Russia's war against Ukraine and the ensuing state of de facto energy war between Russia and the West have had unprecedented consequences for European and global energy markets including, above all, the natural gas market. On the one hand, it reinforces EU energy & climate policy objectives and accelerated their implementation: shift away from fossil fuels and increase in the role of renewable energy and energy efficiency, but the 2022 energy crisis and ensuing structural changes have been very costly, leading to record energy prices, the reconfiguration of gas flows, and a new era of volatility and uncertainty in the Eurmarkets. This was exacerbated by increased risks to security of critical EU energy infrastructure, especially for gas infrastructure following unexplained acts of sabotage on the Baltic Sea; Russia Nord Stream 1 and 2, and the Finnish-Estonian Balticconnector. Furthermore, some Ukrainian energy infrastructure sits on a major front in the ongoing war.
The changes and challenges in the gas market were particularly impactful in the V4 countries. Before the war, they were heavily dependent on Russian energy resources, especially natural gas imports. Three of V4 countries are landlocked, with no direct access to the seas and the global LNG market, reinforcing reliance on other cross-border infrastructure to bring gas to market. All V4 countries are linked to Russia by gas pipelines, either those from communist times (being Ukrainian transit pipelines and Yamal pipeline) or more recent ones (Nord Stream & TurkStream and their onshore legs). Russian aggression was a powerful stress test for the energy and security of supply strategies of the countries in the region and exposed existing vulnerabilities and inefficiencies.
In 2022, along with the rest of the EU, V4 countries reduced year on year gas consumption and, despite high prices, built up inventory. At the same time, the shock of the war and the crisis also revealed deepening divisions within the V4, both in terms of individual security of supply strategies and towards the EU-wide strategy of decoupling from Russian supplies. Currently Poland and the Czech Republic are de facto independent of Russian gas, with Poland being one of the first EU countries to go without Russian imports (from the end of April 2022). Slovakia and Hungary, meanwhile, are among the last few EU member states still importing gas from Russia. However, there is a significant difference in approach; Slovakia has reduced its dependence and sought alternative sources and routes of supply, while Hungary - despite some diversification efforts to secure Azeri or new LNG sources - has remained the only country in the EU to de facto increase Russian imports while keeping an ongoing relationship with the Kremlin at the highest government level.
The paper was part of the V4ETTP 2023 programme supported by the International Visegrad Fund.
