GEOPOLITICAL CONFLICT AND STRUCTURAL VULNERABILITIES IN EUROPEAN UNION ENERGY SECURITY

Abstract

Energy security has become a central strategic concern for the European Union as geopolitical conflicts increasingly disrupt global energy markets. The Russia Ukraine war in 2022 showed that the EU relied on external energy suppliers for its natural gas needs which caused major price fluctuations and delivery problems throughout European markets. Before the invasion Russia supplied approximately 45 percent of EU gas imports which demonstrated the danger created by their concentrated gas supply sources. Recent Middle Eastern geopolitical conflicts which impact energy transportation routes and oil extraction operations, have created new challenges for maintaining worldwide energy transportation systems. This article studies how geopolitical conflicts show the existing weaknesses in the European Union energy security framework. The research uses institutional analysis together with actual energy market data which comes from Eurostat and the International Energy Agency as well as European Commission reports to study European energy markets through three key factors which include import dependency and supply concentration and energy price fluctuations. The research results show that the EU faces increased risk from outside geopolitical events because its member states depend heavily on foreign energy sources and maintain limited relationships with particular suppliers and need multiple governing bodies to manage their operations. The European energy system still contains basic vulnerabilities despite the development of REPowerEU which enhanced its capacity to develop diversified energy sources and strengthen its infrastructure.