Description: European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen has outlined the bloc’s strategy to completely cut Europe’s dependence on Russian oil, gas or nuclear – powered electricity by 2027. Strife division and discontent was created with eastern members of the Union such as Slovakia and Hungary, which have completely denounced the Commission’s plans as it would mean an economic suicide for the EU and considerably lower the bloc’s energy competitiveness. Europe started lowering its energy dependence on Russian natural resources ever since the latter’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. EU’s gas and oil imports have lowered from 45% before 2022 to just 19% in 2024, with countries such as France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic still being highly reliant on Russian supply.
Impact: Europe’s energy dependence issues are developing into a long-lasting strategic problem for the bloc with most countries having difficulties transferring from fossil fuels towards sustainable energy sources. Russia despite being the country with the most favorable geostrategic position to supply Europe with energy has also monopolized the market over the years by offering favorable prices and having developed highly reliable infrastructure across the continent. Europe currently has no strategic energy prospects for achieving the elusive independence which signaled that the positions of countries such as Hungary or Slovakia were justified despite the fact that their respective political establishments were pro – Russian. Russia has leveraged Europe’s energy dependence on its natural resources to fuel their military powered budget through the so – called shadow fleet since it officially faced heavy sanctions from western countries. Energy incidents such as last month’s power outages in Spain, Portugal and France outlined that Europe’s ambitions plan to cut energy ties with Russia by 2027 is highly unlikely to succeed. Europe would have to devise extensive strategic partnerships with countries essential to their energy infrastructure in order to begin to conceptualize some form of energy independence while Russia would continue to boost their wartime economy circumventing sanctions and weaponizing their natural resources to keep Europe in a geopolitically submissive position.