Regulation, Summer School in Energy Policy
and EU Law at the European University Institute, Robert Schuman Centre, for Advanced Studies
(18.06.12–22.06.12). I would like to thank the organisers of the course Philosophy of Science and
Research Ethics given at Lillehammer University College (03.01.12–31.05.12). My gratitude also
goes to Matthew Landry and Michael Marcoux for help with proofreading and editing language
usage in this chapter.

P. Landry (*)
Lillehammer University College, Lillehammer, Norway

© The Author(s) 2018 275

K. Szulecki (ed.), Energy Security in Europe, Energy, Climate and the Environment,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1_11
276  P. Landry

Abbreviations

ACER Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators

CI Critical Infrastructure
CMP Congestion Management Procedure
CNG Compressed Natural Gas
CSE Central Stockholding Entity
DSO Distribution System Operator
E&P Exploration and Production
EP Emergency Plan
EU European Union
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GIE Gas Infrastructure Europe
GRI Gas Regional Initiatives
GTL Gas-To-Liquid
GWh/d Gigawatt Hour per Day
IEA International Energy Agency
IEM Internal Energy Market
JPAP Join Preventive Action Plan
LNG Liquefied Natural Gas
LPG Liquefied Petroleum Gas
MS Member State
MSD Major Supply Disruptions
N-1 The N-1 Formula for Infrastructure Standard
NC BAL Network Code on Gas Balancing of Transmission Networks
NC CAM Network Code on Capacity Allocation Mechanisms in Gas
Transmission Systems
NC Network Code
NRA National Regulatory Authorities
PAP Preventive Action Plan
PSO Public Service Obligation
R&D Research and Development
RA Risk Assessment
REMIT Regulation on Wholesale Market Integrity and Transparency
S&T Scientific and Technical
SGI Service of General Interest
SMEs Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
 11  Positive and Negative Security: A Consequentialist Approach...    277

SS Supply Standard
SSO Storage System Operator
TOP Take-or-Pay
TPA Third Party Access
TSO Transmission System Operator
VTP Virtual Trading Point

1 Introduction
By promoting peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples, the EU
functions as an anchor of stability for the European continent.1 It
attempts to create an area of freedom, security and justice for its citizens.2
A stable and abundant supply of energy, therein gas supply, is imperative
to achieve these goals.3 In 2015, the gross inland consumption of natural
gas in the EU-28 was estimated at around 16 649 thousand terajoules
(EUROSTAT 2017a).4 The biggest gas consumers (presented in descend-
ing order) were Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, the
Netherlands, Spain, Belgium and Poland (EUROSTAT 2017a).5 EU
Member States had a relatively high  import dependency in gas, which
varied from around 70% (Hungary 67.9%, Poland 72.2% and Austria
72.5%) up to 100% (Estonia), with the majority of countries falling into
the 90% range (Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland,
Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Portugal,
Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland and Sweden). Only Denmark and the
Netherlands had a negative gas dependency, while Cyprus and Malta
experienced no gas dependency at all, since their domestic gas consump-
tion was equal to zero. Romania, Croatia and the United Kingdom were
also in good situations, where gas dependency totaled 1.8%, 27.1% and
41.8% respectively (EUROSTAT 2017c).6
Natural gas has a wide range of applications in the EU.7 It is used in the
sectors of transformation (to produce electricity and heat), energy (as fuel
in electricity plants, combined heat and power plants, heat plants, gas
works, coal mines, oil refineries, blast furnaces, coke ovens, etc.), transport
(e.g. compressed natural gas in road vehicles or natural gas in pipeline
transport and the distribution of diverse commodities such as water),
278  P. Landry

industry (iron and steel; chemical and petrochemical; non-ferrous metals;

non-metallic minerals; transport equipment; machinery; mining and quar-
rying; food, beverages and tobacco; paper, pulp and printing; construction;
wood and wood products; textile and leather), commercial and public ser-
vices, residential consumption, agriculture and forestry and fishing
(EUROSTAT, IEA, OECD, UNECE 2016).8 As such, natural gas contrib-
utes to the production of numerous goods and to providing Europe with
diverse services. In this regard, we can say that gas supply has a value that
exceeds its price. This is a value of societal welfare and well-­being that is a
consequence of the effects that these produced goods and provided services
have on the European population at large (Buchan and Keay 2015, 114).
Historically, the notion of gas security is affiliated with the concept of
energy security that is a legacy of US President Ronald Reagan’s term in
office and his efforts to block development of the Yamal/Urengoi gas pipe-
line project in the mid-1980s (EIU 1983a: 1).9 In 1982, Reagan put an
embargo on the sale to the USSR of engineering parts produced under US
licence by European companies that were necessary to build the Russian
pipelines in Europe (EIU 1982a: 20). Americans regarded the massive
expansion of Soviet-supplied gas pipelines as a threat and raised questions
concerning freedom and independence of Western European countries in
the face of the growing contractual dependency on gas supplies from
Siberia (EIU 3 (1981): 3). For Europe, however, the situation appeared
slightly different. Western European countries needed “all the gas they
could get” (EIU 1982c: 1) since it reduced their dependence on OPEC
(EIU 1982c: 5). They obtained it, at that time, from the USSR. As such,
the Soviet gas helped to secure the European continent’s gas supply (EIU
1982d:18). Both sides (Europe and Russia) had a common economic
interest that could contribute to their respective growth and prosperity
(EIU 1981a: 29). Reagan’s embargo, which was enacted to obstruct
Soviet-European cooperation (EIU 1982a: 20), was met with strong resis-
tance from both European and Russian partners (EIU 1982b: 26). The
USSR started producing their own 25 mw compressors to deliver the nec-
essary parts to build the pipeline, while European companies producing
US-licenced parts resisted by claiming that American law had no jurisdic-
tional relevance in Europe (EIU 1982b: 27). As a result, the Yamal-
Urengoi pipeline project attained symbolic importance: it became a matter
 11  Positive and Negative Security: A Consequentialist Approach...    279

of national pride of the USSR (EIU 1982a: 20), and it also became a
matter of exercising economic freedom in Europe (EIU 1982b: 27).
Just as the questions of gas security and freedom were pressing and
intertwined in the 1980s, they are equally so dominating the EU energy
security scene in the first decades of the twenty-first century. To a certain
extent, the current debates echo that which the Americans feared 30 years
ago. The concerns generated by the Russian-Ukrainian gas disputes
(2005–2006, 2008–2009, 2013–2014), the Eastern Ukraine crisis
(2014), the persistent vertical integration of gas undertakings in the
downstream gas chain in Europe and the prevalent take-or-pay (TOP)
gas agreements are all a burning source of an unease for the European
policy-makers who wish to proceed in the liberal fashion and organise
the gas markets in Europe accordingly.10
The EU energy policy is not a single policy, but one that consists of
different Regulations, Directives and Recommendations (Eberlein
2005).11 Since the year 2009, the EU policy on gas has experienced “a
regulatory boom” that was reflected in the amount Regulations and
Directives adopted, which resulted in a rapid development of common
policy instruments. In this context, the most important were Regulation
(EC) No 715/2009 on conditions for access to the natural gas transmis-
sion networks, Regulation (EC) No 713/2009 establishing an Agency for
the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER), Regulation (EC) No
994/2010 concerning measures to safeguard security of gas supply,
Regulation (EC) No 1227/2011 on the energy market integrity and
transparency (REMIT) as well as Directive 2009/119/EC imposing an
obligation on Member States to maintain minimum stocks of crude oil
and/or petroleum products and Directive 2009/73/EC concerning com-
mon rules for the internal market in natural gas.12 Recently, the impor-
tance of the gas policy in Europe has become even more pronounced as
the EU advances the Energy Union governance process and moves for-
ward with a more complex strategy for energy security.13
Natural gas is one of the most important resources in the EU economy
and a significant factor in the European energy security. In 2015, it pro-
vided 21% of the EU-28’s primary energy.14 Over the period of the last
25  years, European countries’ gas dependency grew from 45.5% to
69.1%, and the prognosis is that this trend will likely continue.15 The
280  P. Landry

emerging global gas market (Bielecki 2002; Weisser 2007) makes LNG
trade and supply attractive to many countries, especially to those with sea
access. Also, gas has been identified as the main alternative fuel with a
potential for long-term oil substitution and decarbonisation, which
strengthens its position on the energy market in Europe.16 Finally, as
recently as 2013 “an insufficient interconnection of wholesale gas mar-
kets led to a gross-welfare loss of approximately EUR 7 billion” (ACER/
CEER 2013).17 This is a loss that should and that can be avoided, and
although it is a price being paid, it need not be.
It is therefore important to understand whether the EU gas policy’s
solutions suffice to secure the European continent’s gas supply and, even
more importantly, to comprehend what, where and how improvements
can be made. By employing the analytical framework of negative and
positive security, this chapter evaluates European gas policy in the context
of its potential to maintain gas security in Europe. Gas security will be
defined in terms of the delivery of a certain volume of gas that produces
both economic value of societal well-being (produced goods and pro-
vided services) and a non-material value of freedom (which the delivery
of these goods and services inspires) for EU citizens. Central to the pro-
posed approach is an understanding of gas policy as having been created
to provide a certain volume of gas and, by doing so, of maintaining and
reinforcing the values of societal welfare and freedom. Negative gas secu-
rity is the ability to restore required gas flows and, as such, to deliver free-
dom from their loss. Positive gas security entails innovatively managing
these flows such that freedom towards acquiring the required volume of
gas is strengthened. Negative gas security is negative only in the sense that
it is the outcome of remedying a crisis situation where some threatening
development is stopped and its negative consequences minimised so that
the gas flow can be restored to pre-crisis levels. Positive security, which
entails the creation of added value, allows for strengthening security itself.
Positive security stimulates positive developments and maximises their
good consequences: it signifies advancement and progress towards the
required levels of gas supply. The negative and positive security can be
regarded as fundamental building blocks of security strategy where secu-
rity is perceived as a process of (re)producing certain values that are pro-
tected in the name of security.
 11  Positive and Negative Security: A Consequentialist Approach...    281

By exploring the notion of the negative and positive security in EU gas

policy, this chapter exposes a problem that the EU can have in delivering of
gas security for its region. First, there would be a major difficulty in restor-
ing lost welfare and confidence in freedom that would occur in the event of
a major gas crisis and, as such, in delivering the negative gas security. The
integration of national gas markets advances slowly and many projects are
postponed. As a result, the levels of commercial and physical interconnect-
edness as well as procedural and technical interoperability in the EU gas
system (which are required to activate the preventive and safeguard mea-
sures that inject the required gas flows in this system) are not met in several
places.18 Secondly, there is a problem in establishing freedom towards
acquiring the needed gas flows and, as such, in delivering positive gas secu-
rity. Here, the main line of criticism concerns the prevailing emphasis of
the EU gas policy on a technical aspect of gas security (where gas security is
perceived as resulting first and foremost from aggregated systemic techni-
calities in the EU gas system such as physical infrastructure, market rules,
network codes, technical standards, etc.) while not adequately considering
the role of the individual user of the gas system and that of the gas con-
sumer in the creation of gas security in Europe. These issues (consumer’s
empowerment and end-user’s energy efficiency and sustainable consump-
tion patterns), if legally included in the EU gas policy and coupled with a
functioning IEM for gas, can contribute to positive gas security in Europe.
Here, added value enables energy consumers to exercise their liberty and
tailor their energy security through their smart energy choices. This power
affords them more welfare (since producing goods and services with energy-
efficient solutions requires less energy) and freedom (since ability to act and
enact gas security is brought closer to the consumer who becomes an active
player instead of being a mere passive recipient of gas supply). Positive
security is customised at the level of the individual in the local context,
which stands in stark contrast to the solution proposed by the negative
security model where gas security is perceived as a strategic choice of just a
few high-level stakeholders at the national, regional and supranational lev-
els. Both the negative and positive gas security models in the EU gas policy
should be supported with the functioning and flexible IEM for gas that is
critical to the European gas security. Effectively protecting Europe’s gas
flow today is not workable without a functional internal energy market for
282  P. Landry

gas that can provide infrastructural, procedural and technical solutions to

the activation of such flows. Also, the interconnected and functional gas
network where tradable and transitable gas capacity is exchanged on com-
mercial basis is a prerequisite to the accommodation of empowered energy
consumers in the EU gas system and sustainable end-users.

2 The Negative and Positive Security

To explore the EU gas security, this chapter incorporates concepts of neg-
ative and positive security from Security Studies and augments them with
a conceptual tool consisting of negative and positive security models
originating from the field of Computer Science. As Salter and Mutlu
(2013) note, “critical security scholars are wanderers, not to say pirates.
We travel into far away disciplines and bring back concepts, ideas and
tools that we believe that explain the social and the political in reflexive
ways” (Salter and Mutlu 2013, 353). In this case, travel into far off disci-
plines enabled researcher to establish a link between Security Studies,
Political Science, Computer Sciences and Philosophy of Science. This
connection created a new analytical focus that has turned towards the (re)
productive functions of security processes. These processes were further
considered against the delivery of certain values and classified as belong-
ing to either the negative security model (if they performed a reproduc-
tive function and restored the required values) or to the positive security
model (if they executed a productive function and created added value).
The concepts of the negative and positive security are commonly
reflected in the ideas of “freedom from” and “freedom to” (Isaiah Berlin)
where, in negative terms, “security is about the absence of something
threatening” (Williams 2013, 7) and, in positive terms, security involves
“phenomena that are enabling and make things possible” (Williams
2013, 7). Debates on negative and positive security are abundant in the
field of Security Studies (Williams 2013; Floyd 2007; Roe 2012;
Hoogensen Gjørv 2012). However, they focus on the separation of these
two security types rather than on unifying them in an approach that dis-
cerns the dialectical nature of security where both the negative and posi-
tive security can be simultaneously present in security strategy.
11  Positive and Negative Security: A Consequentialist Approach...    283

Computer Science-based negative and positive security models apply

two distinct authorisation rules for input validation to protect the system
from danger. The positive security model allows for what is “known and
accepted as good” by defining a set of inclusions, while the negative secu-
rity model disallows for what is “known as bad” by defining a set of exclu-
sions (Murphy and Salchow 2007). Pragmatic transposition of these
authorisation rules into the framework of negative and positive security
from Security Studies allows for delineating two basic functions of secu-
rity strategy: the positive “enable” (“the known as good”) and the negative
“disable” (“the known as bad”). As such, the negative gas security model
can be regarded as working for freedom from the loss of certain values (by
eliminating threats and minimising their bad consequences) and the pos-
itive gas security model as working for freedom towards the required val-
ues (by stimulating good developments and maximising their good
consequences). Negative security grounded in the epistemology of fear
(McSweeney 1999), can be further associated with restoring required val-
ues. Positive security, on the other hand, built on an epistemology of
enablement (McSweeney 1999) and equipollent to a capacity to provide
a new quality and a strength, can be associated with a function of produc-
tion of an added value. Further, these two security types are linked to a
consequentialism grounded in Mead’s symbolic interactionism and prag-
matism of Ch. S. Peirce.19 In consequentialism a signification of a con-
cept is calculated to produce some effect that takes the form of a habit or
concrete behaviour that is spatiotemporally bound (Lewis and Smith
1980, 57).20 As such, all conceivable consequences (Lewis and Smith
1980, 55) of the conceptualisation of security in the analysed policy can
be identified while, at the same time, they can be divided into two dis-
tinct groups: reproduction-related (effects that allow for restoring the
required values) or production-related (effects that allow for the delivery
of an added value to the delivery of the values protected in the name of
security).21
In summary, it can be posited that the negative and positive security
models can be regarded as fundamental building blocks of security strat-
egy where security is perceived as a process of a (re)production of certain
values that are protected in the name of security. This (re)production of val-
ues is embedded in a spatiotemporal synthesis of the negative and positive
284  P. Landry

Table 11.1  Negative and positive security

Negative security Positive security
Freedom from loss of value(s) Freedom towards acquiring value(s)
Restored status quo Created added value
Reproductive function Productive function

security. The negative security introduces an equilibrated notion of secu-

rity: it is reactive and restores the existing status quo. It develops strategic
systemic capabilities that allow for fighting threatening developments.
The negative security is inevitably regressive since it is unable to foresee
and remedy all the possible threats (given the spatiotemporal and not
absolute nature of security) that can put at risk the values that we wish to
protect. The positive model introduces a notion of security that focuses
not as much on equilibrium and restoration (as the precedent negative
model does) as on a production of an added value and a creation of a new
quality to the values protected in the name of security (Table 11.1).
The proposed approach to security is somewhat unorthodox in the
domain of energy security studies. Although a plethora of studies on energy
security exist, the proposed interpretations are often attributive in that they
feature the desired ideal security types as, for example, accessibility or avail-
ability of energy supply (APERC 2007; Cherp and Jewell 2014; Chester
2010; Helm 2002; Kruyt et  al. 2009; Sovacool 2011; Weisser 2007;
Winzer 2012). As such, they sort the various energy security types accord-
ing to their qualities rather than their functions. Only few authors refer to
energy security as a set of processes as, for example, Hughes’s 4Rs—review,
reduce, replace and restrict for energy security (Hughes 2009)—or Landry’s
(2015): coordinate, interconnect, interoperate, protect and moderate
(establishment of freedom of gas flow) for the EU gas security.

3 The EU Strategy for Gas Security

In the study of the EU policy on gas (Landry 2015), it had been con-
cluded that the EU perceived its gas security as a being generated via a
dynamic interplay of five grand gas security processes: (1) coordination
that advanced the communitarian energy acquis, generated legal
 11  Positive and Negative Security: A Consequentialist Approach...    285

commitment to this acquis among Member States (MS) and extended

this acquis beyond the EU borders to the closest neighbourhood and
regions strategically important to the EU gas security; (2) complex inter-
connectedness of the intra-EU infrastructure and diversified external gas
supply routes; (3) complex interoperability22 that encompassed harmoni-
sation of procedural and technical interoperability of the EU gas system
through enhanced gas tradability (common gas trade rules) and transit-
ability (common network codes) and an overall standardisation of gas
standards (reference conditions and units, parameter ranges); (4) protec-
tion of gas supply through safeguard and preventive measures (market- or
non-market-­based depending on the crisis level); and (5) moderation of
gas demand through reduction of gas consumption patterns with the
help of rationalisation and modernisation measures (on both consum-
er’s and producer’s side) and through gas source replacement (e.g. alter-
native backup fuels) (see Fig.  11.1). These processes were further
perceived as constituting the EU gas security strategy. This strategy was
defined as generic for the Member States (MS) where MS were expected
to work out their specific solutions within the framework of the Gas
Regional Initiatives (GRI) process under the umbrella of the Agency for
Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER). These solutions would be
dependent on the MS gas supplies’ vulnerabilities as defined by the real-

Fig. 11.1  The EU gas security strategy

286  P. Landry

ities of the Member States’ energy markets: for example, the role gas
plays in the energy mix, its gas market’s size or its gas network configu-
ration with regard to the existent level of interconnection, interoperabil-
ity, storage and so on.
Yet, the mechanism of providing the strategic flows in the EU gas sys-
tem is common for all MS. This mechanism is built upon a conception
of a functional IEM for gas (with a complex interoperability at work and
interconnectedness in place in this system) and a regional cohesion in a
strategic decision-making. Even though some Member States will have
their specific national/sub-regional solutions (e.g. particular interconnec-
tor, storage magazine, LNG terminal), they have rather limited options
to invent a mechanism for the delivery of strategic gas flows other than
the one discussed above.23
The establishment of a freedom of gas flow, represented by the accom-
modated and flexibly exchanged gas capacity in the EU gas system in a
situation of gas crisis, was regarded as a symbolic representation of the
entire strategy of the EU for gas security (Landry 2015). It had been fur-
ther posited that at the heart of the EU strategy for gas security, there was
the processual trio of interconnectedness-interoperability-protection. This
trio, under the umbrella of a coordination process, worked to deliver the
necessary infrastructural, procedural and functional conditions (inte-
grated together in the Internal Energy Market for gas) to accommodation
of the safeguard and preventive measures delivered by the protection pro-
cess. The safeguard and preventive measures were explicitly designed to
restore the lost gas flows in the situation of a gas crisis. The process of
moderation was regarded as a supplementary to this trio as regards its
technical feasibility and capacity of its reduction and replacement mea-
sures to cope with the gas crisis situations (see Fig. 11.1).24

4  ssets Ensuring Gas Security

A
and the Value of Gas Security in Europe
Viewing security strategy (and its security processes) in terms of its
impacts on assets that secure gas security and the way it may affect the
values of security that these objects provide lies at the heart of the
11  Positive and Negative Security: A Consequentialist Approach...    287

proposed approach. By analysing these assets and the values that they
represent, we can infer whether the given security strategy focuses on
restoring and/or producing a given value. We can conclude whether this
strategy works towards delivering a negative and/or a positive security.
Material gas security assets (infrastructure, network and devices) and
non-material items (norms, procedures, knowledge and technology)
(Burgess 2007) together help to provide sufficient conditions to accom-
modation of a certain gas volume in the EU gas system.25 This gas volume
permits (either directly or indirectly) the generation of certain levels of
the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The GDP is delivered in form of
produced goods and services that account for the well-being of the EU
citizens, shape the human condition of welfare in Europe and grant free-
dom to the EU citizens in a more general sense.
The EU strategy employs many physical objects and non-material
items (such as norms and procedures) (Burgess 2007, 479) in the pursuit
of gas security. Gas security objects include the Trans-European transmis-
sion and distribution gas networks and the intra-EU gas infrastructure,
such as entry points, exit points, bi-directional physical interconnectors
and interconnection points, underground storage facilities, LNG storage
facilities, liquefaction plants, import terminals, reception, offloading and
regasification facilities, decompression terminals, export terminals, infra-
structural solutions supporting virtual trading points (VTP) and gas
hubs.26 There are also specialised devices and equipment that increase
energy efficiency of gas consuming households, industry services, agricul-
tural buildings and heating plants.27
The non-material items employed by the EU energy policy in the pur-
suit of gas security are “procedures, the knowledge-based principles of
operation as well as the knowledge itself ” (Burgess 2007, 479). They rep-
resent “the socially and culturally determined values, which precede, pre-
suppose, surround and help to operate the heavy physical installations”
(Burgess 2007, 479). In the EU gas security strategy, these norms and
procedures are represented by the safeguard and preventive measures (as
specified in the Gas Regulation No 994/2010), the standards that sup-
port these measures (such as the N-1 formula for Infrastructure Standard,
Supply Standard) and other crisis management rules and procedures out-
lined in Risk Assessments (RA), Emergency Plans (EP), Prevention
288  P. Landry

Action Plans (PAPs) and Joint Preventive Action Plans (JPAPs).28 Also,
there are stockholding obligations and stockholding mechanism imposed
on Member States and certain methods to calculate the commercial,
emergency and special stocks.29 Further, gas market operations have their
own rules such as gas trade rules and gas transit network codes that belong
to this group as well. Gas trade rules and procedures are encompassed in
the energy packages (Directive 2009/73/EC, Directive 2003/55/EC and
Directive 98/30/EC) and include rules of Third Party Access (TPA),
ownership unbundling, authorisation procedure, designation and certifi-
cation of Transmission System Operators (TSOs), designation of Storage
System Operators (SSOs) and LNG System Operators (LNGs), indepen-
dence of these system operators or certification in relation to third coun-
tries as well as rules for public service obligations and consumer
protection.30 These gas trade rules are further supported by the rules for
wholesale energy market integrity and transparency (as outlined in the
Regulation on wholesale energy market integrity and transparency,
REMIT).31 The EU Network Codes (as required by Regulation No
715/2009) are established by Commission Regulation—Network Code
on Capacity Allocation (CAM), Network Conde on Gas Balancing of
Transmission Networks and Network Code on Interoperability and Data
Exchange Rules—and established by Commission Decision procedures
on Congestion Management (CMP).32 These procedures should not be
regarded as merely technical solutions for gas transit or gas trade chal-
lenges in Europe but also as necessary building blocks in an establish-
ment of gas security. Even though some of them may not be applied
explicitly in crisis situations (due to some exemptions), they nevertheless
contribute significantly to enablement of the strategic gas flow exchanges.
They do so by encouraging the harmonisation of technical and opera-
tional standards of operation of the EU gas system (e.g. common stan-
dards and parameters of pressure, temperature, the Wobbe index, etc.)
(ECBR 2014) and by prompting the adjacent TSOs and NRAs, DSOs or
SSOs to cooperate.33
Yet, at the non-material level of gas security process are the knowledge
and technology (Burgess 2007) that deliver a variety of energy-efficiency
tools (e.g. modernisation, rationalisation and modification tools) to both
gas consumers and gas producers.34 Knowledge and technology make it
11  Positive and Negative Security: A Consequentialist Approach...    289

possible to outline criteria used to ensure the technical and environmen-

tal safety of the EU gas system and its performance and maintenance.35
This includes, for example, minimum technical design, safety rules and
operational requirements for connecting to the system of LNG facilities,
storage facilities, other transmission or distribution systems and direct
lines. Another example includes requirements for minimum energy per-
formance for buildings or CO2 performance standards for cars and vans.
They all exemplify the role that science, technology and innovation
together play in the process of the EU gas security.36
It can be further posited that at the socio-cultural level, the EU gas
security strategy strives to reassure the EU citizens’ confidence in freedom
in a more general sense. By carrying out their respective subtasks, the
socio-cultural norms and procedures reinforce the rules for transparency,
non-discrimination of access, equality, elasticity and universality. They
collectively contribute to establishment of freedom of movement of
goods and services in the context of the EU gas market. For example,
both the rule of Third Party Access (that attempts to deliver a common
minimum set of third-party access services) and the rule of ownership
unbundling (that contributes to the separation of networks from activi-
ties of production and supply) or the rule of TSOs’ certification and des-
ignation (that attempts to establish independent TSOs and separate gas
transmission from production and supply) support the concepts of a
non-discriminatory operation of the EU gas network and functionality of
the IEM for gas.37 Similarly, the Public Service Obligations that work for
“security of supply, regularity, quality and price of supplies” (EU, Directive
2009/73/EC) and “guarantee equality of access for natural gas undertak-
ings of the Community to national consumers” (EU, Directive 2009/73/
EC) or the safeguard and preventive measures that promote concepts of
continuity and consumer protection are reinforcing some of the funda-
mental rights of the EU citizens, and, by doing so, they grant freedom to
them in a more general sense.38 Alike in the reinforcing fundamental
rights are the rules for Critical Infrastructure that help to protect the EU
citizens from suffering the consequences of disruptions in gas supply that
could otherwise impair “their vital societal functions, health, safety, secu-
rity, economic or social well-being” (EU, Directive 2008/114/EC) or the
rules for Services of General Interest (SGI) that invoke the ideals of avail-
290  P. Landry

ability, quality, affordability of the supply services as well as the issues of

end-users’ protection.39 Also, energy-efficiency solutions for gas consum-
ers and gas producers, R&D policies, innovative exploration and produc-
tion techniques (E&P) as well as scientific and technical (S&T)
cooperation tools encourage freedom to acquire the necessary gas flows in
the EU, and by doing so, they reassure the EU citizens’ confidence in
freedom that exceeds the mere context of gas security.
Consequently, gas security will be defined in terms of the delivery of a
certain volume of gas that produces both economic value of welfare
(understood in terms of an economic well-being of the EU citizens rep-
resented by the goods and services produced and delivered with help of
the gas supply) and a non-material value of freedom (where freedom is
understood in terms of the liberal freedoms that the European project of
gas market integration fosters, conveys and reinforces, such as freedom of
movement of goods and services, the notion of universality and continu-
ity of services, transparency and the concept of non-discrimination, etc.).

5 The Negative Gas Security in the EU

All the processes associated with a function that “disallows for a loss of
welfare and/or loss of confidence in freedom” and/or “reproduces welfare
and/or restores confidence in freedom” are classified as working within
the framework of the negative security. The negative gas security, by
restoring the free circulation of gas flow, does not allow for the loss of
production of certain goods and the loss of the delivery of certain ser-
vices. As such, the negative security has a potential capacity to restore the
existing welfare and confidence in freedom that the loss of these gas flows
(either sudden in case of gas crisis or in the forecasted future) would cause
otherwise.
If we look at Fig. 11.1 again, the negative security model penetrates all
the recognised processes. The EU energy policy has largely focused on
restoration of the required volume of gas: either in a short- to medium-­
term perspective (the protection and coordination processes) or in a long-­
term perspective (the processes of moderation, complex interconnectedness
and complex interoperability).
 11  Positive and Negative Security: A Consequentialist Approach...    291

In the EU strategy for gas security, the processes of coordination, complex

interconnectedness, complex interoperability, moderation and protection are
developed in response to some major threats identified for the EU gas
security. The list of these threats presented here is non-exhaustive, but
some of the major ones are present: dependency on an external gas supply
(for the process of complex interconnectedness), dependency on the sin-
gle largest gas supplier that dominates the downstream gas chain (for the
complex interoperability process), energy nationalism (for the coordina-
tion process), scarcity of gas resources and climate change (for the mod-
eration process) and dependency on a potentially unreliable transit zone
(for the protection process) (for more detailed list, see Landry 2015). The
processes deployed by the negative security model are developed to offset
the negative consequences of these identified threats. Employed to restore
the needed gas capacity in the EU gas system either in a short- to medium-­
term or long-term perspective, they stimulate the reproductive capacity
of this system. The negative gas security model equips the policy-makers
with a vocabulary consisting of Major Supply Disruptions (MSD) (out-
lined in Risk Assessments and defined in relation to minimum stock-
holding obligations), states of emergencies with different crisis levels
(defined in Emergency Plans, EPs), and national and regional emergency
levels (defined in Preventive Action Plans and Joint Preventive Action
Plans) and adds Supply and Infrastructure Standards as tools to identify
major threats and risks to the EU gas system. Further, the model recog-
nises not only the notion of market manipulation but also attempts to
manipulate the market, which is classified as an abusive practice on the
wholesale gas market (as outlined by REMIT).40 The list of these internal
threats and risks is long, and it is outside of scope of this chapter to dis-
cuss them all. The purpose of mentioning them is just to show the mech-
anism of creation and development of this negative security model. Once
the external threat and the threatening development that this threat
causes internally in the system are identified, measures to diminish the
negative consequences and offset the risk are established. For example,
the protection process delivers short- to medium-term preventive and
safeguard measures that inject the strategic flows at times and places
where and when they are needed. The preventive measures that are
market-­based, and as such commercial and voluntary, can be applied on
292  P. Landry

(a) supply-side, for example, peak-shaving measures, commercial gas stor-

age, LNG-terminal capacity, increased production and import flexibility,
interconnection points, reverse flows and so on, or on (b) demand-side,
for example, fuel switching, use of interruptible contracts, firm load
shedding, increased efficiency and usage of renewable energy resources.41
There are also safeguard measures that are non-market-based. They
include all the above mentioned supply- and demand-side preventive
measures (market-based) that here become compulsory, such as enforced
peak-shaving measures, enforced withdraws from commercial storage,
enforced use of stocks of alternative fuels, enforced increase of gas pro-
duction levels, enforced storage withdrawal, enforced utilisation of inter-
ruptible contracts, enforced load shedding and so on, and other
supplementary crisis measures defined by Member States in their Risk
Assessment (stress tests) and by Member States together in their Gas
Regional Groups within ACER (GRI ACER) and further included in the
Emergency Plans (EP).42 The protection process also introduces stock-
holding obligations imposed on Member States that are regarded as key
elements of the EU gas security architecture in addition to these safe-
guard and preventive measures.43
The protection process that is at the heart of the negative gas security
model in the EU strategy is built upon the dynamic interplay of the trio
interconnectedness-interoperability-coordination. As such, these pro-
cesses have been so far developed as underlying components of the nega-
tive gas security model rather than standalone solutions related to creation
of an added value. The interconnectedness-interoperability-coordination
trio is a core to the protection process since it works towards delivering
the required basis for the activation of the preventive and safeguard mea-
sures. These are the infrastructural solutions (such as interconnected intra-
­EU gas infrastructure and diversified external gas supply routes), the
procedures and norms for operating gas market (such as harmonised trade
and transit rules as well as an overall standardisation of gas units and
parameters) as well as the strategic cohesion in decision-making respectively
made by and between key stakeholders in the region concerned (such as
regional cooperation of adjacent TSOs, SSOs, DSOs, NRAs). However,
the required levels of commercial physical interconnectedness and
­procedural and technical interoperability in the EU gas system are not
 11  Positive and Negative Security: A Consequentialist Approach...    293

met in several places (ACER 2015). The reasons for that are financial,
organisational and political. As such, there would be a major difficulty in
restoring lost welfare and confidence in freedom that would occur in the
event of a major gas crisis. Completing the IEM is critical for the delivery
of the negative gas security in Europe.
Having said this, even if the physical infrastructure, procedural solu-
tions and regional cohesion are in place, we cannot forget about the
major challenge in cyber security that arises (EECSP 2017). IEM’s dyna-
mism and functionality relies on the fluid and secure e-traffic of accurate
and timely information that is debited from the data and the Virtual
Trading Points (VTP). Rules for electronic processing of statistical data
(such as, procedures for storing, receiving and exchanging of this data)
as well as relevant IT resources (software and hardware) are needed.
Questions of scope and scale of such a cybernetic information system are
critical at this stage. The growing importance of an intelligent e-system
management for e-business and e-gas commerce as well as e-manage-
ment in a situation of gas crisis reveals another potential problem, which
is that of communication. A variety of actors would have to simultane-
ously communicate with the system itself (TSOs, DSOs, SSOs, NRAs,
gas undertakings, consumers) and with each other and, consequently,
undergo a specialised training. The problem, technically speaking, is that
these stakeholders often do not speak the same language (if the param-
eters, ranges, gas quality, etc. are not standardised), or they do not know
how to communicate (if the network codes, procedures, etc. are not
implemented), or they do not have yet the access to such a system (as the
end-users, consumers). It seems that the European Commission is inter-
ested in playing the role of an intermediary for electronic gas security
proceedings since it is, for example, willing to take over the responsibil-
ity “for developing, hosting, managing and maintaining the IT resources
needed to receive, store and carry out any processing of the data pro-
vided in the statistical summaries” on levels of commercial and specific
stocks.44
The previously mentioned lack of a cohesive decision-making by the
adjacent NRAs, TSOs and so on constitutes a major weakness of the
negative gas security in the EU gas policy. For example, rules governing
penalties applicable to infringements of the national provisions adopted
294  P. Landry

pursuant to the Directive 2009/119/EC, dispute resolution methods,

and effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties for market abuse
require such cohesion. Similarly, the recommended releases of emergency
stocks or special stocks, publishing of the updated information (statistical
summaries) about levels of these stocks as well as the necessity to stan-
dardise methodology for calculating minimum stock levels all require
minimum cohesion in decision-making.45 The recent Proposal for a
Regulation concerning measures to safeguard the security of gas supply
attempts to remedy these problems by delegating supervisory and moni-
toring powers to the Commission on the one hand (by requiring a pre-­
review and approval of the generated Risk Assessment by the Commission)
and to the Gas Coordination Group on the other hand (that has the task
of assuring the cohesiveness of these different regional plans).46 This pro-
posal introduces a new mandatory solidarity principle and encourages
the establishment of a joint purchasing mechanism for gas in the EU.47
Similarly, the recent proposal for the Regulation establishing ACER
(recast) is crucial to enhancement of a regional cooperation of regulators
and grid operators.48 Also, the Energy Union governance process, if
equipped with a mechanism of a common gas purchases (Tusk 2014) and
linked to the notion of central stockholding entity (CSE) at the suprana-
tional level (that can manage special or emergency stocks), can be regarded
as a key element of the EU gas security architecture.49
Lastly, it should also be posited that the negative security model suf-
fers from a vicious circle of the need to maintain the required security
values: a continuous reproduction of welfare and restoration of the con-
fidence in freedom (in short- and long-term perspective). The demand
for gas progressively advances over time. First, gas is identified as the
main alternative fuel with a potential for long-term oil substitution and
decarbonisation.50 It means that there will be more demand for the GDP
that constitutes “the gas-welfare value” (production of goods and ser-
vices permitted by the accommodated volume of gas). The second argu-
ment here is a more fundamental one, and it concerns the very ontology
of the negative security that is built upon a belief that threats and risk
can be identified and accordingly counteracted. In the case of the gas
security, there is a complex net of uncertainties in which the delivery of
gas supply is interwoven. These uncertainties are not only internal such
11  Positive and Negative Security: A Consequentialist Approach...    295

as system-­based (that can be potentially eliminated) but also external—

actor-based (e.g. unstable transit zone or dependency on the external
largest gas supplier that are difficult to manage or control by the EU).
This signifies an increased demand for restoring the confidence in free-
dom for the EU gas consumers. There is however a way out of this
dilemma and this is a solution proposed by the framework of the positive
security model.

6 The Positive Gas Security in the EU

The positive security is the ability to create added value: a new quality to
the existent values protected in the name of security. In the context of the
EU gas security, creating added value is about managing the required
volume of gas in such a way that it allows for the delivery of welfare (in
the form of goods and services) and freedom which are better in qualita-
tive terms. Positive gas security is an outcome of empowerment and
enablement that collectively work towards strengthening the welfare-­
freedom axis.
What is “the known as good” that “allows for more welfare and more
confidence in freedom” in the context of the EU gas security? Something
that, at the same time, does not entrap the policy-makers in the vicious
circle of merely maintaining welfare and freedom, but instead creates
added value and that makes a difference both in quantitative and qualita-
tive terms? What can decrease demand for welfare and decrease demand
for confidence in freedom without negatively impacting welfare and free-
dom themselves? It is not such as Catch 22 as it may seem to be at first
glance. Let’s look at Fig. 11.1 again and think carefully about which pro-
cesses have the potential to create such an added value in the EU.
The positive security model for gas in Europe can be achieved by an
advancement of the moderation process and development of its reduc-
tion measures (that stimulate resource-efficient and sustainable gas con-
sumption) and replacement measures (that allow for including gas
supplied from sustainable sources: e.g. biomass) and further by associat-
ing this moderation process with the privileges (market access, real mar-
ket choice, virtual market choice) that an individual empowered gas
296  P. Landry

consumer could enjoy in the future IEM on the one hand and by a better
regional coordination of the interaction of actors involved in the process
of the EU gas security on the other hand.51 This model is already being
developed in the EU.  There have been several signals from the energy
policy field that testify to this, and the most recent ones are Clean Energy
Package, Energy Union Package, European Energy Security Strategy, A policy
framework for climate and energy in the period that spans from 2020 to
2030 and preceding this framework Green Paper on future climate and
energy policies.52
The above mentioned documents reveal an emerging pattern of where
the EU energy consumer is empowered in the EU energy security strategy
and of where end-users of the gas system are sustainable and
­energy-­efficient.53 These two elements are quintessential to the positive
gas security model. In this model, gas security includes not only natural
gas but also biogases that are integrated into the natural gas network.
Here, the end-user displays patterns of engagement, seeking information,
exploring options, and contributing time and money towards the estab-
lishment of gas security. In the positive security model, the consumer
displays the capacity to conduct fuel switch and tries to obtain easier
switching conditions and, also, increases the usage of renewables through
the deployment of alternative gas resources.54 The consumer utilises
­modern technologies (e.g. smart metres) to better control costs and
demands straightforward bills that reflect the actual gas usage. In the
positive security model, the consumers possess the “power to manage the
energy consumption actively” what gives them an opportunity to tailor
their energy liberty.55 This power translates into positive gas security
value: better quality welfare can be created and, potentially, also decrease
the need for the gas supply since consumers committed to sustainability
and energy-efficiency measures will eventually need less energy-intensive
goods and services. Similarly, the demand for restoring confidence in
freedom may perhaps decrease since freedom to act and enact security is
brought closer to the consumer. With an active gas e-consumer, gas secu-
rity is customised at the level of the individual user in a local context. As
such, gas security is not only a technical task of and an exclusive right
reserved for just few stakeholders at the higher levels (national or supra-
national), but it is also perceived as a smart choice of the empowered EU
 11  Positive and Negative Security: A Consequentialist Approach...    297

citizen: an e-consumer who pursues “energy liberty” that a smart grid

grants.
The notion of energy liberty can be best comprehended if understood
in terms of “an integrated continent-wide energy system where energy
flows freely across borders, based on competition and the best possible
use of resources, and with effective regulation of energy markets at EU
level where necessary” and where “citizens take ownership of the energy
transition, benefit from new technologies to reduce their bills, participate
actively in the market, and where vulnerable consumers are protected.”56
Also, the Energy Union is very important in the context of the positive
gas security model since it attempts to promote an interaction between
energy consumers and business, encourage more sustainable solutions in
the context of gas markets and, as such, further the goal of energy liberty
in Europe.57 Its importance becomes even more pronounced in the light
of the recent proposal on the Governance of the Energy Union. In this
proposal, the EU adopted the rhetoric of “added value” through the
introduction of a new element of the regulatory fitness (REFIT). REFIT’s
added value is defined in terms of a new quality of transparency (simpli-
fied and streamlined planning, reporting and monitoring), efficiency
(coherent administrative procedures) and affordability (proportionality
in the contribution to attainment of common objectives) that this regula-
tory fitness offers to the Energy Union governance process.58
If we now look at Fig.  11.1, the crucial difference that this positive
solution creates is that it brings the moderation process closer to the cen-
tre of the EU strategy for the gas security. If the positive gas security
model is successfully developed, the reduction and replacement measures
(both belong to the moderation process) are no longer just complemen-
tary to establishing of gas security in the EU, but they have a potential to
run at its core, in parallel to the protection process that they complement
(the demand-side preventive and safeguard measures that built upon
energy efficiency and increased usage of renewable energy resources). This
model requires the passive gas market end-user to transition towards
being an active gas e-consumer (industrial, commercial and residential)
interacting in the IEM for gas through Virtual Trading Points (gas
hubs).59
298  P. Landry

Again, there is an assumption here that the IEM for gas is flexible and
dynamic so that the positive security value created by an empowered con-
sumer and environmentally aware end-user can be fully realised. This is,
of course, a major challenge to the development of the positive gas
­security in the EU today. Also, implementing the positive gas security
model requires a paradigm shift in how the gas business functions on the
one hand and the consumers’ mindset on the other hand. The change in
the organisation of gas business involves the creation of a completely new
level of digital e-consumer and an introduction of new methods for pric-
ing and contracting gas capacity. This shift may signify a change in the
gas security governance towards a local level of decision-making that
could complement the national and supranational levels. Also, empow-
ered and active energy consumers may target the European Parliament
(being a driving force to mobilise citizens to act as co-legislators on key
initiatives) as a potential channel to enact the EU gas policy and protect
their rights.60 The development of this positive gas security model can
also increase the importance of the gas storage magazines and local gas
distribution networks (e.g. for Bio-LPG) that the end-users would have
to actively interact with and, potentially, contribute to their development
or maintenance (e.g. if they produce biofuels or co-finance development
of infrastructure). It can also strengthen the role of the local or regional
small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that produce energy from
renewable resources.61
A potential problem that arises here is the trust put in the consumer’s
choices: the assumption that the end-users will be committed to sustain-
ability and energy efficiency and make their energy choices, accordingly.
Educational efforts are necessary to shape the projected habits and achieve
a broader understanding of the range of energy security problems.
Similarly, financial solutions that support such a green transition in
households and made available to the minds of those concerned are nec-
essary so that the consumer’s ability to switch fuel suppliers can be fully
reshaped. Financial instruments would certainly create the necessary
incentive and, also, send a positive signal to the business world and
potential investors: make the market prospective and attractive. The
empowerment of energy consumers is not only a matter of infrastructure
and interoperability of the energy system but also a question whether (or
11  Positive and Negative Security: A Consequentialist Approach...    299

not) health, wealth and sustainability are the end-users’ overarching

motive, and if they care about those values. In this regard, these educa-
tional and financial measures are necessary to grant a true “energy liberty”
to the Europeans.

7 Conclusions
This analysis demonstrates that the EU gas policy in its current shape
does not constitute a sufficient solution for the maintenance of gas secu-
rity in Europe. However, there have been several advancements towards
changing this situation that include the recent proposal on the gover-
nance of the Energy Union, proposal for a regulation concerning mea-
sures to safeguard the security of gas supply, proposal for a regulation
establishing ACER (recast) and directive on deployment of alternative
resources.62 As such, the prospects for Europe can be regarded as rather
optimistic a lot has been already done and there is more to come. The EU
policy on gas is being dynamically developed and is evolving.
The main arguments presented by this chapter are as follows. The EU
policy on gas puts an explicit emphasis on the technical dimension in the
EU gas security while not sufficiently addressing (in the form of directive
or regulation) the role of the individual user of the gas system and that of
the gas consumer in the creation of a better gas security situation in
Europe. Also, gas security is almost exclusively viewed as a matter of
securing natural gas supplies, while its definition should also include bio-
mass and other alternative gas supply sources that comply with and sup-
port the sustainable fuels strategy in Europe. In the current design of the
EU gas policy, the protection of gas flows in the EU depends exclusively
on the operationalisation of the Internal Energy Market for gas (neces-
sary for stepping up the safeguard and preventive measures) as well as on
a cohesive and timely decision-making between the key stakeholders
(National Regulatory Authorities, Transmission System Operators,
Distribution System Operators and Storage System Operators). Neither
the IEM nor such a cohesion exists in the context of the gas market in
Europe today. As a consequence, the required levels of commercial and
physical interconnectedness as well as procedural and technical interop-
300  P. Landry

erability in the EU gas system necessary for activating the protection

measures are not met. Hence, there would be a major problem in restor-
ing the required volume of gas in the event of a gas crisis and, as such, in
delivering the negative gas security.
As regards the positive gas security, the chapter concludes that this
model requires further advancement and a stronger regulation that would
underpin it in the EU energy policy. The recent developments in this
policy, such as Energy Union Package, Clean Energy Package and
European Energy Security Strategy collectively create a fertile ground for
an enhancement of this model in Europe.63 Here, the added value trans-
lates into a power of the energy consumers to tailor their energy liberty
through their smart energy choices. This power grants freedom towards
better quality welfare (since the production of goods and services sup-
ported by energy-efficient solutions is less energy-demanding) and free-
dom (since a possibility to act and enact gas security is pooled closer to
the consumer who becomes an active player instead of only being a pas-
sive recipient of gas supply). In the positive gas security model, security is
customised at the level of the individual end-user in a local context where
commitment to sustainability remains persistent. This stands in stark
contrast to the solution delivered by the negative security model where
gas security is a matter of a strategic choice made by only few stakehold-
ers placed at the national, regional and supranational levels. The final
remark is that the Energy Union governance process and the functioning
IEM for gas are crucial to maintenance of gas security in Europe since
they constitute the necessary conditions for the future enhancement of
both the negative and positive gas security models.

Notes
1. EU, “Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the
Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,” 2012/C 326/13
(Article 3). See also EU, “Report on the Implementation of the European
Security Strategy—Providing Security in a Changing World,” 2008 S407/08.
2. EU, “Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union,” 2000/C
364/01.
11  Positive and Negative Security: A Consequentialist Approach...    301

3. EU, “Energy roadmap 2050,” COM (2011) 885 final.

4. EUROSTAT, “Supply, transformation and consumption of gas—annual
data,” [nrg_103a] last update: 06-02-2017, and, EUROSTAT, “Imports-
gas-annual data,” [nrg_124a] last update: 17-02-2017.
5. At the time of writing of this chapter there are 28 member countries in
the EU.  However, the United Kingdom formally notified to the
European Council its intention to leave the EU on 29 March 2017 fol-
lowing the results of the UK referendum on 23 June 2016. See http://
www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-uk-after-referendum/
6. EUROSTAT, “Energy dependence,” Code: tsdcc310.
7. “Natural gas comprises gases, occurring in underground deposits,
whether liquefied or gaseous, consisting mainly of methane. It includes
both “non-associated” gas originating from fields producing hydrocar-
bons only in gaseous form, and “associated” gas produced in association
with crude oil as well as methane recovered from coal mines (colliery gas)
or from coal seams (coal seam gas).” EUROSTAT, IEA, OECD,
UNECE. “Natural Gas Annual Questionnaire 2015 and Historical
Revisions,” (2016):3.
8. For detailed information please consult EUROSTAT, IEA, OECD,
UNECE, “Natural Gas Annual Questionnaire 2015 and Historical
Revisions,” (2016).
9. As we can read in Quarterly Energy Review for Western Europe “at the sum-
mit meeting of the International Energy Agency (IEA) earlier this year,
natural gas not only reached the agenda for the first time, it also domi-
nated it, thanks mainly to the importance attached to the new concept of
‘gas security’ by the Reagan administration and the battle it waged with its
European allies over the supply of Soviet gas to Europe” (EIU 1983a: 1).
10. See also Sadek Boussena and Catherine Locatelli, “Gas market develop-
ments and their effect on relations between Russia and the EU,” OPEC
Energy Review 35 (1) (2011):31, for a detailed list of “Gazprom’s main
joint ventures, acquisitions among its European Union (EU) partners
and its main subsidiaries in the EU (end of 2009).”
11. Energy policy is dynamically expanding and its’ importance is growing.
As Szulecki et  al. (2016) note only until 2010 the EU energy policy
produced 350 legal policy instruments. See also Cameron (2005),
Eberlein (2005), Goldthau and Sitter (2015).
12. EU, “Regulation (EC) No 713/2009 of the European Parliament and of
the Council of 13 July 2009 establishing an Agency for the Cooperation
of Energy Regulators,”, “Regulation (EC) No 715/2009 of the European
302  P. Landry

Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 on conditions for access

to the natural gas transmission networks and repealing Regulation (EC)
No 1775/2005,”, “Regulation (EU) No 994/2010 of the European
Parliament and of the Council of 20 October 2010 concerning measures
to safeguard security of gas supply and repealing Council Directive
2004/67/EC,”, “Regulation (EU) No 1227/2011 of the European
Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011 on wholesale energy
market integrity and transparency,”, “Directive 2009/73/EC of the
European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 concerning
common rules for the internal market in natural gas and repealing
Directive 2003/55/EC,”, “Council Directive 2009/119/EC of 14
September 2009 imposing an obligation on Member States to maintain
minimum stocks of crude oil and/or petroleum products,”.
13. EU, “Energy Union Package, A Framework Strategy for a Resilient
Energy Union with a Forward-Looking Climate Change Policy,” COM
(2015)80 final, “European Energy Security Strategy,” COM (2014)0330.
14. EUROSTAT, “Final energy consumption by product,” Code: ten00095.
15. EUROSTAT, “Energy dependence,” Code: tsdcc310.
16. As we can read in the “Directive 2014/94/EU of the European Parliament
and of the Council of 22 October 2014 on the deployment of alternative
fuels infrastructure” hydrogen, biofuels, natural gas, and liquefied petro-
leum gas (LPG) were identified as the principal alternative fuels with a
potential for long-term oil substitution, also in light of their possible
simultaneous and combined use by means of, for instance, dual-fuel
technology systems.
17. For detailed information please consult ACER/CEER “ACER/CEER
Annual Report on the Results of Monitoring the Internal Electricity and
Natural Gas Markets in 2013” that demonstrates the welfare losses from
imperfectly integrated gas markets in Europe.
18. ACER, “European Gas Target Model review and update,” 2015.
19. Both G.H. Mead’s symbolic interactionism and Charles Peirce’s approach
on logical structures (theory of signs) are grounded in the tradition of
philosophical realism. In this respect, the pragmatic thought of Mead
and Peirce is substantially different from the nominalistic pragmatism of
Dewey and James. Both Peirce and Mead recognised importance of uni-
versal laws in social inquiry and supported the inductive reasoning by
applying the moderate conception of generality which allowed for appli-
cation of “spatiotemporally bounded”, thus, limited generals in a social
research (Lewis and Smith 1980: 21–22).
11  Positive and Negative Security: A Consequentialist Approach...    303

20. Consequentialism was also applied to analysis of security by Rita Floyd

(2007). See also Hoogensen Gjørv (2012).
21. It is out of scope of this chapter to discuss in-depth the philosophical
foundations of the proposed approach. The research presented here was
also inspired by Hegel and his dialectics as well as by the conception of
reproduction present in historical materialism.
22. The process of complex interoperability in this study encompasses broader
set of rules and procedures for access to transmission networks and rules
for access to internal market in natural gas, as well as processes of har-
monisation and standardisation of gas exchange across Member States,
than the procedural interoperability specified in the Network Code on
Interoperability and Data Exchange rules.
23. These generic processes (coordination, interconnectedness, interopera-
bility, moderation and protection) seem to be important also to security
of other network-based supplies (e.g. water or electricity).
24. See also David Buchan and Malcom Keay, “Needed: A Demand-Side
Strategy,” in Europe’s Long Energy Journey: Towards Energy Union?, David
Buchan and Malcom Keay (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015),
101–127 for a discussion concerning the energy-efficiency in the EU
energy policy and the need for a stronger demand-side strategy in Europe.
25. This capacity is represented by the import, transmission and distribution
capacity of the Trans-European gas networks; the transitable capacity
that enters and exits these transmission networks; the bi-directional
interconnection capacity of the interconnectors; the withdrawal capacity
and injection capacity of the gas storage magazines of emergency stocks
and specific stocks; the imported, offloaded, re-gasified LNG gas capac-
ity; and the alternative gas capacity injected into the EU gas system in
form of hydrogen , biofuels, and natural gas in the forms of Compressed
Natural Gas (CNG), Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), or Gas-To-Liquid
(GTL), and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG).
26. For detailed information consult a website of Gas Infrastructure Europe,
GIE (https://www.gie.eu) and the website of the European Network of
Transmission System Operators for Gas, ENTSOG (https://www.ent-
sog.eu/).
27. In the “Directive 2009/142/EC of the European Parliament and of the
Council of 30 November 2009 relating to appliances burning gaseous
fuels” the EU introduced requirements regarding Community-level har-
monisation of standards (technical specifications) for operation and
installation of appliances burning gaseous fuels (such as appliances used
304  P. Landry

for cooking, heating, hot water production, refrigeration, lighting or

washing) and fittings where energy conservation is considered essential.
Also, there is a growing need for harmonisation of rules and standards
(for example technical specifications for interoperability of recharging
and refuelling points) in the sector of transport. This need becomes espe-
cially pronuanced in light of the recent development of the European
strategy for alternative fuels that incorporates usage of LPG (Liquefied
Petroleum Gas), LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) and CNG (Compressed
Natural Gas) for transportation purposes (for more information please
consult EU, “Clean Power for Transport. A European alternative fuel
strategy” COM (2013)17).
28. EU, Regulation (EU) No 994/2010.
29. EU, Directive 2009/119/EC.
30. The EU energy packages for gas market regulation: “Directive 2009/73/
EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009
concerning common rules for the internal market in natural gas and
repealing Directive 2003/55/EC”, “Directive 2003/55/EC of the
European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2003 concerning
common rules for the internal market in natural gas and repealing
Directive 98/30/EC” and “Directive 98/30/EC of the European
Parliament and of the Council of 22 June 1998 concerning common
rules for the internal market in natural gas,”.
31. EU, Regulation (EU) No 1227/2011.
32. For detailed information concerning the EU Network Codes please con-
sult EU, Regulation (EC) No 715/2009, “Commission Regulation (EU)
No 984/2013 of 14 October 2013 establishing a Network Code on
Capacity Allocation Mechanisms in Gas Transmission Systems and sup-
plementing Regulation (EC) No 715/2009 of the European Parliament
and of the Council,”, “Commission Regulation (EU) No 312/2014 of
26 March 2014 establishing a Network Code  on Gas Balancing of
Transmission Networks,”, “Commission Regulation (EU) 2015/703 of
30 April 2015 establishing a network code on interoperability and data
exchange rules,”, “Commission Decision (EU) 2015/715 of 30 April
2015 amending Annex I to Regulation (EC) No 715/2009 of the
European Parliament and of the Council on conditions for access to the
natural gas transmission networks,”.
33. Transmission System Operators (TSOs), National Regulatory Authorities
(NRAs), Distribution System Operators (DSOs) and Storage System
Operators (SSOs).
11  Positive and Negative Security: A Consequentialist Approach...    305

34. More on the issue of energy efficiency and rationalisation and modernisa-
tion measures can be found in the following documents: EU, “Green
Paper ‘For a European Union Energy Policy,” COM (1994)659, “Directive
2009/28/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April
2009 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources and
amending and subsequently repealing Directives 2001/77/EC and
2003/30/EC,”, “Energy Efficiency and its contribution to energy security
and the 2030 Framework for climate and energy policy,” COM (2014)0520
final, “Regulation (EU) No 333/2014 of the European Parliament and of
the Council of 11 March 2014 amending Regulation (EC) No 443/2009
to define the modalities for reaching the 2020 target to reduce CO2 emis-
sions from new passenger cars,”, “Regulation (EC) No 443/2009 of the
European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 setting emission
performance standards for new passenger cars as part of the Community’s
integrated approach to reduce CO2 emissions from light-duty vehicles,”.
35. For example, in COM (2013)17 it is posited that “lack of fuelling infra-
structure and common technical specifications on refuelling equipment
and safety regulations for bunkering hamper market uptake for LNG” in
the European Union. Similarly, the lack of alternative fuel infrastructure
and of common technical specifications for the vehicle-infrastructure
interface are defined as obstacles to the market uptake of ultra-low emis-
sion vehicles in Regulation (EU) No 333/2014.
36. EU, Directive 2009/73/EC, “Directive 2012/27/EU of the European
Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 on energy-efficiency,
amending Directives 2009/125/EC and 2010/30/EU and repealing
Directives 2004/8/EC and 2006/32/EC,” “Directive 2010/31/EU of the
European Parliament and of the Council of 19 May 2010 on the energy
performance of buildings,” COM (2014)0520 final.
37. EU, Directive 2009/73/EC.
38. EU, Directive 2009/73/EC, Regulation (EU) No 994/2010.
39. EU, “Council Directive 2008/114/EC of 8 December 2008 on the iden-
tification and designation of European critical infrastructures and the
assessment of the need to improve their protection,”, Council Directive
2008/114/EC, “Green paper on services of general interest,” COM
(2003)0270, “Services of general interest in Europe,” COM (2000)0580.
40. EU, Regulation (EU) No 1227/2011.
41. EU, Regulation (EU) No 994/2010.
42. EU, Regulation (EU) No 994/2010.
306  P. Landry

43. EU, Council Directive 2009/119/EC.

44. EU, Council Directive 2009/119/EC (Article 15).
45. EU, Council Directive 2009/119/EC.
46. EU, “Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the
Council concerning measures to safeguard the security of gas supply and
repealing Regulation (EU) No 994/2010,” COM (2016)52.
47. “As regards joint purchasing mechanisms, the Regulation makes it clear
that Member States and natural gas companies are free to explore the
potential benefits of purchasing natural gas collectively to address supply
shortage situations. Such mechanisms should be in line with WTO and
EU competition rules, in particular with Commission guidelines on
horizontal cooperation agreements” in EU, COM (2016)52.
48. EU, “Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the
Council establishing a European Union Agency for the Cooperation of
Energy Regulators (recast),” COM (2016)863.
49. EU, COM (2015)080 final. See also Ole Gunnar Austvik, “The Energy
Union and security-of-gas supply.” Energy Policy 96 (2016): 372–382.
50. EU, “Proposal for a Directive on the deployment of alternative fuels
infrastructure,” COM (2013)18, “Directive 2014/94/EU of the
European Parliament and of the Council of 22 October 2014 on the
deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure,”.
51. Natural gas can be also supplied from methanisation of hydrogen gener-
ated from renewable electricity. EU, COM (2013)17.
52. EU, “Clean Energy For All Europeans,” COM (2016)860, COM
(2015)080 final, COM (2014)0330, “A policy framework for climate
and energy in the period from 2020 to 2030,” COM (2014)015,
“Climate and energy policy,” COM (2013)0169.
53. EU, COM (2016) 863.
54. EU, COM (2016)860, COM (2013)18, Directive 2014/94/EU.
55. EU, COM (2014)520.
56. EU, COM (2015)080 final.
57. EU, “New Energy Union Governance to deliver common goals,” https://
ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/documents/technical_memo_ener-
gyuniongov.pdf
58. EU, “Proposal for a Regulation on the Governance of the Energy Union,”
COM (2016)759.
59. EU, COM (2016)863.
60. EU, “Europe 2020. A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive
growth,” COM (2010)2020.
 11  Positive and Negative Security: A Consequentialist Approach...    307

61. EU, Directive 2009/28/EC, COM (2013)17.

62. EU, COM (2016) 52, COM (2016) 863, COM (2016) 759, Directive
2014/94/EU.
63. EU, COM (2015)080, COM (2016)860, COM (2014)0330, COM
(2016)863.

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 12
The Global Oil Market and EU Energy
Security
Dag Harald Claes

1 Introduction
With both energy consumption and dependency on oil and gas imports
growing and supplies becoming scarcer, the risk of supply failure is ris-
ing. Securing European energy supplies is therefore high on the EU’s
agenda1

As this quote shows, in 2010 the EU prioritised energy security based

on an observation of growing energy demand and scarcity of supply. In
2014 the European Commission based its assessment of oil security on
superpower interdependence: “The interdependence between the EU,
US, and Russia in relation to oil, the availability of oil stocks, and the
ability to trade and transport oil globally, means that there is no immedi-
ate threat for the EU in relation to its oil supplies” (EC 2014: 10). Today,
only 3 years later, one could wonder if the interdependence between the
EU, the United States and Russia is still a solid basis for European secu-

D.H. Claes (*)

University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

© The Author(s) 2018 311

K. Szulecki (ed.), Energy Security in Europe, Energy, Climate and the Environment,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1_12
312  D.H. Claes

rity of oil supplies. EU sanctions following the Russian annexation of

Crimea and the rhetorical nationalism of the newly elected US President,
Donald Trump, suggest the need for an independent EU oil security
strategy. However, as the EU imports almost 90 per cent of its crude oil
consumption, it is hard to see how the organisation could gain the upper
hand in grand-scale political oil bargains. It is also in line with funda-
mental tenets of the EU to rely on a market-based approach to oil secu-
rity (CIEP 2004).
This chapter starts out by way of a historical exposition of how the
governments of the United Kingdom and France played a vital part in
designing the global oil regime of the early twentieth century and how
this role was undermined—first by the dominant position of the
International Oil Companies (IOC) and later by the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). There then follows a discussion
of the fundamental challenges to European security of oil supplies stem-
ming from the depletion of global oil resources. Finally, the EU oil secu-
rity situation and strategic challenges are discussed. First, however, some
remarks regarding the concept of energy security are necessary.

2 The Concept of Energy Security

The literature on energy security is largely derived from general energy
studies and thus is not well-informed or related to general security
studies in political science. A number of theoretical approaches to
international political security could also be applied to the energy sec-
tor. As an illustration, the Copenhagen School emphasises the way an
issue becomes a security issue, through a process of securitisation.
Securitisation is defined as a successful speech act “through which an
intersubjective understanding is constructed within a political com-
munity to treat something as an existential threat to a valued referent
object, and to enable a call for urgent and exceptional measures to deal
with the threat” (Buzan and Wæver 2003: 491). As Stritzel points out,
this has immediate and significant implications for policy: “The articu-
lation of ‘security’ entails the claim that something is held to pose a
 12  The Global Oil Market and EU Energy Security    313

threat to a valued referent object that is so existential that it is legiti-

mate to move the issue beyond the established games of ‘normal’ poli-
tics to deal with it by exceptional, i.e. security, methods. This puts an
actor in a very strong position to deal with an issue as he/she thinks is
appropriate” (Stritzel 2007: 360). Following the Copenhagen School,
by defining reliable and affordable energy supplies as a security issue,
certain policy implications arise: in particular the kind of means that
are available and—more importantly—which means are appropriate.
Defining energy supplies as a security issue contradicts the presump-
tion that oil consumers should rely on market mechanisms, interna-
tional institutions or the goodwill of other actors (such as Arab allies).
The economic and commercial elements of energy supply are far more
prominent today than in the 1970s. The implication is obvious:
“Energy interdependence and the growing scale of energy trade require
continuing collaboration among both producers and consumers to
ensure the security of the entire supply chain” (Yergin 2006: 78).
Others have argued for a more sophisticated system of global gover-
nance of energy (Goldthau and Witte 2010). Such changes presuppose
a de-securitisation of both the concept and the understanding of energy
security. In fact, the well-established definition of energy security as:
“adequate, reliable supplies of energy at reasonable prices in ways that
do not jeopardize major national values and objectives” (Yergin 1988)
would, in most cases, imply a de-securitisation in the Buzan/Wæver
sense of the term. However, it is necessary to disentangle the various
elements of the energy security concept in order to arrive at a more
nuanced understanding of (a) how structural changes (both political
and economic) create constraints and opportunities for achieving
energy security, (b) the mechanisms involved and (c) the policy impli-
cations that follow. In brief, this suggests that oil supplies are insecure
in a physical sense if global oil resources are actually depleted, insecure
in an economic sense if the costs of producing oil increase beyond con-
sumers’ ability to pay for it and insecure in a political sense if they are
only attainable by jeopardising fundamental political values or
objectives.
314  D.H. Claes

25

20

15
Europe
10
US
5

0
1925
1929
1933
1938
1950
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
Fig. 12.1  European and US oil consumption, 1925–2015, million barrels per day
(mbd) (Source: 1925–1960: Darmstadter et  al. (1971): 622–630, 1965–2015: BP
(2016))

3  he History of Securing Oil Supplies

T
to Europe2
3.1 Increase in Consumption and Political Supply
Control

This book is focused on Europe, a region with high oil consumption but
one that has produced a significant amount of oil for only about the last
40 years. Historically, this has made oil supplies a matter of imminent
concern for European state leaders. In the first half of the twentieth cen-
tury, oil consumption grew dramatically (Fig. 12.1). As both military and
commercial use of oil increased, the need for securing control over access
to foreign oil became a pressing issue for Europe. This, in particular, con-
trasted with the situation in the United States, which up to the Second
World War, was a net exporter of oil, while Europe hardly produced oil
at all (Fig. 12.2).
The political importance of oil was demonstrated when Winston
Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty prior to the First World War,
changed from coal to oil as the power source for the Royal Navy. With
the United Kingdom war machine dependent on Middle Eastern oil
instead of British coal, securing oil supplies turned into a high-level for-
eign policy and security issue. The area to look for oil was the Middle
 12  The Global Oil Market and EU Energy Security    315

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

Europe US

Fig. 12.2  European and US oil production as share of consumption (%) (Source:
1925–1960: Darmstadter et  al. (1971): 622–630, 1965–2015: BP (2016); Note:
1925–1960 Western Europe, 1965–2015: Europe excl. Russia)

East. The United Kingdom made Mesopotamia a British mandate under

the League of Nations. In connection with the San Remo agreement, an
Anglo-French oil agreement was negotiated. “France would get 25 per-
cent of the oil from Mesopotamia. … the vehicle for oil development
remained the Turkish Petroleum Company … and the French acquired
what had been the German share in it. … the French gave up their ter-
ritorial claim to Mosul. Britain, for its part, made absolutely clear that
any private company developing the Mesopotamian oil fields would very
definitely be under its control” (Yergin 1991: 189–190).
With the British/French dominance in the Middle East, access seemed
closed to US interests. However, with the breakdown of the Ottoman
Empire, the status of the Turkish Petroleum Company concession was
unclear, and the oil companies started a long and bitter fight for influence
in the formerly Turkish-dominated area. The US government responded
by invoking “the open-door policy,” which had three elements: (a) that
the nationals of all nations be subject, in all mandated territories, to equal
treatment in law, (b) that no economic concessions in any mandated
region be so large as to be exclusive, and (c) that no monopolistic conces-
sion relating to any commodity be granted. The US government main-
tained that the war had been won by the Allied and Associated Powers
fighting together and that, consequently, any benefit—whether in oil
316  D.H. Claes

interests or otherwise—should be available to the nationals of all the

Allied powers and should not be seized by those of any one particular
power (FTC 1952: 51–52). After year-long negotiations, in 1928 the
United States, the United Kingdom and France reached a compromise.
American companies received about a quarter of the Iraq Petroleum
Company (IPC, formerly the Turkish Petroleum Company) concession.
It was additionally agreed that all parties (companies and authorities
included) should work jointly—and only jointly—in the region (Yergin
1991: 204). The region included the Arabic peninsula (except Kuwait),
Iraq and Turkey. This was the so-called Red Line Agreement. In the areas
inside the red line, the companies would pursue joint concessions.
Up until the Second World War, the security of oil supplies was han-
dled very much in line with the traditional colonial and imperialistic
behaviour of powerful oil-consuming states. The governments controlled
the trading companies by the granting of concessions or direct owner-
ship. The governments competed and colluded in order to secure political
control over the oil-rich areas of the Middle East. Underneath this politi-
cal order, a parallel system emerged among the Western oil companies,
one which was to become dominant after the Second World War.

3.2 Security of Supply in the Hands of Companies

The Second World War represented a demonstration of the importance of

secure oil supplies. The lifeline of the war operations in Europe was based
on the steady flow of oil from the United States in convoys across the
Atlantic Ocean. The convoys came under heavy attack from German sub-
marines, but in 1943, the submarine attacks were reduced, partly due to
the capture and code-breaking of the German Enigma machine. The halt
of the German advances towards the oil fields in the Caucasus was another
crucial oil-related war event and likewise the weak supply lines for oil in
the North African advances of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. The impor-
tance of secure oil supplies could hardly have been demonstrated more
vividly than in Europe and elsewhere during the Second World War.
After the Second World War, the commercial role of oil exploded with
the motorisation of daily life. During the 1950s and 1960s, oil was per-
 12  The Global Oil Market and EU Energy Security    317

ceived as abundant given the vast number of new discoveries—in the

Middle East and North Africa in particular. Having secured access to
foreign petroleum resources as a vital part of their war strategy, the parties
did not see the peace settlement as any reason to relinquish their control
over these resources. On the contrary, as consumption in industry and
consumer markets increased, the companies had a substantial economic
interest in maintaining control over the international oil market. Without
the war, the need for governmental involvement was perceived as less
immediate. Together with the overall establishment of a liberal interna-
tional trade regime, direct political interference in the international oil
market was reduced, and the oil market became dominated by a small
group of Western companies, known as the Seven Sisters.3 The Seven
Sisters accounted for virtually all the oil produced outside the United
States and the Second World, and they controlled and dominated the
entire production chain, from exploration to sale of the refined products.
The Sisters also organised their operations in the Middle East through a
consortium which ensured that all the major companies were engaged in
at least two countries. In this way, the Sisters stood stronger against pos-
sible regulation by the producing countries, as none of them was totally
dependent on the will of one government only. This created a stable and
integrated structure, although in the hands of companies, not
governments.

3.3 The OPEC Challenge

During the 1950s and 1960s, North African oil exploration, outside the
Red Line defined in 1928, intensified. North African oil did not have to
be transported through the conflict area around the Gulf and the Suez
Canal. Libyan oil contained less sulphur than most Gulf oil qualities;
thus, it was cheaper to refine and could be priced higher than the heavier
crudes of the Gulf region. In 1969, a coup d’état Libya made Muammar
al-Qaddafi president. A few months later, the new oil minister, Ezzedine
Mabrouk, told the oil companies operating in Libya that the government
wanted negotiations about a price rise. Libya was less dependent on the
Sisters, as other Western companies were responsible for almost 52 per
318  D.H. Claes

cent of Libyan oil production. Libya was outside of the Red Line (see
above). By playing the independent Occidental companies and the Sisters
against each other, Libya managed to raise the posted prices and the take
the government received from them. After the Libyan affair, Iran and
Venezuela increased their share of profits and a “game of leapfrog began”
(Yergin 1991: 580): Why should Libya get a better deal than the other
producers? Two agreements between the companies and producing coun-
tries were concluded in the spring of 1971—the so-called Tehran agree-
ment between the international oil companies and the OPEC members
exporting through the Persian Gulf and a similar agreement for the
OPEC members exporting through the Mediterranean, called the Tripoli
agreement. The two agreements covered tax and price increases and infla-
tion compensation and fixed such rates for future years. The effects of the
agreements were a 21 per cent price increase for Saudi Arabian crude
(from $1.80 to $2.18) and an increase in government revenue of almost
40 per cent. What was more important, however, was the fact that the
producer countries had now gained control over the price setting.
Although the physical availability of oil supply seemed secure, as the new
discoveries were made both in North Africa and in the Middle East, the
price of oil was now in the hands of the oil-producing countries. Soon,
also the physical supply became a matter of the greatest political
tension.
On October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria launched an all-out war against
Israel with the aim of liberating the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan
Heights, territories that had been occupied by Israel 6 years earlier during
the Six-Day War. On October 17, Arab oil-exporting countries announced
their intention to reduce production by 5 per cent per month until Israel
retreated from the occupied territories and the rights of the Palestinians
were restored (Blair 1976: 264). On October 19, the United States
announced a new military aid package to Israel. All Arab exporters
embargoed the United States and US forces abroad, while Saudi Arabia
and Kuwait increased their across-the-board cutbacks to 10 per cent
compared to the September level (Evans 1990: 441). The Netherlands
was embargoed later in October, due to their pro-Israeli policy, and Iraq
nationalised US and Netherlands interests in the Iraq Petroleum
Company. On November 4, the Conference of Arab Oil Ministers
 12  The Global Oil Market and EU Energy Security    319

decided a uniform 25 per cent cutback compared to September level, to

be followed by additional 5 per cent in December (ibid). Saudi Arabia’s
Sheik Yamani later called the embargo a legitimate political action: “We
watched America and learned how they use one’s economic power to
meet political objectives. We studied this carefully” (Robinson 1988: 95).
Saudi Arabia took a large portion of the cutbacks. However, the Kingdom
cancelled cutbacks for December 1973, and on December 25, the Arab
oil ministers ordered a 10 per cent increase in production for January
1974. By January, OPEC overall production had increased again. No
physical shortage of oil emerged, but expectations that the future might
lead to a supply shortage drove up prices: “Nobody knew how long the
cutback would last or how much worse it would get” (Adelman 1995:
110). The official Arab light oil price increased from $2.40 per barrel in
March 1973 to $10.95 in January 1974.
A number of political issues are related to the embargo in the autumn
of 1973,  internally among the OPEC members,  in the relationship
between oil producers and consumers in general, and for the foreign poli-
cies of the United States and European countries. The aim of reducing
the dependency on foreign oil became a matter of highest political
urgency: “Aside from our military defence, there is no project of more
central importance to our national security and indeed our independence
as a sovereign nation” (Kissinger 1982). In the context of this chapter, the
reactions in consumer countries are most relevant, and here, the price
increases were, to some extent, seen as a symptom of resource scarcity. It
fitted well with a recent influential publication from the Club of Rome
called Limits to Growth published in 1972. “Its arguments were a potent
element in the fear and pessimism about impending shortages and
resource constraints that became so pervasive in the 1970s, shaping poli-
cies and responses of both oil-importing and oil-exporting countries”
(Yergin 1991: 569). Robert Pindyck (1978: 36) refers to a CIA report
claiming that “a crisis is likely to occur in the early 1980s as world energy
demand exceeds supply, resulting in shortages of energy, rapidly rising
prices, and economic contraction in all of the industrialized countries. …
This view has had an important role in forming the rationale for the
Carter administration’s energy program.” There was no shortage; the
price increase was a result of OPEC exercising market power, not a lack
320  D.H. Claes

of available resources. As Pindyck (1978: 51) concludes: “The kind of

worldwide energy crisis of concern to the CIA and the Carter administra-
tion is unlikely to occur.” Nevertheless, the oil price was to increase once
again. In the autumn of 1978, opposition to the Shah of Iran intensified,
including strikes in the Iranian oil industry, which almost brought pro-
duction to a halt in January 1979. Despite the fact that the other OPEC
countries easily compensated for the disappearance of Iranian oil, demand
increased as the buyers scrambled to secure their access to crude oil in
case of a future demand surplus. From December 1978 to October 1979,
the spot price increased from $13.80 per barrel to $38.35.
After the 1973 price shock, European oil consumption soon picked up
again and continued to increase, but the 1979 price shock represented
the peak of European oil consumption. The new price level triggered
conservation, increased efficiency and substitution away from oil. In
hindsight, it is also easy to conclude that oil had become overpriced.
OPEC entered hard times trying to sustain the price level, until the oil
price collapsed in 1986. The low price that followed did not increase
European oil consumption as many European governments took the
opportunity to increase taxes, instead of transferring the low crude oil
price through to the product prices (Claes 2001: 69–75).
On the political level, the 1973 oil shock triggered the establishment of
the International Energy Agency (IEA). In 1974, the US Secretary of
State, Henry Kissinger, convened a conference in Washington with the
aim of creating an organisation to counter the market power of
OPEC. Later the same year, IEA was established with broader and less
anti-OPEC aims. The core aim of the IEA was to handle future oil supply
disruptions using an emergency oil crisis management system, originally
triggered by a 7 per cent reduction in daily oil supplies. But in 1979, a
more flexible system of crisis cooperation was adopted, and this was used
again in the Gulf War in 1991 and following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The IEA has become a vital institution for providing information on
international energy, and its agenda-setting role has increased in recent
years. However, as a market-governing institution, it is safe to conclude
that the IEA “has limited authority in rule creation and enforcement”
(Kohl 2010: 198), although the organisation might contribute to coordi-
nated consumer behaviour by other means, such as information and state-
 12  The Global Oil Market and EU Energy Security    321

ments regarding the market situation and proposals for joint action by
member states. Some European countries have tried to create a dialogue
between oil producers and consuming countries. In 1991 ministers from
oil-producing and oil-consuming countries met in Paris. Such meetings
have continued every 2 years and morphed into an organisation called the
International Energy Forum (IEF), which, since 2003, has had a perma-
nent secretariat in Riyadh (Lesage et al. 2010: 61–63). The confrontation
of 1973 is long gone, but its passing has not led to the emergence of an
overall global energy regime complex (Colgan et al. 2012: 130–31).

4 Global Oil Scarcity

The security issues related to political conflicts in the Middle East are still
prominent, but the direct connection to oil supplies is less so. However,
the rise in oil prices from 2003 to 2008 was interpreted by some as a
structural phenomenon indicating a fundamental shortage of oil reserves
globally (Areklett et al. 2010; Campbell 2005; Deffeyes 2005). In par-
ticular, those belonging to the Peak Oil School predicted that oil prices
were soon set to increase dramatically due to a lack of sufficient reserves
to meet increasing oil demand. If the world ran out of oil, this would of
course affect Europe as well as other regions of the world. If one believes
that the world is on the verge of running out of oil, the perception of
both commercial and political aspects of the market changes dramati-
cally. No political decisions could change this geological fact, so political
attention would turn to alternatives. Available alternatives and more
uncertain infant energy industries would probably attract large public
subsidies. The perception of a fundamental threat to the existence of the
modern world would emerge. In addition, the market actors’ assumption
of the availability of resources in the future is important for the present
market situation. A fundamental geological depletion of world oil
resources would create a continuous and almost unlimited increase in
prices as the probability of supply shortage increases. To run out of oil
would be dramatic, the question is—is it likely to happen?
Whenever oil prices are high, doomsayers predict the end of oil because
the price increase is interpreted as signalling scarcity. A prospect of a
322  D.H. Claes

future lack of available reserves increases demand in order to secure sup-

plies in the present. This increased demand further raises prices, which
again are interpreted as indicating oil scarcity. What is forgotten is that
the oil market is a so-called cyclical market. When prices are low, oil con-
sumption increases and the development of new reserves is put on hold.
This combination of increased demand and reduced supply makes prices
increase. When prices become high enough, demand is reduced and more
reserves are profitable to develop, and therefore prices decline. The mar-
ket psychology, institutional constraints and political factors can either
reduce or enhance the volatility of this cyclical movement of the oil price.
Interpreting price increases as being caused by scarcity would imply a
continuous increase in prices, which, so far, has never been seen in the
history of oil.
The true signal of scarcity is a sustained increase in the costs of replac-
ing the oil produced with new reserves. A large portion of the world’s oil
reserves are, in fact, located in countries with falling replacement costs
(Adelman 1993b). There is unarguably a fixed amount of physical oil
resources in the world. However, the number of economically defined
reserves we are able to profitably extract is increasing over time, due to
technological advances and increased efficiency in the oil industry. Thus,
whatever “is left in the ground is unknown, probably unknowable but
surely unimportant; a geological fact of no economic interest” (Adelman
1993a: 220). When the oil price increases, production costs also tend to
increase, but this is not due to any lack of available reserves or the devel-
opment of more remote or complicated oil provinces. The production
costs increase due to the absence of cost control in the oil industry when
profit increases.
Breakdown of total costs show wide variations in the cost structure of
oil production. Large producers in the Middle East, like Iran, Iraq and
Saudi Arabia, have low production costs and taxes, but higher transporta-
tion costs. Russia has a high tax share of the total costs. Figures presented
by The Wall Street Journal in 2016 show a sample of countries producing
a third of the world’s total oil production have total costs of less than $20
per barrel. The actual production costs, excluding taxes, capital spending
and transportation, are around $5 per barrel for the United States, around
$4 for Norway, about $3 for Saudi Arabia and Russia and around $2 per
 12  The Global Oil Market and EU Energy Security    323

barrel in the case of Iran and Iraq.4 Thus, it is possible to produce large
quantities of oil at very low cost. In some of these countries, the geology
is very favourable. In other cases, like US shale and Norwegian offshore,
technological advances and efficiency gains have turned resources into
profitable reserves. Such advances are likely to continue. There are no
signs today that overall replacement costs are increasing, nor does the
present production level seem to be depleting world oil reserves. The so-­
called R/P ratio divides the total proven oil reserves by the production
level and expresses the number of years the present production level can
be sustained given the proven reserves. In 1980, the world’s R/P ratio was
25 years. In 2015, the figure was 52.5 years.5 Not only have the world oil
reserves been sustained, they have increased even relative to higher pro-
duction levels. The claim that the world is “running into oil, not out of
oil” still holds (Odell 1994).

5 EU Oil Security Situation

From the perspective of the consuming countries, the 1970s was a period
of a highly politicised oil market and in certain situations, as in 1973,
clearly securitised. Oil was in general physically available, although it was
perceived both as scarce and as a potential political weapon in the hands
of the producers. Following the oil price fall of 1986, this perception
changed dramatically. With slower growth in demand and a low price, oil
was abundant and affordable—just like any other ordinary commodity.
Furthermore, the low price motivated the oil producers to introduce
trading methods which removed price setting from their control and
placed it in the hands of the oil traders (Mabro 1987). The increased
competition for outlets in the mid-1980s created various instruments for
discounts and hedging.
Over the years, a 24-hour, free-trading oil market has emerged, replete
with spot prices, instant price references and internet-based oil exchanges.
The idea of a single producer, or group of producers, withholding oil
from a particular consuming country or group of countries, is simply not
conceivable in the present market. The other side of the coin is a spot
price far more responsive to any kind of information which might affect
324  D.H. Claes

EU crude oil imports (%)

100

80

60

40

20

0
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Russia Norway Nigeria Saudi Arabia Kazakhstan
Iraq Azerbaijan Algeria Angola Others

Fig. 12.3  Origin of EU-28 crude oil imports (%) (Source: Eurostat (2016))

its position. However, this is less of a challenge for political leaders a­ iming
to secure physical supplies, as it is for the producing countries who want
to control the oil price. This free-trading market structure does not pre-
clude the consumers applying political means in order to improve their
security of supply. The last part of this chapter is devoted to such efforts
from the European Union, but first it is necessary to identify the origins
of EU oil supplies (Fig. 12.3).
In 2004, Russia and Norway were responsible for more than half of the
EU’s crude oil imports. By 2014, the role of these two countries was
slightly reduced to about 43 per cent, but Russia still constituted around
30 per cent. As indicated above, most of the oil from these suppliers takes
the form of trade in a commercial free-trade market. On the political level,
the EU faces very different suppliers—economically, politically and cul-
turally. Thus, the Union will have to be flexible and responsive and able to
enter into contrasting kinds of political dialogue with each supplier.
The counterparts of the EU differ widely with respect to their position
on free trade. The one energy supplier that, in fact, is part of the Internal
Energy Market is Norway. Norway appears to be of minor importance if
one reads the energy strategy documents of the Commission, but this is
probably a result simply of the perceived economic and political proxim-
ity between the EU and Norway. In fact, Norway is the second largest
supplier of both oil (approx. 13 per cent) and gas (approx. 31 per cent)
 12  The Global Oil Market and EU Energy Security    325

to the EU. The energy relationship between the EU and Norway has, for
most of the time, been cooperative and based on commercial principles,
although there have been instances when even this relationship has had
certain political and conflictive features. By far, the most important sup-
plier of energy to the EU, however, is Russia. Energy relations with Russia
are particularly important in the gas market, but oil supply from Russia
is also given special attention by the EU, both in terms of Russian market
strategies and internal concentration in the Russia oil industry (EC 2014:
10–12). Russian foreign economic policy has obviously changed, initially
from an extremely low score on free trade during the Soviet era when the
country was a prominent advocate for the planned economy. During the
first decade after the break-up of the Soviet Union, it seemed as if Russia
would rapidly enter the pool of market economies. However, the experi-
ence over the last two decades has weakened this assumption. When it
comes to its energy relations with Russia, the EU will have to “shoot at a
moving target” as some of the underlying features of Russia’s economic
system are subject to change. Since increased power is located in the
hands of the president, the policy can easily shift in line with the personal
ideas and the interests of the particular power base of different presidents.
The importance of flexibility seems greater than ever. The latest conflicts
over Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the war in Ukraine
obviously increase the securitisation of all energy relations with Russia
(see chapters 9, 10 and 11). When it comes to other regions like the
Caucasus, the Middle East and Africa, the market approach doesn’t seem
a feasible strategy for several decades, if ever. Thus, the strategies towards
these regions imply more use of political instruments. In 1989 the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) and the EU signed a cooperation agree-
ment, which prescribes future negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement
(FTA) between the EU and the GCC. FTA negotiations started in 1990
but soon reached a deadlock. Despite the lack of an FTA, trade and eco-
nomic exchange between both regions has increased. The GCC is cur-
rently the EU’s fifth largest export market and the EU is the top trading
partner for the GCC with an 18 per cent share of total GCC trade. As the
(enormous) Eurogulf study shows, there are substantial gains to be made
from energy integration between GCC and the EU (Luciani 2005). In
the oil sector, the study argues that “80 per cent of conventional oil pro-
326  D.H. Claes

duction, up to 104 million barrels per day, could be developed and oper-
ated at a cost of less than $8 per barrel … perhaps $12–$14/bbl” (Luciani
2005: 7).

6 EU Oil Security Challenges

There are two main challenges for the EU in order for it to become a
global political force in the governance or diplomacy of the global oil
market: Do the member states want to take on such a role, and do the EU
institutions have the capacity to do so?

Political Will  In the EU Commission’s green paper, “A European Strategy

for Sustainable, Competitive and Secure Energy” (EC 2006), the need
for a coherent external policy is identified, and the member states are
called upon to support such a position. A number of key goals are set out
including a clear policy on securing and diversifying energy supplies,
energy partnerships with producers, transit countries and other interna-
tional actors, reacting effectively to external crisis situations and integrat-
ing energy into other policies with an external dimension. With the
possible exception of the last goal, all these ambitions are dependent on
other actors. In such political-economic negotiations the EU does have
one valuable asset: the inclusion of energy into broader integration pro-
cesses: “In line with the European Neighbourhood Policy and its Action
Plans (and in addition to the current work undertaken through
Partnership and Cooperation Agreements and Association Agreements),
the EU has, for some time, been engaged in widening its energy market
to include its neighbours and to bring them progressively closer to the
EU’s internal market. Creating a ‘common regulatory space’ around
Europe, would imply progressively developing common trade, transit
and environmental rules, market harmonisation and integration. This
would create a predictable and transparent market to stimulate invest-
ment and growth, as well as security of supply, for the EU and its neigh-
bours” (EC 2006). The potential for linking issues together increases, as
more sectors are included in the negotiations and integration processes.
In 2015, the EU Council concluded that EU Energy Diplomacy should
 12  The Global Oil Market and EU Energy Security    327

have less regulatory ambitions and place greater reliance on traditional

diplomacy (EU Council 2015).

Institutional Capacity  The European history of integration is an impres-

sive story of the transformation of interstate cooperation into a polity in
its own right, although with several shortcomings when unfairly com-
pared to the polity of modern fully fledged national states. For the pur-
pose of this chapter, it is of interest that a key element of this integration
process is a combination of political bargaining between states and
institution-­building at the community level. Looking back at the recent
history of the Internal Energy Market, these features are very clear. They
are perfectly suited for what is known as “negative integration,” where the
purpose is to remove existing barriers between countries. When the
­ambition extends to building new policies at the community level, some
additional features of the polity become essential. For instance, one needs
the capability to formulate policy proposals and gain the support of
stakeholders, different parts of the political elite and, preferably also, the
public. A general observation concerning the European integration pro-
cess over the last decades is new challenges arising from this shift from
negative to positive integration (Scharpf 1999). Taking this even one step
further, we can ask what kind of features are needed once the EU aims at
developing a common policy towards other actors outside the commu-
nity. One important factor in the literature on foreign policy is the
importance of internal coherence. The minor role of the EU in the Iraq
crisis was, of course, due to the strong interests of the United States, but
the fact that the EU countries could not, or would not, agree on a com-
mon policy obviously weakened their power as critics or allies of the
United States. In international relations, one also needs the willingness
and ability to act and, in certain cases, to act with vigour (Baldwin 1979).

7 Conclusion
The disentangling of the concept energy security suggested in the intro-
duction, taken together with the empirical observations made in this
chapter, generates two different concluding remarks: a structural and a
328  D.H. Claes

strategic one. The first refers to the physical sense of oil security and the
second to the economic and political perception of oil security men-
tioned in the introduction.
Regarding the structural dimension, the fundamental question is to
what extent the geologically defined fixed amount of oil has any signifi-
cant economic or political implications. Presently, and for the foreseeable
future, the geologically defined amount of oil resources in the ground is
a geological fact of no economic or political importance (cf. Adelman
1993a). A widespread perception of a physical shortage of oil is unlikely
and can only have the economic effect of increasing prices and the politi-
cal effect of fomenting conflicts.
The strategic dimension captures what kind of policy or strategy most
effectively increases the actors’ perception of possessing a secure energy
future—in this case the European countries and the EU. Here, we can see
two very different paths presently available: the globalisation strategy of
the liberal free market and free-trade policies and the mercantilist
approach of trying to gain exclusive access to energy resources and reserv-
ing them for your own national consumption. As argued above, the EU
is destined to follow the first path, although the fruitfulness of these two
strategies depends on what is perceived as the most important element of
energy security. If supply security is predominant, Churchill’s conclu-
sion—“safety and certainty in oil lie in variety and variety alone”—still
holds.6 However, I would argue that in modern times the physical supply
of oil has hardly ever been severely jeopardised. The important element of
energy security today is related to the price of oil. Taken together with the
fact that we do have a globally interconnected and fully liberalised market
for oil trade, variety has no meaning, as the price will be same, and
increase simultaneously, for oil delivered from all sources. In such a mar-
ket, the old type of geopolitics comes across as very ineffective. However,
the strengthened internal energy policy of the EU suggests that oil secu-
rity can increase as a by-product of intensified efforts on the part of the
EU member states to increase energy efficiency and de-carbonise the
energy consumption of the Union at large. These efforts will most likely
affect oil less radically and later than coal and natural gas, but even the oil
sector will eventually feel the effect of the European energy transition.
Alas, a topic beyond the scope of this chapter.
 12  The Global Oil Market and EU Energy Security    329

Notes
1. http://ec.europa.eu/energy/security/index_en.htm. Accessed on August
29, 2010.
2. In this chapter, ‘Europe’ is an imprecise concept. In discussions of current
oil-related political affairs, the focus is on the European Union. In current
oil-related economic affairs, the focus is on European oil consumption,
including all European countries. In  the  historical parts, the  focus is
mainly on Western European countries.
3. The designation “the Seven Sisters” was first used by the Italian oilman
Enrico Mattei and was later used as the title of Anthony Sampson’s book
about the seven largest oil companies (Sampson 1975: 11). This group
comprises Exxon, Mobil, Standard Oil of California, Texaco, Gulf (all
American), British Petroleum (BP; 51 per cent of the shares were formerly
held by the British government) and Royal Dutch/Shell (60 per cent
Dutch and 40 per cent British). Compagnie Francaise des Pètroles (CFP)
is sometimes included in this group, despite representing a minimal share
of world production (approximately 1.2 per cent in 1950) (Schneider
1983: 39).
4. WSJ News Graphics, April 15, 2016, http://graphics.wsj.com/oil-barrel-
breakdown/. Based on Rystad Energy Ucube.
5. BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 1980 and 2016.
6. Quoted in Yergin 2006: 69.

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Conclusion
Kacper Szulecki

Energy security rhetoric has a different flavour depending on where you

stand. It carries different meanings and refers to different objects.
Although official policy definitions of energy security are broadly similar
across countries, emphasising the reliability and affordability of access to
sufficient energy resources for a community to uphold its normal eco-
nomic and social functions, it is also acknowledged that perceptions of
energy security vary. That variation is important, for how states perceive
security issues shapes their actions—both in international relations and
in domestic politics.
Is coordinated governance and a common EU energy policy achiev-
able? This volume emerged from the conviction that apart from different
economic path dependencies, levels of development, resource endow-
ments, geographies of infrastructure—together shaping the material con-
text of energy production, transmission and consumption—what matters
in shaping national energy policies are perceptions of energy security. By
consequence, if these perspectives are too disparate, they become an

K. Szulecki
University of Oslo, OsloNorway

© The Author(s) 2018 333

K. Szulecki (ed.), Energy Security in Europe, Energy, Climate and the Environment,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1
334  K. Szulecki

impediment for joint decision-making, harmonising policies and adopt-

ing a common EU strategy for energy governance.
And so, we embarked on a study which strived to understand and, to
some extent at least, explain these differences. In this most of the authors
were following an analytical definition of energy security seen as ‘low
vulnerability of vital energy systems’, developed by Aleh Cherp and
Jessica Jewell, who also kindly agreed to provide a foreword for the report
of our struggles. This definition proved important for three reasons. The
first one was very practical. It freed us from the curse of much of the
energy security literature, which either uses dozens of pages in relentless
and somewhat tiresome debates about the ‘true meaning’ of energy secu-
rity or toddles around in circles having adopted a conventional, policy-­
derived definition to explain actual policies. Secondly, it was an impulse
to look at energy policy from the perspective of energy systems, which
provided a way of focussing our analyses. Finally, their conceptualisation
of vulnerabilities and vital systems invited an interpretivist approach and
provided an entry point for a wider range of critical perspectives on
energy security.
This volume is an attempt to deepen the debate on energy security by
moving beyond its seemingly objective nature in policy debates. It gath-
ers contributions that shed light on the conditions under which similar
material factors (e.g. countries’ energy mixes) are met with very different
energy security policies and divergent discourses. Furthermore, it prob-
lematises some established notions prevalent in energy security studies,
such as whether energy security is ‘geopolitical’—and an element of high
politics—or purely ‘economic’ and should be left for the markets to
regulate.
What have we learned? What still needs to be explored? In the book’s
first part, we looked at the ways energy security can be approached differ-
ently by two neighbouring countries and in four different sectors (natural
gas, shale, nuclear and renewable energy—the latter together comprising
the power sector). Using the securitisation model, supported by the con-
cepts of riskification and security jargon, we traced the dynamics of
energy security debates and tried to explain how energy becomes a secu-
rity problem. The case studies varied in their methodological positioning
vis-à-vis a more ‘positivist’ and a consciously ‘interpretive’ approach. The
  Conclusion 
   335

former focusses more on ‘measuring’ the differences in energy security

perceptions (see Chap. 3, and partly Chap. 5), and the latter attempting
to grasp which intersubjective frameworks can account for the ways
energy security is articulated, how these discourses are reproduced and
how they condition policy debates (Chaps. 4 and 5 to some extent).
We have indeed found considerable differences not only in the levels of
energy securitisation (which were, perhaps surprisingly, on the whole,
quite low), but more importantly in the emphasis given to different
threats and attention paid to different energy systems (and so, logically,
level of their vitalness). Assuming that energy security emerges at the
junctures of sociotechnical and security imaginaries, we have confirmed
(much less discovered), that trans- and international issues, closer to for-
eign policy, involving politicians, tend to see spillovers from national
security debates, which increases the saturation with security jargon and
depth of securitisation.
Aleksandra Lis’ Chap. 4 bridged our overly political discussions with
science, technology and society (STS) studies and provided a very inter-
esting input on how epistemological positions and the types of scientific
procedures adopted can also provide the base for distinct riskifying and
securitising moves. Similar patterns, though only sketched, were visible
in the other highly complex, scientified and risk-laden sector: nuclear
energy.
As noted, one of the implicit goals of this volume, and the project on
which Part I rests (though Chaps. 10 and 11 in Part II also share that
spirit), is that of bringing an interpretivist approach to energy security
studies. Chapter 6 by Andy Judge, Tomas Maltby and this author tries to
draw some conclusions from the above empirical experience and propose
paths for future research, following that approach. Since we initially
adopted the classic Copenhagen School framework to securitisation, the
chapter discusses its strengths as well as the limitations that became evi-
dent in that empirical endeavour. A lot of ground remains to be covered,
not just in terms of the empirical breadth, that is, looking at other EU
Member States or beyond Europe. Marco Siddi’s contribution in the sec-
ond part takes the concept of securitisation and applies it to EU-Russia
relations but draws on social constructivism more broadly to explain the
differences in security discourses across Europe. Securitisation can help
336  K. Szulecki

grasp the specificity of energy as a security sector, following a unique

logic. More dynamic, sociological accounts can emerge, looking at the
way audiences and context influence energy security debates and tracing
securitisation as a social practice. Finally, stronger emphasis on explaining
certain securitised outcomes or following effects of securitising ‘trigger
events’ is facilitated by treating securitisation as a social (causal)
mechanism.
In Part II, moving from a sectoral to a regional level, we tried to prob-
lematise some important topics in academic, expert and policy discussion
on the relationship between Europe/EU as an energy importer and its
external environment. The opening Chap. 7 charted the challenges and
European-level vulnerabilities, while Chap. 12 additionally deepened the
analysis of these in the oil sector. Irina Kustova questioned the dominant
assumption that liberalisation in the energy market necessarily translates
to desecuritisation. An interpretive study of the way historical path
dependencies, as well as dominant values and political discourses, shape
the economic ‘models’ that seem to emerge, and why they clash, could be
a fruitful avenue for further research. In their chapter, in turn, Jakub
Godzimirski and Zuzanna Nowak interestingly show how internally
designed outward governance through different instruments and external
threats/risks can be mutually constitutive. These two chapters together
provide a good reference to discussions about interdependence, its bene-
fits and drawbacks. In a more postmodernist vein, this is again taken up
by Paulina Landry, who launches a powerful critique of the negative secu-
rity paradigm, which as she shows has until recently dominated EU gas
sector governance.
Dag Harald Claes picks up on some of these topics, putting more
emphasis on oil, a resource to which we pay, probably unwisely, very little
attention in the book. He analyses in what way Europe needs to adjust
and plan a common strategy on the global market. While this is an area
which seems to be overshadowed by the Russian gas debate, getting less
publicity and attention, we cannot forget that the degree of Europe’s
import dependence on oil is tremendous, while alternatives are still bleak.
Whether the EU can act coherently in this area is not clear. Will we need
to see a return to oil in energy security studies in Europe? Perhaps, though
the growing importance of electricity in modern, post-industrial econo-
  Conclusion 
   337

mies and the limited attention it receives in energy security studies has
been a recurrent refrain of this volume. Furthermore, any analysis, even
in political science and sociology, has to be informed by an adequate
understanding of the energy system’s materiality, and so, extend a hand to
energy economists and technical energy engineering studies. Let this plea
for interdisciplinary be my final thesis here.

Completed on 28 June 2017 in Ojrzanów n. Warsaw, in hand due to a

prolonged power outage.
 Index

NUMBERS & SYMBOLS Atomausstieg (German nuclear

50Hertz, 132, 145n16 phase-out), 122, 133, 134
atomic hype, 134, 137
audience, 14, 18, 35, 36, 38, 43, 49,
A 54n1, 69, 135, 151, 153, 160,
Aachen, 138 336
Aarhus Convention, 134 Australia, 184, 223
added value, 280–4, 292, 295, 297, Austria, 122, 232, 252, 253, 277
300
Agency for the Cooperation of
Energy Regulators (ACER), B
279, 285, 292–4, 299 Badenia (Baden), 122, 139
Agency of Internal Security (ABW, Baltic Pipe, 234, 239
Poland), 136 Baltic Sea, 7, 45, 61, 63, 66–8,
Algeria, 223, 225, 226, 256, 257 74–6, 82, 85
Alps, 124 Baltic States, 63, 67, 73–6, 82, 253,
Amber gas pipeline project, 67, 81 265
ammunition, 74, 75 BASF, 63
Areva, 186 Bavaria, 122, 139
Asia Pacific Energy Research Center Belarus, 62, 66, 186, 257
(APERC), 284 Belgium, 236, 277

© The Author(s) 2018 339

K. Szulecki (ed.), Energy Security in Europe, Energy, Climate and the Environment,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1
340  Index

Berlin, 66, 96, 120, 140, 143 China, 128, 183–5, 187, 193, 260
Berlin, Isaiah, 282 Christian Democratic Union of
Bielecki, Janusz, 280 Germany (CDU), 45
biomass, 21, 121, 295, 299 Churchill, Winston, 314, 328
blackout, 118, 119, 124, 131, 138, Clean Energy Package, 193, 296, 300
156 Club of Rome, 319
bombs, 69, 75 coal, 120–3, 126–9, 133, 143, 189,
Brandenburg, 122 215, 223, 225, 236, 277,
Brexit, 178, 189, 190, 198 301n7, 314, 328
Brotherhood gas pipeline, 62, 72 Cold War, 35, 38, 151, 158, 252,
Brudziński, Joachim, 67, 68, 84, 263, 264, 266
88n12 Comecon, 251
Buchan, David, 278, 303n24 commercial gas storage, 292
Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz commonplace, 7, 36, 47, 163
Deutschland, 76 competition, 72, 159, 185, 188,
Bundestag (German Parliament), 74, 190, 204, 209, 210, 214, 222,
77, 83, 89n25, 96, 107, 109, 226, 228, 229, 237, 238, 253,
111, 119, 137 267, 297, 306n47, 323
Burgess, Peter, 287, 288 competitiveness, 99, 103, 125, 178,
184, 228
complex interconnectedness, 285,
C 290, 291
Canada, 223 complex interoperability, 285, 286,
carbon dioxide (CO2), 98, 117, 123, 290, 291, 303n22
184, 289 Compressed Natural Gas (CNG),
Carter, Jimmy, 319 277, 303n25
Casier, Tom, 164, 252, 254, 256, consequentialism, 283
257 constructivism, 335
Caspian Basin, 180 content analysis, 50, 64, 169
Caspian gas, 74 coordination, 189–91, 284, 286,
central stockholding entity (CSE), 290, 291, 296, 303n23, (see
294 also solidarity principle,
Central-Eastern Europe (CEE), 2, regional cooperation)
186, 234, 235, 241 Copenhagen School, 13, 15, 18, 33,
chemical weapons, 74 63, 89n21, 119, 149, 150,
Chernobyl, 137 154, 155, 157, 158, 160–2,
Cherp, Aleh, vi, 4, 5, 9–14, 16, 33, 166–9, 170n1, 203, 312, 313,
36, 46, 119, 133, 140, 141, 335
156, 193, 194, 205, 215, 284 Council of European Energy
Chester, Lynne, 284 Regulators (CEER), 302n17
  Index 
   341

Crimea, 2, 119, 177, 179, 189, 226, E

256, 312 East-Central Europe, 251, 252, 259,
Critical Infrastructure (CI), 289 264, 265, 267
cybernetic information system, 293 Eastern Europe, 61, 62, 66, 80, 132,
cyber security, 155, 293 239, 265
Cyprus, 241, 277 Eberlein, Bukard, 228, 279, 301n11
Czech Republic, 66, 186, 277 Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU),
278
Egypt, 318
D Emergency Plans (EP), 287, 291,
Debski, Slawomir, 69, 88n14 292
decarbonisation, 122, 125, 177, 178, Energiewende (German energy
183–6, 188, 191, 197, 280, transition), 14, 45, 98, 111,
294 122, 124, 125, 130, 143, 191
Denmark, 66, 128, 196, 222, 236, energy access, v, 19, 179, 186–8,
277 211, 253, 328
de-politicisation, 16, 37, 44, 47–51, Energy Community Regulatory
85 Board (ECBR), 288
deregulation, 204, 209, 216 energy dilemma, 187
de-riskification, 95, 101–3 energy efficiency, 125, 178, 182,
de-securitisation, 76, 89n21, 96, 184, 191, 192, 197, 222, 228,
131, 132, 142, 313 281, 287, 288, 290, 296–8,
DG Energy, 238, 268n5 303n24, 305n36, 328
discourse, 9, 15, 20, 34, 40, 42–4, Energy Expert Cyber Security
47, 49, 50, 72, 76, 79, 85, Platform (EECSP), 293
93, 97, 103, 109, 110, energy geopolitics, 181, 183
119–21, 131, 132, 134, 151, energy governance, vi, 2, 18, 19,
154, 157, 158, 160, 161, 163, 118, 165, 166, 177, 214, 313
165, 167–9, 217, 252, 253, architecture, 19, 179
255, 256, 258, 263, 266–8, energy justice, 187
334–6 energy policy instruments
distribution system, 289 communicative, 227, 230, 238
Distribution System Operators economic, 227, 230
(DSOs), 288, 292, 293, 299, infrastructural, 227, 230
304n33 legal-judicial, 227, 230
diversification, 11, 62, 65–8, 72, 75, organisational, 227
80, 122, 178, 184, 194, 209, physical, 227
213, 225, 232, 233, 239 structural, 227
342  Index

energy policy triangle, 178 (see also European Energy Security Strategy,
energy triangle) 1, 2, 300
energy political use of, 256, 260, Europeanisation, 189, 193
262, 263 European Network of Transmission
energy sector, 3, 6, 14–17, 19, 40, System Operators, 303n26
41, 117, 121, 122, 127, 129, European Parliament, 101, 144n7,
143, 151, 158–60, 162–4, 298, 302n12, 303n27,
182, 185, 190, 194, 196, 198, 304n30, 304n32, 305n34,
205, 207, 209, 210, 212, 216, 305n36, 306n46, 306n48,
217, 237, 261, 312 306n50
energy security, 1–22, 33–54, 61, 93, European Union (EU), vi, 1–3, 13,
99–104, 117–43, 149, 178, 18, 20, 21, 36, 63, 69, 72, 73,
193–5, 203, 228, 252, 254–6, 95, 177, 183, 188, 189, 196,
278, 279, 281, 284, 296, 298, 204, 221–42, 251–68, 277,
311–13 301n10, 324
energy systems, v–vii, 2, 5, 11–15, exit points, 287
18, 33, 34, 49, 117, 118, 124, exploration and production
129, 131, 137, 140, 156, 157, techniques (E&P), 290
164, 165, 184, 193–5, 229, ExxonMobil, 17, 97, 99, 104–6,
230, 236, 239, 297, 298, 335, 110, 111
337
energy trade, 20, 188, 192, 252,
253, 261, 262, 264, 268, 313 F
energy transition, 98, 111, 117, 178, Federal Republic of Germany (FRG)
184, 188, 191–7, 224, 238, (see Germany)
297, 328 Federation of German Industries,
energy triangle, 19, 178, 190, 194 125
Energy Union, 3, 21, 177, 233, 297 Fessenheim nuclear power plant, 134
energy weapon, 119, 260 Finnish Foreign Minister Stubb,
entry points, 35, 216, 287, 334 Alexander, 68
E.ON Ruhrgas, 63 Former German Chancellor
Estonia, 66, 222, 277 Schröder, Gerhard, 76
European Commission (EC), 1–3, fossil fuels, 69, 121, 124, 126, 155,
100, 102, 104, 110, 178, 224, 180–3, 187, 188, 190, 194–6,
225, 228, 230, 233–5, 237, 224–6, 229, 236, 238, 239,
240, 266, 268n2, 293, 311 252, 256, 259
European Economic Area (EEA), fracking, 95, 96, 98–100, 103, 104,
222, 237, 238 181, 182
  Index 
   343

frames, 20, 37, 49, 50, 54n3, 54n4, suppliers, 20, 80, 221, 225,
93, 110, 163, 194, 207 228–30, 233, 236, 240, 242,
France, 186, 191, 232, 236, 241, 257, 291, 295
252, 258, 277, 312, 315, 316 Gas Coordination Group, 294
freedom gas directives, 229 (see also internal
epistemology of enablement, market for gas, IEM)
283 Gas Regional Groups, 292
epistemology of fear, 283 Gassco, 237
from, 280, 283 Gassforhandlingsutvalget (GFU),
towards, 283 237
Fukushima Daiichi, 45, 133, 137, Gassled, 237
139, 185 Gas-To-Liquid (GTL), 303n25
Gazprom, 63, 68, 75, 87n4, 98, 100,
110, 225, 230–2, 234, 235,
G 241, 242n1, 252, 253, 259,
G20, 188 260, 262, 266, 268, 301n10
Gabriel, Sigmar, 266 geopolitics, 131, 259, 328
gas, 61, 93, 204, 221–42, 251, 277, German Democratic Republic
301n7, 302n12, 303n22, 311, (GDR, East Germany), 120,
334, 336 122
capacity, 282, 286, 291, 298, German Trade Union Confederation,
303n25 125, 144n3
conflicts, 66, 80, 81 Germany, 7, 13, 14, 16, 17, 45, 49,
consumer, 21, 277, 281, 288, 61–3, 65–7, 69, 73–9, 84,
290, 295, 296, 299 87n6, 93, 118–25, 127, 128,
infrastructure, 230, 287, 292 130, 133, 134, 137–40, 143,
market, 2, 3, 67, 180, 181, 214, 144n11, 144n14, 185, 186,
216, 221, 222, 224, 229, 231, 191, 192, 194, 196, 232, 235,
233–5, 237, 255, 256, 258, 236, 241, 252, 253, 258, 265,
279–81, 286, 288–92, 297, 266, 268, 277
299, 325 Grad, Aleksander, 135
pipeline, vi, 61–5, 68, 69, 84, Green party, 74, 137
152, 268n3, 278 greenpeace, 128
sector, 2, 16, 17, 61, 142, 166, Greens (political party), 130
188, 193, 214, 231, 232, 336 Greifswald, 63
security, 21, 233, 278–81, 284, grenades, 74, 75
289–300 grid, 14, 62, 72, 118, 119, 122–4,
shale, vi, 14, 17, 93, 120, 139, 127, 131, 132, 140, 142, 156,
142, 180, 182, 195, 229, 258 185, 191, 194, 294, 297
344  Index

Gross Domestic Product (GDP), interconnection point, 287, 292

261, 287, 294 interconnectors, 72, 118, 122, 131,
Grund, Manfred, 74 132, 231, 233, 286, 287,
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), 303n25
325 interdependence, 3, 121, 122, 179,
182, 192, 197, 240, 252, 256,
311, 313, 336
H internal energy market (IEM), 189,
Heinrich Böll Foundation, 130, 190, 214, 281, 286, 289, 293,
144n5 296, 297, 299, 300, 324, 327
Helsinki, 69 internal market for gas, IEM, 281,
Hinkley Point, 185, 186 286, 289, 293, 297, 300
Hiroshima, 69 International Energy Agency (IEA),
historical references, 16, 83, 89n30 5, 121, 179, 181–3, 301n9,
Hoc, Czesław, 67, 68, 88n12 320
Hollande, François, 134 International Energy Forum (IEF),
human factor, 139, 142 321
Hungary, 186, 232, 277 International Oil Companies (IOC),
hydrogen, 303n25, 306n51 312, 318
International Political Economy, 15,
155, 208
I International Relations (IR), vi, 12,
identity, 20, 34, 36, 134, 153, 155, 101, 155, 203, 204, 208, 209,
168, 251 213, 216, 253, 267, 327
national, 20, 36, 253, 255, 256, International Renewable Energy
258, 264, 268 Agency (IRENA), 185, 188
import dependence, 2, 4, 21, 73, Iran, 182, 318, 320, 322, 323
122, 137, 182, 193–5, 221–6, Iraq, 40, 316, 318, 322, 323, 327
229, 336 Israel, 318
infrastructure, vi, 6, 8, 10, 16, 41, Italy, 232, 241, 252, 253, 277
42, 61, 75, 117, 118, 122,
126, 131, 156, 165, 183–5,
187, 194, 197, 209, 213, 215, J
225, 227, 228, 230, 231, 233, Jagiełło, Jarosław, 66, 87n8
234, 238, 257–9, 281, 285, Japan, 182, 184, 185
287, 292, 293, 298, 302n16, Joint Preventive Action Plans
305n35, 305n39 (JPAPs), 288, 291
Infrastructure Standard, 287, 291 Juncker, Jean-Claude, 3, 178, 266
  Index 
   345

K M
Kaliningrad, 186 Major Supply Disruptions (MSD),
Kardaś, Szymon, 229, 232 291
Klaipėda, 233 Malta, 72, 222, 241, 277
Kristenko, Viktor, 75 market reforms, 19, 204, 207, 209,
Kruk, Elżbieta, 66, 84 210, 213, 216, 217
Kundera, Milan, 264 measures, 10, 13, 15, 17, 35–7,
Kuwait, 316, 318 39–41, 45, 46, 48, 50, 72,
Kuzemko, Caroline, 40, 41, 47, 48, 94, 95, 101, 103, 107, 109,
165, 204, 207, 208, 228, 253, 120, 129, 135, 136, 142,
255 153, 154, 159, 163, 203,
Kwiatkowska-Drożdż, Anna, 128 207, 209, 214, 227, 230,
Kyoto Protocol, 186 231, 279, 281, 285–7, 289,
291, 292, 294–7, 299, 300,
306n46, 312, (see also state of
L exception)
language, 16, 37, 38, 42, 46–8, 79, emergency, 35, 40, 41, 46, 54n2,
84, 85, 101, 128, 132, 135, 255
163, 164, 255, 293 extraordinary, 41, 64, 100–2,
Latvia, 66, 277 107, 110, 151–4, 157, 163,
Łebień, 100 167, 203, 207, 212
liberalisation, 19, 203–18, 227, 228, precautionary, 50, 64
234, 237, 238, 336 Merkel, Angela, 107, 111, 133, 138,
Libya, 225, 317, 318 266
liquefied natural gas (LNG), 45, 65, Middle East, 180–3, 315–18, 321,
72, 180, 182, 225, 226, 229, 322, 325, (see also Middle
235, 256–8, 280, 287, 289 East and North Africa
tankers, 85 (MENA))
terminal, 45, 85, 217, 233, 258, Mielnikiewicz, Olga, 129
286, 292 Mielno, 136
Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), mines, 75, 277, 301n7
303n25 moderation of gas demand, 285
Lithuania, 66, 186, 239, 258, 277 modernity, 134
loop flows, 123, 124, 131, 132, 139, Moscow, 7, 66, 69, 76, 251, 252,
142 256–9, 268
Lower Saxony, 119 Muskat, Maciej, 128
Ludmin, 63 mustard gas grenades, 74
346  Index

N O
Nabucco gas pipeline project, 74, occidental, 318
77 Oder (river), 132
nationally determined contributions oil market, 21, 204, 215, 256,
(NDCs), 186 311–28
national security, 7, 17, 54n3, 83, Ontario, 118
120, 128, 129, 131, 135, 140, Opal, 235, 241
142, 153, 157, 163, 164, 191, Organization for Economic
217, 319, 335 Co-operation and
NATO, 239, 251, 264 Development (OECD), 182,
negative security, 21, 277–300, 336 236
network codes, 281, 285, 288, 293, Organization of the Petroleum
304n32 Exporting Countries (OPEC),
Neumann, Iver, 253, 256, 263 182, 188, 278, 312, 317–21
New York, 118 Ostolski, Adam, 128
non-discrimination of access, 289 Ostpolitik, 266
Nord Stream, 7, 9, 12, 16, 61, 151, Other, 20, 253, 256, 258, 263, 265,
153, 231, 235, 242n1, 257, 267
258, 265, 266 The Ottoman Empire, 315
Nord Stream 2, 225, 234, 235, 252,
262, 266, 268n3
Nord Stream AG, 69, 76, 88n12 P
Nord Stream/Baltic Sea gas pipeline, Paris Agreement, 177, 185–7, 196
16, 68, 74, 252 Paris School, 157
normal politics, 37, 39, 45–7, 154, Parliamentary group of Bündnis 90/
203, 313 Die Grünen, 75
North Africa, 317, 318 Parliamentary group of the FDP, 74
North America, 182 peak oil, 180
Northern Gate, 234 Persian Gulf, 318
Northern Lights gas pipeline, 62 Petoro, 237
Norway, 18, 20, 65, 222, 223, 225, Philippsburg Nuclear Power Plant,
226, 229–40, 256, 257, 322, 139
324 Piskorski, Pawel, 129, 130
Norwegian Pensions Fund Global, Poland, ix, 6, 7, 12–14, 16, 17, 45,
239 49, 61–3, 65–9, 71–6, 78–85,
nuclear energy, 14, 17, 45, 98, 123, 87n4, 87n6, 93, 118–23,
132–41, 143, 185, 186, 189, 126–30, 132–7, 139, 140,
335 142, 143, 151, 153, 186, 191,
  Index 
   347

192, 194, 217, 232, 234, 235, reference scenario, 224

239, 253, 257, 258, 265, 277 referent object, 13, 35–7, 41, 45–7,
Polish Geological Institute (PGI), 49, 50, 64, 94, 120, 123, 129,
17, 96, 98, 100 134, 135, 141, 151, 153–8,
politicisation, 16, 37, 39, 43, 94, 95, 160, 164, 170n2, 312
208 regional cooperation, 189, 193, 292,
Pol, Marek, 84 294
Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE), regulations, 21, 63, 95, 102, 103,
135 106, 107, 110, 127, 135, 165,
PO-PSL government, 85 190, 192, 208–10, 214, 216,
positive security, 21, 194, 277 221, 229, 234, 238, 297, 299,
Postolski, Eugeniusz, 67 300, 305n35, 317
practice regulators, 132, 208, 294
discursive, 34, 42, 43, 255 regulatory, framework, 210, 224,
political, 15, 40, 41, 45, 94, 142, 233, 239
151, 204 regulatory, power, 20, 229, 230, 235,
rhetorical, 47 240
social, 34, 336 renewable energy sources (RES),
preventive measures, 285–7, 289, 117, 121, 127–9, 137, 184,
291, 292, 299 194, 228, (see also renewables)
Projects of Common Interest (PCI), renewables, vi, 14, 17, 117–32,
233, 234 140–2, 181, 184, 185, 187,
Prontera, Andrea, 166, 226, 227 188, 190–2, 194–7, 292, 296,
Public Service Obligations (PSO), 298, 305n34, 334
288, 289 resilience, 11, 12, 36, 124, 128, 129,
Putin, Vladimir, 239, 265 140, 158, 182, 193, 194, 230,
262
reverse capacity, 233
Q Rheinsberg Nuclear Power Plant,
Qaddafi, Muammar al, 317 121
Qatar, 225, 257 Rhineland-Palatinate, 134
Ribbentrop-Molotov (Hitler-Stalin)
pact, 66, 87n1, 265
R risk, 10–12, 14, 16, 22n1, 22n2, 34,
R&D policies, 290 36, 46, 47, 50, 62, 64–70,
Reagan, Ronald, 278, 301n9 72–8, 80, 81, 83, 84, 89n22,
realism, 253, 302n19 93–5, 98, 99, 101, 103–5,
Red Line Agreement, 316–18 108–11, 119, 120, 124, 132,
348  Index

135, 137–40, 157, 158, 160, jargon vs. proper, 38, 47, 49, 50,
169, 177, 182, 185, 197, 213, 64, 153
224, 234, 238, 239, 255, 258, philosophical approach, 160, 169
265, 284, 291, 294, 311, 336 power relations, 161–3
risk assessment (RA), 95, 96, securitizing actors, 36, 38, 49,
103–10, 138, 287, 292, 294 161–4
riskification, 15–17, 34, 38, 46, 47, securitizing move, 36–9, 50, 65,
49, 50, 64–6, 68, 70, 73, 75, 76, 142, 143, 153, 163
76, 84, 88n15, 89n26, sociological approach, 160, 161,
93–112, 120, 139, 140, 142, 166, 167, 169
158, 160, 334 theory, 3, 13, 15, 37, 39–44, 46,
Rosatom, 186 49, 62, 63, 69–73, 76–9,
rules of the game, 35–7, 165, 181 87n6, 207, 211, 216
Russian-Ukrainian gas conflicts, 77, types of audiences, 162, 163
80, 231 security, 1, 33, 61, 117, 149,
Russian-Ukrainian gas disputes, 2, 177–98, 203, 221, 252–4,
279 256–63, 265–8, 277, 311
Russia/Russian Federation, 6, 61, 68, discourse, 9, 34, 47, 49, 50, 119,
97, 98, 100, 179, 213, 222, 154, 157, 163, 335
230, 231, 251, 278, 301n10, grammar, 38, 51–3, 154, 155
311 imaginary, 12, 18, 54n3, 130, 142
jargon, 15–17, 34, 38, 47, 49,
64–6, 68, 70, 73–6, 79, 84,
S 85, 88n15, 89n25, 89n26, 94,
safety, 94, 95, 105, 106, 108, 110, 103, 107, 109, 110, 123, 128,
132, 133, 137–9, 185, 186, 142, 143, 153, 334, 335
289, 305n35, 328 logics, 9, 194
sanctions, 189, 216, 227, 260, 261, of demand, 254
312 of supply, 100, 143, 182, 215,
Saudi Arabia, 318, 319, 322 221, 224, 231, 233, 254, 255,
Scandinavia, 69, 72 257, 259, 267, 289, 316, 317,
securitisation, 94–6, 101, 102, 109, 324, 326
112, 149, 312, 325 sectors, 154, 156, 336
causality, 160 studies, 11, 12, 15, 17, 19, 20,
context, 101, 160, 213 34, 38, 49, 118, 151, 163,
definition, 54n4, 312 282–4, 312, 334–7
existential threats, 37, 50, 312 Sejm (Polish Parliament), 68–72, 79,
extraordinary measures, 102, 212 84, 87n8, 88n9, 88n12,
  Index 
   349

88n15, 89n27, 90n31, 90n32, subsidies, 184, 187, 188, 190, 227,
119 230, 321
self-fulfilling geopolitics, 131 Supply Standard (SS), 287
Services of General Interest (SGI), sustainability, 19, 165, 178, 179,
289 184, 190, 191, 195–7, 223,
“the Seven Sisters,”, 317, 329n3 224, 229, 255, 296, 298–300
shale gas, 93, 229, 258 Sustainable Development Goals,
Siberia, 180, 278 187, 196
Sikorski, Radosław, 62, 66, 84, 85, Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All),
100, 151, 153, 265 187
Slovakia, 6, 7, 12, 66, 233, 258, 277 Sweden, 63, 66, 76, 263, 277
small and medium-sized enterprises Świnoujście, 65, 70, 72, 81, 84, 85,
(SMEs), 298 233
smart meters, 296 Switzerland, 185
Social-democratic party (SPD), symbolic interactionism, 283,
Germany, 45, 108, 266 302n19
solidarity, 3, 74, 82, 125, 178, 189, Syria, 318
190, 193, 197, 241 Szejnfeld, Stanisław, 66, 87n7
principle, 294
Sonik, Bogusław, 88n10, 88n11
Soviet Union, 62, 251, 252, 264, T
325 take-or-pay (TOP), 279
Spain, 128, 241, 277 Tauron, 143
SPD (see Social-democratic party Tennet, 124
(SPD), Germany) terrorism, 40, 135, 261
speech act, 15, 34–6, 38, 39, 42–4, Third Energy Package, 2, 63, 189,
94, 95, 110, 129, 130, 134, 214, 234
161, 163, 166–9, 212, 312 threat, 9, 10, 13, 16, 17, 20, 34–8,
standardisation, 285, 292, 303n22 40–3, 45–50, 62, 64–6, 68,
Starosta, Waldemar, 82 70, 72, 75, 76, 79–81, 83,
state of exception, 41 84, 89n21, 89n22, 94, 97,
State of the Energy Union, 224 99, 103, 109, 110, 112, 118,
Statoil, 188, 236, 241 120, 123–36, 138, 140–2,
Steenblock, Rainder, 74, 75, 83 151–4, 156–60, 169, 208,
stocks, 138, 194, 279, 288, 292–4, 213, 215, 222, 227, 231,
302n12, 303n25, 311 233–5, 241, 251, 253–9,
storage, 74, 124, 137, 197, 286, 287, 263–7, 278, 283, 284, 291,
289, 292, 298, 303n25 294, 311–13, 321, 335, 336
stress tests, 2, 192, 233, 292 Three Mile Island, 137
350  Index

Tihange 2 Nuclear Power Plant, 134 United Kingdom (UK), 185, 186,
toolbox, 20, 228, 241 190, 196, 208, 232, 236, 241,
torpedoes, 75 277, 301n5, 312, 314–16
Trans-European transmission and United Nations Framework
distribution gas networks, 287 Convention on Climate
transit, 8, 11, 62, 63, 65, 66, 71, 73, Change (UNFCCC), 186, 188
75, 77, 78, 81, 165, 214, 216, United States (US), 93, 97, 99, 100,
231, 252, 257, 263, 265, 288, 102, 105, 118, 181–3, 185,
291, 292, 295, 326 187, 193, 195, 208, 223, 229,
transmission, vi, 10, 119, 122, 124, 258, 278, 311, 312, 314–19,
131, 194, 197, 210, 237, 279, 322, 323, 327
289, 302n12, 303n22, 303n25 Upper Silesia, 127
infrastructure, 16
Transmission System Operator
(TSO), 131, 132, 140, 208, V
288 values, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 22n6, 35,
transparency, 41, 47, 109, 138, 234, 41, 102, 103, 119, 123, 159,
288–90, 297 168, 190, 229, 232, 239, 241,
Treaty of Lisbon, 190, 192 255, 265, 277, 278, 280–4,
Trump, Donald, 185, 187, 312 286–90, 292, 294–6,
Turkish Petroleum Company, 315, 298–300, 313, 336
316 Venezuela, 318
Tusk, Donald, 3, 84, 85, 133, 135, virtual trading point (VTP), 287,
178, 198, 242, 255, 294 293, 297
vital energy systems, vi, 4, 11–13,
15, 16, 36, 118, 152, 156,
U 193, 197, 215
Ukraine, 2, 20, 62, 66, 74, 77, 80, vulnerability, vi, ix, 4, 11–15, 17, 20,
81, 107, 119, 177, 179, 189, 34, 36, 46, 94, 125, 129, 140,
214, 216, 226, 231–3, 239, 142, 152, 156–8, 193, 194,
325 215, 231, 251, 285, 336
crisis, 18, 125, 178, 188, 251, Vyborg, 63
252, 256, 259, 261, 262,
266–8, 279
transit, 62, 214, 216, 231, 252, W
257, 263 Warsaw, 7, 96, 120, 143
unbundling, 209, 214, 288, 289 Warsaw Energy Exchange, 131
underground storage facilities, 287 Waszczykowski, Witold, 258
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Western Pomerania, 129
(USSR), 278, 279 Westinghouse, 186
  Index 
   351

Wiśniewska, Jadwiga, 85, 90n33 Yamal/Urengoi, 278

WWF, 76, 144n4 Yamani, Shiek Ahmed Zaki, 319

Y Z
Yamal II gas pipeline, 62, 65, 66 Żarnowiec, 133, 137
Yamal-Europe gas pipeline, 62, 65,
72