EU-Russia Energy Dialogue: economic and political dimensions

Abstract

Against the background of strong and long-standing energy interdependence between the European Union and Russia, the two partners agreed in 2000 to launch the Energy Dialogue, which was intended to intensify their cooperation and to eliminate related problems. The political and economic dimensions of the EU–Russia Energy Dialogue are presented and studied in this article. The aim is to analyse the scale of their impact on the basis of some important projects within this dialogue, taking into account the overall context. The results of conducted analysis demonstrate that while this comprehensive instrument for jointly creating the future of the two co-dependent partners should bring apparent improvements, its functionality is hindered by various economic and political factors. The latter, in particular, have had a significant impact, putting the Energy Dialogue on hold, not lastly with the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis and growing bilateral and multilateral political tensions. Today, 20 years after the commissioning of this seemingly so fruitful platform of the Energy Dialogue, we are looking at a very disappointing intermediate assessment. Various problems of the Energy Dialogue hinder not only cooperation development based on trust, legal norms and understanding, but also existing and partly active projects, such as the Roadmap EU–Russia Energy Cooperation until 2050 and Nord Stream 2, which are being pushed into the uncertain future. However, in view of existing and possible further projects in the energy sector, it is necessary to create the functional dialogue format.