The EU-Russian Energy Dialogue


Book Description

EU-Russian energy dialogue represents a policy issue that forces us to take a serious look at several crucial questions related to the present and future of Europe such as: how can the EU area ensure its future energy security when it is running out of its own energy resources and at the same time incorporating new members who are also dependent on energy imports? This book not only outlines the overall characteristics of the energy dialogue, but also illustrates the involved policy implementation challenges by paying special attention to the regional context of northern Europe. The study contributes to diverse fields such as international relations and political science, European studies, studies on energy politics, international political economy, post-Soviet politics, and literature on regionalization and regionalisms, with a special reference to northern Europe.




The EU-Russian Energy Dialogue


Book Description

EU-Russian energy dialogue represents a policy issue that forces us to take a serious look at several crucial questions related to the present and future of Europe such as: how can the EU area ensure its future energy security when it is running out of its own energy resources and at the same time incorporating new members who are also dependent on energy imports? This book not only outlines the overall characteristics of the energy dialogue, but also illustrates the involved policy implementation challenges by paying special attention to the regional context of northern Europe. The study contributes to diverse fields such as international relations and political science, European studies, studies on energy politics, international political economy, post-Soviet politics, and literature on regionalization and regionalisms, with a special reference to northern Europe.




Russian Energy Chains


Book Description

Russia’s use of its vast energy resources for leverage against post-Soviet states such as Ukraine is widely recognized as a threat. Yet we cannot understand this danger without also understanding the opportunity that Russian energy represents. From corruption-related profits to transportation-fee income to subsidized prices, many within these states have benefited by participating in Russian energy exports. To understand Russian energy power in the region, it is necessary to look at the entire value chain—including production, processing, transportation, and marketing—and at the full spectrum of domestic and external actors involved, from Gazprom to regional oligarchs to European Union regulators. This book follows Russia’s three largest fossil-fuel exports—natural gas, oil, and coal—from production in Siberia through transportation via Ukraine to final use in Germany in order to understand the tension between energy as threat and as opportunity. Margarita M. Balmaceda reveals how this dynamic has been a key driver of political development in post-Soviet states in the period between independence in 1991 and Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. She analyzes how the physical characteristics of different types of energy, by shaping how they can be transported, distributed, and even stolen, affect how each is used—not only technically but also politically. Both a geopolitical travelogue of the journey of three fossil fuels across continents and an incisive analysis of technology’s role in fossil-fuel politics and economics, this book offers new ways of thinking about energy in Eurasia and beyond.




The Routledge Handbook of EU-Russia Relations


Book Description

The Routledge Handbook of EU-Russia Relations offers a comprehensive overview of the changing dynamics in relations between the EU and Russia provided by leading experts in the field. Coherently organised into seven parts, the book provides a structure through which EU-Russia relations can be studied in a comprehensive yet manageable fashion. It provides readers with the tools to deliver critical analysis of this sometimes volatile and polarising relationship, so new events and facts can be conceptualised in an objective and critical manner. Informed by high-quality academic research and key bilateral data/statistics, it further brings scope, balance and depth, with chapters contributed by a range of experts from the EU, Russia and beyond. Chapters deal with a wide range of policy areas and issues that are highly topical and fundamental to understanding the continuing development of EU-Russia relations, such as political and security relations, economic relations, social relations and regional and global governance. The Routledge Handbook of EU-Russia Relations aims to promote dialogue between the different research agendas in EU-Russia relations, as well as between Russian and Western scholars and, hopefully, also between civil societies. As such, it will be an essential reference for scholars, students, researchers, policymakers and journalists interested and working in the fields of Russian politics/studies, EU studies/politics, European politics/studies, post-Communist/post-Soviet politics and international relations. The Routledge Handbook of EU-Russia Relations is part of a mini-series Europe in the World Handbooks examining EU-regional relations established by Professor Wei Shen.




Russian Energy Strategy in the European Union, the Former Soviet Union Region, and China


Book Description

This book places Eurasia in its entirety within a single explanatory framework and examines, for the first time to that extent, Russia as a Eurasian energy power in its affairs with the two main geopolitical players of the region, the EU and China. Part of this geopolitical space is the Former Soviet Union (FSU) region which shares deep historical-political ties with Russia and constitutes the necessary crossing for the latter’s natural gas supplies en route to the EU market.In this way, an energy triangle is established, with Russia at the top angle, the EU in the left angle, China in the right angle and the FSU region the median.Following the scheme, three bipolar relationships emerge, Russia-FSU region, Russia-EU and Russia-China, with each of them representing a different type of bilateral cooperation. In the first case there is an asymmetric relationship with one actor being overly powerful, in terms of energy, to impose its conditions, economic and political, on the other. In the second case there is a symmetric relationship with both actors having equal means of pressure at their disposal. Finally, in the third case there is balanced relationship with both actors trading on an equal basis. Within this framework, one of the dominant theoretical debates in the field of International Relations, that between Neorealism and Neoliberal Institutionalism (the so-called ‘Neo-Neo’ debate) seeks to shed light on the governing rationale beyond Putin’s Russia foreign energy policy vis-à-vis the FSU region, the EU and China.




Russian Energy Policy During President Putin's Tenure


Book Description

This important report looks at the policies and strategies President Putin has developed in the field of energy and at the current climate for foreign investors in the sector. Russian energy policy is at an important watershed. A substantial increase in the output of oil & gas, has led some analysts to view Russia as a reliable, alternative to global dependence on energy supplies from the Gulf. On the other hand, there are concerns that current Russian energy strategy comes closer to the Venezuelan OCyenergy state-capitalismOCO model where foreign energy companies are welcome to invest, but only on MoscowOCOs terms and in partnership with a state-controlled national energy company. How are these strategies unfolding and what are the lessons for private sector investors?"




The Politics of Power


Book Description

This book sheds new light on the complex EU-Russia relationship, by providing the first comprehensive account of the EU-Russia Energy Dialogue. The author examines why Moscow and Brussels have failed to cooperate in this crucial area of interdependence. By invoking constructivism and Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of dialogue, and drawing on dozens of interviews with Russian and European officials, Talseth argues that the Energy Dialogue was unsuccessful because its interlocutors failed to come up with a common narrative for cooperation. Evidence suggests that the collapse of the Energy Dialogue was not pre-determined and initially there was a great deal of optimism and goodwill. Ultimately, the outcome of the Energy Dialogue was shaped by the unfolding time-space of Russo-European relations.




EU Leadership in Energy and Environmental Governance


Book Description

This edited collection focuses on the impact of the changing global distribution of power on the EU's energy policy and ability to project its approach to energy-related issues abroad. It maps the EU's changing position on global energy, the impact of various factors on its energy policy, and its relations with Russia, China, the USA and Brazil.




Reviewing European Union Accession


Book Description

The year 2017 has been an uneasy one for the EU, with so-called Brexit on the horizon and the rise of populist euroskepticism in a number of Member States. This year, with the tenth anniversary of the Romanian and Bulgarian accession to the Union, is a good year to pause and reflect over the life and future of the Union. In this work, we envision the next decade with Europe 2020 strategy and review the fruits of the 2004 accession in Central and Eastern Europe. What has the Union achieved? Which policy areas are likely to change and how? How successful, and by what measure, has the accession of the 10 Member States in 2004 been? Reviewing European Union Accession addresses a wide range of issues, deliberately without any thematic constraints, in order to explore EU enlargement from a variety of perspectives, both scientific and geographical, internal and external. In contrast to the major works in this field, we highlight the interrelated, and often unexpected, nature of the integration process – hence the subtitle, unexpected results, spillover effects and externalities.




EU-Russia Energy Relations


Book Description

This book explores the timely topic of energy security and international relations between the European Union and the Russian Federation. Pursuing a constructivist-discursive approach, it empirically analyses a corpus of energy discourses involving policymakers and representatives of the EU and the Russian Federation. Exploring various discursive meanings assigned to the material and technical character of EU-Russian energy relations, the monograph underscores how the identities and interests of both parties are strongly affected by the norms and values which frame the individual energy discourses.