FROM POST-COLD WAR INTERDEPENDENCE TO STRATEGIC DECOUPLING: REDUCING THE EU’S DEPENDENCE ON ENERGY RESOURCES FROM THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION (2022-2025)

Abstract

This article examines, through the lens of energy security understood as resilience, the European Union’s accelerated decoupling from Russian energy resources between 2022 and 2025, against the backdrop of energy’s transformation from a largely economic commodity into a geopolitical instrument in post-Cold War Europe. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 catalysed a strategic rupture with the interdependence paradigm consolidated over previous decades, prompting the EU to adopt REPowerEU, mandatory storage and coordinated demand-reduction measures, and successive sanctions packages. Empirically, EU imports of Russian gas declined, aggregate gas demand fell over 2021-2024, and Russia’s share of EU crude oil imports dropped sharply. The case studies (Germany; Poland and the Lithuania; Italy; and South-Eastern Europe, including Romania) highlight divergent national pathways, while the risk assessment section addresses persistent dependencies (Hungary and Slovakia) and the challenge of circumvention via intermediaries, swaps, and hub-based transactions.