EU Gas Consumption Before Russia-Ukraine War and Future Perspectives

Abstract

Security issues have always been important for every country. It was mostly identified with the military. But later it was explained that it depended on the following conditions: security for whom, how much, from what, by what means, at what cost, and in what period. Energy is needed for the economy. It is used in various sectors, like, industry, transport, household, etc. Oil and natural gas are still considered significant energy resources in the world. Some examples from history can be drawn, like the 2006 and 2009 gas wars between Russia and Ukraine. Then Russia cut gas supplies to Ukraine as well as the EU to show it its ‘gas’ power. But after starting of the war between Russia and Ukraine, the Russian threats became much clearer and the partnership more unreliable than it was. The purpose of the present issue is to analyse how Russia tried to increase its gas share in EU consumption and import, which also means the soaring Russian political influence on the EU by increasing the gas supply to the EU with the recovering gas transit through Ukraine, and the application of NordStream2 and TurkStream pipelines. Its purpose is also to give information about EU member countries consuming and importing Russian gas before and after the war of Russia-Ukraine (future perspective) (February 24, 2022). Here are used quantitative and qualitative methodologies to investigate and compare the world/EU energy/gas consumption in 2020 in the background of energy importance and economic-political experiences. At the end of the presented article, there are given logical conclusions, which will help and provide the proper society, business, or any interested persons with the proper issues.