La Seguridad Energética como factor relevante para el desarrollo de la autonomía estratégica de la UE (2014-2021)

Abstract

Energy is a main element of human development. Without energy, modern societies would not exist in the way we know them nowadays, the economic growth would be constrained by the limits of human physical ability and social welfare would find itself in prior Industrial Revolution rates. In the last century, the changes in the productive systems, the globalizing processes and the spread of consumption society have led a constant increase of the worldwide necessity of energy. These have produced the access and control of energy have become a key in national security. However, the preponderance of fossil fuel in the global economy has led many countries to a situation of endemic dependence. A large number of industrialised countries have not got hydrocarbon reserves. This situation means that the national economic and social stability largely depends on its capacity to secure the constant supply and do it with affordable prices of energy. This has led to a politicization of the international markets of petroleum and natural gas, a system which is partially intervened, complex and changeable in which countries use the resources as a power tool to be able to defend their own interests on the global scene. In this volatile context, the EU finds itself in a situation of significant disadvantage. Considering that the EU’s progress and prosperity are bound to external supply, the UE Member States have to make a huge effort to keep a high level of energetic security, which is not always possible due to inner weaknesses in the European Union energy system as well as the susceptibility of its external position. This fact has become more worrying for over a decade because of, among other facts, the increase of the global geopolitical tension, the climate change, the distancing with the main energetic fellows, the instability in neighbouring countries, the appearance of new non-state threats and the answer of the rules-based international order promoted by the European institutions. To face these new challenges the EU must act as a real global power, carrying out strategies which allow itself to defend its worldwide self-interest in an assertive way in a scene in which rivalry between powers is growing. Nevertheless, it is evident that this outer act is conditioned by the urgent necessity of energetic supply, which, in many facts, prevents a firm and independent action. In this way, the main purpose of this research is to analyse how a low level of energetic security restricts the EU outer action and how it prevents the EU from fully achieving its global objectives. This produces a difficulty in an independent and determined act due to the constant need to access sources of energy which are not available in the European Union territory. All this is specifically outstanding owing to the main target of the European foreign policy, which was set up in the Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy of 2016, is to act in the international scene with a high level of autonomous strategy. This will be hard-pressed to achieve if the self-sufficiency of energy is not improved. On the other hand, it is important to study how the development of the European energetic security is conditioned not only by the high outer dependence but also by the own weaknesses of the inner market. Among them we can find the low interconnection between the UE Member States, the lack of a strong legislation or the inadequate own production. Moreover, and according to the aforementioned ideas, this research also aims to examine the opportunities that the already urgent change towards a more sustainable model may offer to the EU to achieve its objectives both in terms of energetic security and in the development of its strategic autonomy. On the matter of energetic security, the need of achieving the climatic neutrality will imply the progressive substitution of hydrocarbons by sources of renewable energy, which will imply the progress towards energetic self-sufficiency and therefore, the reduction of outer dependence and the increase of European energetic security. All these will specially occur if other similar strategies are carried out successfully, such as the increase of energetic efficiency or the establishment of a circular economy. In terms of the development of its strategic autonomy, the leadership of the UE in the climatic global transition and the development of international relations in the most effective matter will help develop the outer European action. This will raise the level of influence and the strategic autonomy by means of the use of all the tools of foreign policy such as the establishment of new association, commercial policy and the promotion of its regulatory system in an international scale. This will lead the EU to consolidate its geostrategic position and to transform itself in a real global power.