Energy Resilience as a Challenge for the European Union in Times of Energy Crisis

Abstract

Energy resilience is an important paradigm in energy security research, as it allows for the analysis of many aspects of the functioning of the energy system. The main aim of the article is to analyse the process of strengthening the EU’s energy resilience during the energy crisis following the outbreak of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The questions posed in the research include: what types of risks the EU is exposed to in the energy sector, whether and to what extent the EU is strengthening its energy resilience, what are the dimensions of this resilience, was the EU prepared for the energy crisis, what is the current level of the EU’s energy resilience. Various methods were used in the research: critical qualitative analysis of documents and reports as well as scientific literature, process tracing analysis of EU energy policy, analysis of statistical data on energy. The research puts forward the thesis that the EU insufficiently identified the most important risks to energy resilience by 2022 and only began to intensively strengthen it after Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. However, the level of this resilience is still not satisfactory, as indicated by the criteria used in the research.