Energy trade with Russia as an energy security aspect of the EU

This diploma thesis deals with the issue of security aspects of the EU's energy trade with third countries and views it through the lens of economic interdependence. The biggest long-term challenge to the EU's energy security is the strong dependence on energy supply from Russia. From the point of view of security of demand, the European Union states were economically significant importers of Russian energy production before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This thesis asks how this mutual economic interdependence in the field of energy manifests itself in the EU and in Russia. Dependence on the import of energy sources from Russia varies greatly across member states, so this work further examines what the EU's internal differentiation is and how it is reflected in the articulation of EU-wide energy policy. This thesis answers these questions using the example of the import of oil, and especially natural gas. The key method is the analysis of the structure of the suppliers of these resources. This analysis is first applied to the EU as a whole and then the individual member states are analyzed in a similar way. Geographical clusters of EU internal differentiation are identified by simultaneous comparison of member states in terms of supplier structure. The result of the work is the identification of asymmetries in economic interdependence. The EU is relatively more energy dependent on natural gas supplies from Russia compared to oil. Russia, on the other hand, is economically more vulnerable in the area of oil exports to the EU compared to its exports of natural gas. The work further identified three groups of geographic clusters based on dependence on natural gas imports from Russia and further comprehensively analyzed energy policy priorities that draw from this dependence. In the last part, this work deals with the current discussion and the past development of potential EU-wide solutions to the issue of dependence on Russian energy imports.