The situation in the European Union (EU) gas sector is worsening as the winter season approaches and gas shortages increase due to supply disruptions. The price of natural gas fluctuates around 2,800-3,500 euros (about 340 euros per MWh) per thousand cubic meters and may exceed 4,000 euros if Russia decides to stop all supplies, including transit through Ukraine (except for Turkish Stream). Vladimir Putin has already announced that Nord Stream 1 deliveries will be suspended indefinitely until sanctions on the gas sector are lifted. European politicians are aware that Russia is using natural gas as a weapon of economic warfare. Focusing on stopping Russian military aggression against Ukraine, the EU went down the path of sanctions and forgot to give equal priority to preparing for an imminent gas war, given that Russia has both the necessary technical leverage and militaristic political motivation.

According to the EU’s official position, along with the rest of the West, it is resorting to sanctions to hit the Russian economy, cause it to collapse and damage its military potential. However, the manipulation of natural gas supplies is the only way Moscow believes it can create fragmentation and dissociation around anti-Russian sanctions at the European level in order to break European unity in favor of Ukraine. It still needs military aid in the form of highly effective weapons and training, financial aid (preferably in the form of grants), and care for the millions of Ukrainian refugees scattered across Europe. And the West’s openness to providing aid to Ukraine is largely influenced by its ability to return territories occupied by Russian troops. For this reason, Russia is interested in exacerbating the energy crisis in the EU in order to forcibly shift the political attention of the elites in the member states from the Ukrainian issue to the domestic agenda and the prevention or management of anti-government protests.

Three main intentions of Russia

Waging a kind of war of economic attrition against the EU (IPN, August 2022), the Russian side seems to be pursuing several other goals in addition to the one related to the final or partial paralysis of sanctions and political dissociation regarding the rationality of their maintenance.

Primo, Russia is using the EU’s energy crisis to create psychological comfort among the Russian population, which is told that European consumers pay prices for natural gas that are more than 40 times higher than in Russia (Kommersant, September 2022). Given the limited military successes of Russia and the fact that the annexation of the occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions may be complicated by a Ukrainian counteroffensive, the deterioration of the socio-economic situation of Europeans may become a strong incentive for anti-Western propaganda. The same economic considerations are also attractive to the efforts of the Russian government to preserve Western companies that suffer reputational losses in favor of financial gains and have not left Russia (about 240 international companies).

Second, the same energy crisis or gas war between Russia and the EU is a signal to other states that depend on Russian gas, which is bought at subsidized prices in exchange for political loyalty (Armenia, Serbia or Hungary). This is intended to deter the departure from the Russian orbit of influence. However, the calculations are short-term, since the authority of Russia as an exporter of energy resources is at stake. Moscow is convinced that the EU’s energy decoupling can be compensated by a reorientation of supplies to the south (China, India), which in fact uses the enmity between Russia and the West to gain access to cheaper energy resources.

Third, exorbitantly high prices for natural gas (not only Russian gas) are fueling the inflationary spiral in the EU, and at the same time mobilizing the social frustration of the vulnerable sections of the population against the political elites. Partly anti-government protests, which may intensify following the model of the recent anti-sanctions protests in the Czech Republic (between 75,000 and 100,000 protesters), could disrupt the political scene in several European states. This risk increases significantly where early elections are planned for September-October (Italy and Bulgaria). Supporters of mass protests in Europe can be not only groups sympathetic to Russia, but also anti-government movements without a clear geopolitical agenda, but which have intensified due to Russian disinformation formulated around the pandemic (2020-2021). The spirit of protest, unleashed by social causes (access to food, energy poverty, etc.), can be used by Moscow to generate political crises in Europe and open the door to negotiations to end the war, but based on conditions imposed by the Russian side. Ukraine will not accept such an outcome, so Russia is trying to force the EU to capitulate in order to weaken Ukrainian resistance.

Three main dilemmas of the EU

Both Brussels and most European capitals have demonstrated poor management of the risks associated with Russia’s vulnerability before and during the war against Ukraine. Vulnerabilities were either underestimated, ignored, or addressed with insufficient political commitment.

The two main problems that needed more serious study by European officials and politicians are (1) the unlearned lessons of the past and (2) a rather superficial approach to the early warning signs of the crystallization of the energy crisis. So, on the one hand, a significant part of European leaders ignored the previous experience when Russia used gas supplies for political purposes; others have not learned how to build coalitions to define EU energy sustainability as an immediate strategic goal. On the other hand, the increase in the price of natural gas started already in 2021. So, in October 2021 the price was more than 1,000 euros/m3, or more than three times less than in September 2022. Anomalies occurred on the gas market. practically in parallel with the mobilization of Russian troops on the borders with Ukraine in preparation for the beginning of the invasion at the end of February 2022. Therefore, both European officials and politicians in the member states had more than six months before the start of the war to propose market interventions, starting with monitoring natural gas prices, investigating the cause of price increases and, accordingly, preventing them. Slippages in the energy market, which are unsteadily resolved by the EU, together with the fall of Belarus under the full influence of Moscow as a result of unsuccessful democratic protests in the summer of 2020 (IPN, September 2020), were among the considerations that convinced Vladimir Putin to start a war against Ukraine in 2022 ( neither earlier nor later).

Currently, the EU needs to make a number of significant efforts in a short period of time to deal with the energy crisis and create some minimal semblance of sustainability. There are at least five dilemmas in which European institutions and member states must demonstrate unity and resilience in order not to become the losing side in the Russian gas war.

FirstThe EU needs strong energy diplomacy that is at least synchronized, if not convergent, with that of its member states. Currently, European officials are signing memorandums of cooperation (with Azerbaijan) along EU lines, while France, Germany, and Italy are using their own political and diplomatic connections to demand increased pipeline capacity and liquefied gas exports from Africa, the Caspian Sea, or the Eastern Middle region. (Algeria, Nigeria, Azerbaijan, Qatar). However, the new agreements cannot have an immediate effect, but only in the medium and long term, including on the condition that exporting countries invest in production facilities.

The second topic with the potential for fluctuation from the EU is a proposal to cap the cost of Russian natural gas coming through the pipeline. Member countries will meet to discuss limits on gas purchase prices on September 8. Moscow has warned that it will also react quickly by cutting off all gas supplies to Europe. Such a European intervention and, accordingly, a Russian countermeasure will create a deficit on the market in a situation where European states have already begun to use gas from their gas fields for current consumption. This situation could be mitigated if the EU’s allies (Norway, USA) agreed to export gas at a price limited to the EU in relation to Russia and at the same time increase the volume of exports to compensate for the loss of Russian gas. It is also possible that Hungary and other member states that want to keep contracts with Russia will sabotage the cap initiative. Anti-government protests, which have already taken place in the Czech Republic and Germany, may frighten other governments at the European level. Read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro