The EU Is Destroying Its Own Energy Security With The Planned Russian Oil Embargo

The EU is destroying its own energy security with the planned Russian oil embargo

Timur Fomenko

The European Union, this week, announced ambitious proposals to embargo the importation of Russian oil by the end of 2022. After teeth-pulling negotiations which have been met with strident objections from several member states, including Hungary and Slovakia, and public doubt over the impact of such measures, its Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyden declared that these measures would be gradually implemented throughout the course of the year.

Despite marketing the measures as tough, for multiple reasons the EU is set to be the biggest loser of such an effort. The proposed embargo reveals a huge strategic vulnerability in its “energy security” – the ability of a state, or group of states, to secure access to energy resources when they are not capable of producing enough of their own. When you consider how many wars have been fought by the West purely over access to oil supplies, including two in Iraq, this is a big deal.

For the EU, cutting off oil dependency continues to be a difficult step which will exacerbate already surging energy costs and inflation across the continent. How will the bloc find new supplies? And if so, surely relying more on other partners will bring new dangers?

In the year 2020, 29% of the EU’s imported crude oil came from Russia, 9% from the US, 8% from Norway, 7% each from Saudi Arabia and the UK, and 6% apiece from Kazakhstan and Nigeria. The removal of the largest market, Russia, means the bloc now has to increase its imports from the others.

The natural candidates of course are the Persian Gulf states. This means the EU’s strategic dependency on continued access to oil resources in the Middle East is drastically increased, raising the bargaining power and political leverage of these countries.

However, all evidence so far points to OPEC states benefitting from higher prices and refusing to cooperate with Western demands to increase production.

As a result, the EU is making a huge mistake in its foreign policy and has no contingency plan or strategy to address this emerging problem.

This all places a gaping hole in the EU’s foreign policy when it comes to strategic “energy security”. While endeavouring to reduce “strategic dependence” on Russia, they are merely creating a patched-up dependency on other regions instead, opening the doors to new risks.