Abstract
European discourses increasingly frame 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 securitisation of discourses. It argues that realist theory does not provide a satisfactory explanation because most of the alleged threats to EU energy security are constructed discursively and are not based on actual vulnerabilities. As a social constructivist approach suggests, identity plays an important role in this process. The Ukraine conflict has strengthened perceptions of Russia as a threatening Other, which were deeply rooted especially in the national identities of East-Central European countries. This has affected perceptions of energy trade too, which has thus become the subject of acrimonious political contestation.
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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 making 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.
- 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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Siddi, M. (2018). Identities and Vulnerabilities: The Ukraine Crisis and the Securitisation of the EU-Russia Gas Trade. In: Szulecki, K. (eds) Energy Security in Europe. Energy, Climate and the Environment. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1_10
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